pastrygirl

What are the advantages of the acetate? Shiny bottoms? The knife doesn't drag on the chocolate so no holes? You can keep re-using the acetate, right?

A not too sweet tuile batter might work. You could even brush them with cocoa butter before crushing.

Are there kosher versions of marsala or madiera? Or port? Another fortified wine is my first thought.

Sounds about as easy as trying to make panko. Some things just need industrial machinery.

You could probably leave the cocoa off, but it does hide the irregular surface nicely if you feel it needs hiding. I've used Greweling's method, maybe the same as Recchiutti's? (add tempered choc to slightly chilled nuts, stir. stir, stir, repeat), and it is fine for small batches, but I would not try to coat more than a kg of nuts at a time that way, as all that stirring gets kind of tiring.

Growing up, we had an apple tree in the backyard whose fruit was not great for eating out of hand, but fine for pies. Every fall, Mom would prepare several pies and freeze them unbaked. Then fresh apple pie all winter was as easy as an hour or so in the oven. If you're a canner, how about some apple chutney for something a little different?

Why intern when you can work? With 2-1/2 years experience, you ought to be able to get a hotel job. There are TONS in Dubai/Emirates, Egypt, also South & East Asia looking for Western chefs. Google 'overseas hospitality jobs' and all kinds of websites will come up. The company took care of my work permit and visa and even helped me set up a bank account. After I decided to take the job, getting things set up and getting over here only took about 6 weeks. Of course, YMMV. Or are you looking for a more traditional Western Europe type experience?

When I make coconut panna cotta with coconut milk and cream, it tends to separate, so I stir it over an ice bath until it just starts to thicken (consistency of raw egg white) then pour it into the molds. That seems to work.

Try less flour for a thinner, crispier cookie that spreads more.

I worked very briefly at a hotel where we would make huge batches of individual souffles, freeze them, then put enough for a night in the reach-in to thaw. Baked in a water bath about 20 minutes to order. I think they kept a day or two refrigerated. One particular that I remember was that after adding the egg whites, you were supposed to beat the mixture until it started breaking down a little, supposedly that was better than stopping at just folding in the stiff whites.

Welcome to the magical, maddening world of the pastry chef. Baked to order is RARELY going to fly, unless it is souffle or something else really worth putting a 'baked to order, please allow 20 minutes' on the menu. Are you doing the plating or is the pantry line cook doing it? Either way, try not to have more than half the menu served warm. The problem with baking the puff to order is that if the oven is hot enough to bake it in 8 minutes, it is probably hot enough to bake really unevenly and burn the outside while leaving the inside raw. Doughy puff ain't delicious. I do generally try to keep my crispy separate from my creamy components, as they last longer that way. Assembled things can get soggy after a day, while they may last three or four if kept separate. I don't think prebaking the pastry is adulterating tarte tatin too far, but then again I'm definitely not a devout traditionalist. If you are not doing the plating, write specific instructions, draw pictures, and come back at dinner time every now and then to make sure things are getting done the way you want. Line cooks hate pastry, they will eat your cookies, drop your tuiles, and leave your ice creams uncovered to get icy. There is little you can do about any of those things. Enjoy!

I'm making an orange flower granita to go with cardamom rice pudding, sour cherries, and pistachio tuile.

What about lunch? Gotta have a nice 3 or 4 course lunch in there somewhere. I tend to burnout on fine dining after 4 or 5 days of fancy lunch and dinner, but if you're only going for a few days, might as well cram it in!

Well, panna cotta is essentially cream, sugar, and gelatin, so I think adding eggs (in a custard base) would sort of make it not panna cotta. Likewise, I don't think you need gelatin since you're freezing it. What qualities of panna cotta are you hoping to capture in your ice cream?

They were honey ganache, and they have been fine before. It could be that she filled the cavities too full, then in scraping off the extra sort of pulled the ganache up, making air space, then the holes in the bottoms only contributed to the problem. Only a guess. It is a good reminder to balance my recipes better and learn to use invert sugar (if it ever gets here).

I do really appreciate all of the feedback. I rather regret that the mods changed the title to focus on breakfast pastry, but I guess that was the way the responses were leaning, even if that was only part of the question. I do plan to go through and reduce the sugar in a lot of recipes, I wish I could send out a memo saying 'use 20% less' but not everyone here can do that math (sad but true). It's true that taste is just what you grew up with. I grew up with raspberry pie as an acceptable breakfast option. We had a group of mostly Americans who asked for 3 of my recipes, but then there was just another Brit who found the rum caramel sauce on the tiramisu to be too much. I like sauce on a plated dessert, what can I say? Maybe it should be espresso caramel instead. For breakfast, I'll focus on more brioche type breads, I already tested a Swedish saffron-raisin batter bread that I think will work. The staff liked it, and they don't like a lot of sweets. Easy and can be adapted to different flavors. Also, I have some ridiculously expensive and delicious hazelnut paste that I better use up before it goes bad, so we'll try a baguette with housemade nutella (but less sweet, that stuff is too sweet even for me!) as an option and see if it sells. And plainer biscuits/scones so they are a better vehicle for butter and jam. I'm working on cookies, too. The ones based on ground nuts are pretty good, but the sables and plain butter cookies just seem so...plain. I know, I don't have to love everything I make as long as I know someone else will. I'm loving langue de chat (lemon and vanilla so far, green tea and curry coming soon) and Nigella's almond macaroons (ricciarelli). Piped cookies will be good practice for my staff.

Some moldy bonbons were just brought to my attention. Oooops. I've only been playing with molded chocolates (mostly at home) for about 2 years, but I've never had moldy ones before, so I'd appreciate any input on what might have gone wrong. My assistant made them while I was away, in mid-September, so they're 3 to 4 weeks old. I don't have stabilizers and don't use a whole lot of sugar, so I know that is getting to the end of their lifespan, but I was still surprised. A lot of the bottoms were incomplete (small holes), and after we found one moldy one, we looked at the rest and they all had a little airspace (1 to 2 mm) between the shell and the ganache that was fuzzy with mold. Would the incomplete bottoming allow the ganache to dry out and shrink, or were they just poorly filled in addition to poorly bottomed? I've only done a few batches with her, so it was actually a pretty decent solo try. I'd like to be able to discuss what went wrong next time we make bonbons together. I prefer slightly softer ganache because of the contrast with the crisp shell, and I want to be able to keep them at least two weeks. I think some invert sugar is coming on the next container order, so that should help with shelf life, right? Am I just lucky that these were the first moldy ones? Fuzzy bonbons is sooo not 'luxury hotel'!

I just got a quote from my supplier in Bangkok that Valrhona had gone up more than 20% since the last quote in July, but the claim was supposedly because of import taxes. Luckily they are going to give me the old price this time, it's already $20 a pound after shipping and more taxes. I'm going to have a really hard time justifying those bonbons at any higher price. Soooo glad I'm not paying the bills!

Pancake Man! http://www.youtube.com/user/GiR2007

This might belong in a different forum, but: I have a Vitantonio that I like. I got it quite awhile ago after reading a good review in Cooks Illustrated or somewhere like that. Maybe a little more fat in the recipe would decrease the sticking? Ahh, October, time for the waffle harvest. Fields of waffles slowly turning golden...

Same as szechuan pepper/sansho? We have 'tinge' or 'local pepper' here which as far as I can tell is the same thing, it has floral qualities and makes your lips numb. I tried it in some ganache, but it needed more pepper, or maybe sweeter chocolate, the flavor didn't really come through. I haven't tried that one again yet, but next time I would do milk or white instead of dark. I do use a little bit in a black sesame florentine that is a garnish for a lemon cake, I think it works pretty well in that. I'd definitely be interested in more sweet uses for it. I bet fruits like strawberry or pineapple would do well with a sprinkling of szechuan pepper. I also like pink peppercorns in desserts. I did a pink peppercorn meringue for something a few years ago, might have been with lemon again. Meringue is so sweet that I find a little spice in it rather nice.

What is a proper British pancake? So much to learn. The pancake issue came up with an Indian guest recently. She asked for pancakes (not on the menu at that lodge, but that is another story) hoping for something spicy, and got American pancakes. American, British, Swedish, Indian....so many pancakes! This is a good challenge, I do want to be more well rounded and international in my work. I think I'll make financiers for tea today.

How about something with curry, caramel and chocolate, or white chocolate, black sesame and wasabi? Green tea and sweet red beans are pretty different for a lot of folks.

Looks like equal parts by weight?

Rickster, I ended up ordering both those books last night! The Healy book is not in print, but various sellers on Amazon have it. I had bought a bunch of books and sold them to my most ambitious employee; she has a Scandinavian book (Ojakangas) and a couple of Italian pastry books that I will have to borrow. Dougal, it is interesting to hear your thoughts on sweets at breakfast. So maybe it's not really the wrong pastry, more that some people just don't want pastry at breakfast. The pastry basket is just your table bread at breakfast, there is a whole menu of hot food, yogurt, muesli. I do have a couple of savory items in there, but could definitely switch a muffin or two for something else. And I do make jam. Lots and lots of jam, it's about the only thing you can do with some of the fruit. We offer a Bhutanese menu at dinner, and other times by request. There really aren't any Bhutanese desserts, except kopse, a plain fried type of cookie served with tea. I'll look for some sable recipes, and the coffee jelly is a good idea. I think also that people want comfort food when they are traveling, so part of the challenge is to try to provide a little bit of that for everyone. Clafouti like grandmere used to make? Our Brit/German manager was wistful for Christmas cake last year, maybe I'll try to make him one this year.