pastrygirl

I'm having trouble with some transfer sheets I picked up recently. They are not transfering to the chocolate completely and leaving splotchy, ot so impressive designs. Is my chocolate too cold? Am I taking them off too soon? How long do they need to sit on the set chocolate before taking them off? Could the sheets have been compromised? I bought them in Oz and they had a long trip back here, but I don't think they go overheated, the designs still look good on the sheet. Help!

I had a random thought yesterday that I wanted to throw on the table for feedback: do you think a pressure cooker would have any applications for candying? I've never actually used one and am kind of scared of them, but I was thinking it might be an easy way to soften citrus peel or ginger. If you put your blanched peels and syrup in the pressure cooker, would it all caramelize from too high heat? Would the sugar stick the steam valve together and make it explode? I'm wanting to make a lot of candied ginger via a slightly faster method than Andie's (I am impatient, it is true). Is this a really bad idea and opposite to everything we know about candying, or do you think it might be worth a try?

Tapioca is like rice and other starches that undergo retrogradation (see McGee) aka get hard when chilled. I was playing with some big black 'boba' pearls recently and they seemed to get harder faster than smaller pearls, don't know why. But, same as rice, tapioca softens again when heated, so you could try either reheating your pearls to order in a basket in boiling water like the line cooks do for pasta, or you could re-heat a whole batch before service, leave it at room temperature, and hope the health dept doesn't stop in and have a problem.

This thread is confusing me. I use 2 tsp powder for a 2 quart batch of ice cream, I don't know if the flavor is 'bold' exactly, but unmistakeably there, and I love cardamom so it is not a flavor I am shy with. If I'm mixing powdered spices into a custard of any sort, I mix them into the eggs & sugar, otherwise they seem to just float on top of the cream. My experience with whole seeds and pods is that it takes way more volume of seeds/pods to get the same flavor. I don't know much about it but aren't there green, black, and white cardamoms? I've seen the staff use big black pods in Indian curries. We get whole pods of green by the kg and I grind and sift it, which is so tedious but the smell is worth it. Maybe one is milder and that is what the OP is using?

18 is on the high side, maybe if you own the place you'd work that much. 14 is more realistic. But not every restaurant does their best to burn people out, the first years of your career when you are paid hourly management will do their best to keep your OT to a minimum, so you may only work 9 or 10 hour days when it is busy and occasionally go home early when it is slow. When you get to be salaried, a few more hours a day might be expected. But not every day has to be a 14 or 16 hour day. You're right. if you have to ask, you probably don't want to do it.

When possible, I like to browse at Barnes & Noble in person then go buy the book for cheaper at Amazon. Buying books sight unseen really can be a crapshoot. For chocolates, Chocolates and Confections by Peter Greweling is awesome, everything you need to know about more kinds of chocolates and confections than you should be eating. It is a little technical, definitely professional level. No baked goods there, only confections. For chocolate baked goods, Maida Heatters Book of Great Chocolate Desserts is a favorite, but old and possibly not in print. Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme is a good one too, a few simple things and a few more elegant Frenchy style, with sexy pictures. Alice Medrich's chocolate books are good too, and a bit simpler. For bread, I like Peter Reinhart's Bread Bakers Apprentice. It covers most types of bread and how it all works. There is also a thread or two about pastry books over in the cookbooks & references forum.

Just plain raw egg whites don't hold all that long whipped. If there is a good amount of sugar, that will stabilize them a bit, but 30 minutes might still be risky.

Awesome, I'll try it!

Keeping with the feuill de brick dough theme - is there any way to glue this stuff together and make it stick to itself? I am making chocolate spring rolls that will be a thick chocolate pastry creme rolled up in brick. Egg white seems to help a little, as did freezing them seam-side down, but I'd like a little extra security so chocolate doesn't ooze all over the fryer. Any ideas?

I thought I'd finally follow up on my trip. I loved both Melbourne and Sydney and hope I can go back sometime, maybe even get out of your fine cities and see the rest of the country. I love summer so was happy to have fresh peaches, strawberries, and cherries every day. My main reason for being in MEL was to take four days of chocolate classes at Savour school in Brunswick. Lots of tasting going on there, the classes were fun and informative and I am glad I went - I took home 3-1/2 kg of chocolate, which made a lot of people happy. I did get a chance to visit both Koko Black and Cacao, I found Koko Black's flavors a little more pronounced, a few of the Cacao chocolates didn't come through on flavor as well. For dinners, I loved Verge, even if it was a little bit slow between courses, but my server brought me some food magazines b/c I was dining alone and recommended a really nice wine. Dessert was something really light and fruity, strawberry I think. Nicely done. Also dined at Bistro Guillaume, where the French servers seemed to have decided I was an imbecile (I really do regret having tipped. I think it was because I was expecting an Aussie accent and was confused by the French one when ho offered to send the sommelier over. It went downhill after that). Peach melba for dessert with ginger (?) ice cream was simple and good and looked pretty. Another night, the bartenders at Ginger Boy convinced me to try the tofu cheesecake, but it was a little too much like regular cheesecake for me, nobody's fault but my own for being swayed. In SYD, I stopped in at Quay for a couple of desserts one night. The first was all light and tropical and perfumy, with coconut and lychee and vanilla and maybe rosewater. The second was the seven (8?) texture chocolate tart, which was super intense and kept me up all night after eating it. When I told the server I could only discern five textures, he humored me and took me into the kitchen to have the sous chef go through what all the textures were. That was cool. Also went to est. for the tasting menu. Nice food, especially liked the foie gras with beet/raspberry puree and sauternes jelly and a nice buttery prawn raviolo (separate courses, not together). First dessert was 'black forest' which was cherry granita, chocolate jelly, and kirsch whipped cream. A nice take on it. My second dessert was the passion fruit souffle. I love passion fruit but maybe I'm not a big souffle fan. It was a bit eggy and I would have liked more passion fruit. But the petit fours were nice, I'd like to know how they made the olive oil and vanilla jelly, it was quite surprising. Thanks again for the recommendations. Andrea

I've heard that they need to be roasted to denature whatever toxins are in them. They are not recommended to be consumed raw in more than the smallest quantity.

Not sure I understand the point of the exercise, maybe I am missing something. You would apply this formula to a new recipe before you made it so you know what texture to expect at the outcome? I would argue that egg yolks and egg whites do not contribute equally to 'moistness'. Aren't egg whites generally considered to have a drying effect on baked goods?

Send things back? Hahahahhahahahahahahahahhahahahahhahha. Not possible. We get stuck with some pretty random things sometimes. Chef orders dried kidney beans, Singaopre sends cans of baked beans in sauce. I order vanilla beans, get jars of instant vanilla custard powder (hey it has a picture of vanilla beans on the front, same thing, right?) I tried again to find any actual information on the Valrhona site, but all they seem to offer are pretty pictures. Not that there is anything wrong with pretty pictures I think I might try a box of the mystery milk chocolate just out of curiosity. I usually only use milk for ganaches anyway, my current preference for enrobing is the equatorial noir 55%. Thanks, guys, if I do order some I will try to remember to follow up in a month when it gets here.

Hmm, may or may not be relevant, but thanks anyway. The supplier is in Bangkok, don't know where she'd be sourcing the chocolate from, I did send her an email but the chef says she doesn't speak much English so I won't hold my breath for an answer from her. The other chocolates have a picture of the bags, but the satillia only has a picture of feves, so it is possible that the spelling may be off, but everything else is spelled correctly so I wouldn't assume that.

It is time to stock up on chocolate, and I have a purveyor who lists Valrhona Satillia Lactee milk chocolate and Satillia Noir 62% in 20 kg boxes of feves for a much better price than the other Valrhona flavors in 3 kg bags. I can't find any further information and have grown impatient with the Valrhona website and all of its slow-loading flash. Anyone familiar with these chocolates? What percentage is the milk chocolate? This purveyor also has jivara lactee 40% and tanariva 33%, I'd probably go with the 40% unless this Satillia stuff is darker than the 33%. Thanks!

I just received this last night and I have to say I am a little surprised by how much I like it - ordered online so was not able to preview. I'd had two disappointing desserts at Jean-Georges when I was in NYC two years ago, he does have the rhubarb-mustard jam which I found extremely unpalatable (because I find the taste of bile unpalatable, go figure) so I won't be making that. I feel like Johnny has gotten a lot of hype in Food Arts and such and oh look at the young hipster tattoo guy who is so successful, but luckily the book doesn't come across that way at all. I hate how self-congratulatory Claudia Fleming is in 'Last Course' - all the intros describe the recipes as so perfect and delightful - and I will not buy the Citizen Cake book because it comes off as 'look how cool I am' and I hate the 'punk rock/graphic novel' design - so I was sort of afraid from the type of media coverage I've seen on J.I. this book would have the flaws of those two. Not so! He comes off as humble enough and straightforward. And finally, a book with pictures of EVERYTHING. Can't wait to try a fluid gel - sounds so simple and light.

Johnny Iuzzini's Dessert Four Play has a gram conversion for everything. Thanks, Johnny!

Your purveyor is correct, the difference of 4% is going to be pretty much insignificant. The cake calls for 6 ounces of chocolate, or 170 grams. The 4% less sugar in your 58% chocolate is going to be about 7 grams, or a bit more than 1-1/2 teaspoons. The frosting calls for 24 ounces of chocolate, or about 680 grams, there you will be missing about 27 grams of sugar, or just over 2 tablespoons. Also, if one chocolate has relatively more cocoa butter, going by the percentage alone to decide the sweetness level will not necessarily be accurate. The percentage is cocoa solids plus cocoa butter, so you could have a 54% chocolate with 30% solids and 24% fat or vice versa. So given all of the variables in chocolate, I'd still say the difference between those two percentages will be insignificant for most recipes. If you were trying to substitute 70%, then you'd want to make some adjustments.

Which, if anyone is not familiar, is honey that is allowed to crystallize then is whipped or beaten to a creamy, spreadable consistency.

He might think he knows what he wants, but after you show him a bunch of amazing options he might change his mind and want them all. I sometimes add a good portion of honey to my english toffee and the flavor comes through nicely, would be great dipped in dark chocolate and have a long shelf life. Could you add gelatin or agar to the honey to thicken it up enough for a molded shell?

Low blow, Katie, low blow. Not necessary. Maybe she got a speeding ticket on the way to work. Maybe she had cramps. Maybe she didn't have cramps when she should have as of a week ago. Maybe she just found out about her boyfriend's kid. Maybe her cat just died. Maybe those new shoes were not ready for work yet and the blisters had all just popped. Maybe she forgot to take her meds. Maybe her cell phone bill was freakishly higher than she thought and she was stressed about it. Maybe...maybe she was just in a really bad mood and couldn't control it.

Greweling has the beehives, which are a honey ganache piped onto a chocolate disc leaving the center hollow, then liquid honey is piped in to fill the center and more ganache is piped on top to seal it, then the whole thing is dipped in thinned milk chocolate. They look pretty cool in the book. I've also been contemplating substituting honey for the jam in one of his butter ganaches, he does have one with some honey and some reduced passion fruit concentrate, so it seems like honey alone should work fine. It seems like if you were filling a molded shell the main problem would be trying to get a bottom on to the liquid honey without it squishing out. Creamed honey would be more solid, but maybe not the vision your honey producer is after? Or if you have truffle shells they might be easier to seal. I've seen honey powder in stores, granulated like coarse sugar but never used it - could be of help if you could find it. Mmm, honey, I just made some milk chocolate honey ganache bonbons today!

I'll put anything in creme brulee...chocolate, spices, tea, flowers, bacon...ok so the bacon was a bit OTT. For coconut, you can either infuse toasted coconut or use coconut milk in place of the liquid, or both. For milk chocolate, decrease the cream and increase the milk a little so you have the same fat proportion overall, maybe a little less sugar b/c milk chocolate is so sweet. Custards ares so versatile, any flavor that can be hot or cold infused is fair game. I've also infused ripe pear w/ skin then strained it out - the possibilities are endless.

I ate parmesan marshmallows at el bulli in 2005 that were really light and melt-in-the-mouth and way cool. They might be in the cookbook. Otherwise, I'm thinking a foam (via isi NO2 canister) might be a good direction, maybe with dry ice involved? If you have a reasonable amount of gelatin, you can get a moderately stable foam, but then you'll have to set it quickly. Too much gelatin and it sets up in the canister, or you can play with the canister temp I guess. Chocolate goes with almost everything, haven't tried it with salmon but now of course I have to. First thing Monday morning! I did make a salmon ice cream once, served with candied salmon skin and a bit of roe. The guy I made it for liked it, but then again, he'll eat anything.

I just took four days of chocolate classes from a chef who was very adamant about not relying on thermometers, they only tell you what the temperature is, not whether the chocolate is in temper/properly pre-crysatllized. I am motivated to try to wean myself off the thermometer - the two I bought today are for other candy, I swear! You do have to get to know your chocolate, how it looks when it is right, and test very frequently. Having nice half hotel pan melters and a heat gun really helps with the whole program, it gets to be such a bigger pain to keep it in the working zone without proper equipment. I dream of proper equipment...