pastrygirl

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.

A very worthwhile $0.02! Is pain au raisins a brioche pastry or laminated dough? I could certainly do more brioche based pastry for breakfast, that would be good and pretty easy. I do use tea, coconut, lemongrass, black sesame, baby bananas, pineapple, tapioca, lots of ginger, mango, among other things and have gotten lychee before. I'm not sure if I can get matcha or yuzu, it may be possible. We've been back and forth with the corporate office and accounts on whether we import too much. I'm finally getting almond paste, so that should help on the petit four front. I guess as far as Asian desserts not being appealing on the menu I did mean the more traditional ones, the grass jelly family of things that scare a lot of westerners. We do a Thai menu at one lodge and always have a Thai dessert, but the lodge chef there does that, and it's usually tapioca with canned rambutan or something kind of lame because he doesn't care. I think there are kaffir lime leaves for the Thai menu, I should steal some of those for a dessert. I haven't looked into Japanese desserts much, that is a good idea. About half of our guests are American, so we do want to keep them happy as well, it's sort of a delicate balance. Half chocolate chip cookies and blueberry muffins, half canneles and chausson au pommes.

Every now and then we'll get a complaint from a guest (generally French-speaking) that the food at the hotel is 'too American'. Considering that all six chefs including myself are American, there may be something to the complaint, but unfortunately none of us have spent enough time in Europe or elsewhere to really understand what these guests want. I didn't bring Ducasse's Grande Livre or my French cake book (Healy/Bugat), so I have only American cookbooks and the internet for reference. I would love some input and ideas on how to make things more Euro-friendly, and how you would interpret the directive to make things 'less American'. What does 'more European' mean to you in terms of baking and pastry? I'll leave it to the other chefs to figure out what it means in terms of chicken and asparagus. At breakfast, we have a pastry basket with croissants, muffins, and scones. I can keep trying with choux (I haven't been happy with it here, blaming the altitude) for some cream puffs or eclairs. The croissants are enough of a PIA, I don't really want to do another laminated dough. I'm considering a homemade nutella type spread on toasted baguette, and I do have a not too sweet cheese brioche at one lodge that I could probably repeat. What else do people eat for breakfast? Then there are the cookies. Are European cookies a lot less sweet? This Swiss woman complained that the cookies were too sweet. We're talking pretty typical chocolate chip, oatmeal, peanut butter, shortbread. I'm kind of blanking on what typical French cookies would be, besides macarons, which have also been disastrous here, and madelines, which I think are dumb. (Sorry. It's just cake, it's not a cookie!) As for desserts, I guess its more of a style question. What is European? Less sweet? More meringue and mousse? The French classics? Italian classics? I can also go more Asian, too, being in Asia, but I haven't found a whole lot of Asian desserts that I think would sell well on the menu. I do have The Sweet Spot, and I have gotten a few ideas from there. If sweetness is the problem, I don't want to get too much into Indian desserts, they are usually way too sweet for me, but something here or there might be OK. Any ideas or cookbook recommendations? If it's on Amazon, I can get it in about a month! Mini rant: We all just wish that we could really spell it out to the guests sometimes. Many of them realize how many challenges we have here and appreciate the food, but a few of them just don't get that the cream won't whip, the fruit is usually mediocre and bruised, imports don't always get here on time, the staff doesn't always get the point, etc etc. We'd love to import better varieties of mango trees, plant them, wait 5 years, then give you the best mangoes ever for your breakfast, but right now it's just not going to happen - this means you, unsatisfiable British guy from last week! Help! And thank you!

Dolce Italiano (Babbo Desserts) by Gina DePalma has a couple of recipes.

If it melts and resolidifies out of temper you can still use it, but then you don't have in-temper 'seed' chocolate to use if you usually temper by the seeding method. That can be kind of a pain. I had some chocolate get stuck in India in transit that was just completely separated and super grainy when it finally arrived, and while I have done my best to re-temper it, it's not nearly as good as if it had been handled differently in shipping - but maybe that just shows my weak tempering skills. Its really best if they can keep the chocolate solid in transit

You have to be really careful with it and go kind of soft, otherwise the bubbles pop before the structure sets and they collapse. I was really happy with the french macaroons I was making in Seattle, but I've tried about three times up here, and all complete disasters. I also can't seem to make pate choux to my satisfaction. Bread, on the other hand, loves it.

pretzel-shaped cookies beer ice cream/sorbet/gingerbread/chocolate cake carrot cake with beer reduction sauce really dark beer reduced to a syrup and drizzled over vanilla ice cream

You want a challenge? Move to 7000 feet and try to make meringue. One of the chefs just told me he wanted coconut madelines. I haven't tried madelines at sea level, might as well dive into them up here. No problem

True, I suppose we may just have to get to know the cream, and learn how to adust when necessary. It would be wrong not to use it.

There is a local farmer who provides us with fresh cream on occasion. This is great, except for the fact that it seems really inconsistent. Sometimes it seems like almost butter, other times closer to the 40% manufacturing cream that I used to get in the US. The good thing about this cream is that it will actually whip, unlike the 25% UHT packaged cream that is the alternative. The problem is, the inconsistency really messes with my ice cream production, to the point that I am tempted to use the more consistent packaged product over the fresh local one. Heresy, I know. Lacking a centrifuge, is there any way to determine the fat content of cream on a batch to batch basis? Any ideas on how to allow for this inconsistency in my ice cream without resorting to the UHT stuff?

corn ice cream served with caramel corn cucumber sorbet with mint or lime (or both) tomato balsamic sorbet molasses ice cream guinness stout ice cream I find that ice cream is one of those things that you can out just about anything in, and people will still at least try it, because it is still ice cream. Salmon ice cream with candied salmon skin and ikura, foie gras ice cream with pickled kumquats and brioche.

Any time I have an idea that I think is so clever and unique...it's in Gourmet the following month. I so wanted to make toast ice cream until that happened. But seriously, most things have been done, but that doesn't mean you can't put a little twist on it. I dunno, sometimes you just get a vision. Sometimes the aha! comes 6 months and 19 versions into a recipe. Sometimes you wonder what the hell you were thinking. I don't know if I'm convinced the best is already out there, and some part of you must not be convinced either, otherwise why try?

OK then. We want you to be RICH!

I just got some shell (chocolate) molds from JKV that I'm infatuated with. I like how they put the cavities really close together so there's no wasted space, one is almost escher-esque. I >heart< efficiency. My other favorites are the 'turban' from JB prince and the 'tilted cone', although actually the cones could be a little smaller. I hate when molds end up being shallower than I think they are going to be. I have a harder time filling shallow chocolates and like more filling anyway.

Nice but dude! Food cost! Isn't that stuff expensive? I predict a more minimalist 1/2" shard of gold leaf in the near future. Understated elegance, less is more...but still charge extra My speculaas tarts (recipe from epicurious) turned out kind of ugly (need to transfer some tartlet tins from another lodge, muffin pans don't cut it) but delicious, especially with burnt honey ice cream and pomegranate reduction. Honey-cashew semifreddo with chocolate truffles and caramel sauce was one of those desserts born out of semi-desperation and no fruit (as too much of my work here in Bhutan seems to be), but f'in good. Chocolate, caramel, creaminess - you can try to argue, but who would listen?