pastrygirl

Really? Can you explain why? I always caramelize sugar on high heat, and have been happy so far, but if there is a better way, it would be good to know.

Really? Why? I always caramelize sugar on high heat, and have been happy so far.

Check out Glerup-Revere www.glerup.com They are in Seattle, have a good selection, especially for bonbon packaging, and IIR, were pretty nice about offering 'samples' of 10 or so. I'm planning to stop in on my next visit to Seattle and stock up on packaging and ribbon before Christmas.

Do you think it would be any different from pan spray propellants?

Kate, that's it, thanks! Jon, thanks, I did try Amazon but wasn't able to search - maybe only on newer books?

I'm looking for a quote from the CT Desserts book, it is towards the back and starts out, 'Except in ways in which we can go too far, there is no sense in going at all....' My copy is in storage 9000 miles away, can anybody look up the rest of the quote and author for me? much appreciated

I was just at Amazon, and they have Ducasse Made Simple by Alain Ducasse. And Vongeritchen has 'Simple to Spectacular', where he offers different versions of recipes, so you can take the concept and go as complex as you want with it. FYI, I do not own either of these books.

cappuccino!

I've been experimenting with the agar jellies from Greweling's book, they turn out nice, but I noticed today that batches made 12 and 14 days ago had some fuzzy white mold spots and also some tiny black spots that I assume to be mold. They were stored airtight at room temperature. Honestly, I was at another property and my staff made them, so I can't say 100% that they followed instructions, but they looked and tasted fine until I checked them today - except the pineapple ones caked with too much sugar, but those had black spots too. I've heard that the shelf life of pate de fruit is quite long, so I was hoping the agar jellies would have a similar shelf life. Anyone have experience with agar candies and shelf life?

Or you can also do a tempered chocolate plaque and write on that, then prop it up on the cake. Not too hard, but looks like a lot of extra effort.

The ganache should be fine, ganache and buttercream are both pretty stable, fat-based foods. I've poured ganache over buttercream plenty of times, writing should be no different. I can see how the royal icing, being mostly sugar and highly hygroscopic, would soak up water from the cream cheese.

Here's a silly question for y'all - how do you define truffles, pralines, and bonbons as they relate to chocolates? I always considered truffles to be rough, round, maybe with a thin coating of chocolate but more likely just cocoa. But then there are truffle shells and Greweling calls his chocolates made in them 'truffles', so are truffles just any more or less spherical chocolate? I would consider a molded chocolate a 'bonbon', but when shopping for molds they are often called praline molds. I associate 'praline' with nuts too much to call molded chocolates pralines, unless they actually have caramelized nuts in the filling. I'm not sure what to call my enrobed/hand dipped chocolates. I've been making them as a guest amenity - candy tray in the 'living room' - but I feel like labeling them truffles is not quite right, and bonbon is a little too frou-frou sounding to me. I guess I could just call them 'chocolates' but that sounds boring and obvious. Salted curry caramel chocolates? Chocolate passion fruit bonbons? Szechuan pepper truffles? Does anything go, or are there guidelines to correct nomenclature? Yes, this really is the sort of thing I worry myself about

Are you the chef? Why aren't you firing these people? If you've been in a chef role for 6 years, you must have been cooking a lot longer than that and should know better than to put up with any of that BS. Still, we all get burned out, and some people and places burn us out a whole lot faster than others. Find a way to take a break, get out of that situation, get some perspective, explore those other options a little more and see if any of them really inspire you. I hope you and your wife can afford for you to take a few months off, or maybe take a less demanding and stressful job than chef, do some consulting, whatever. Good for you for recognizing what you're going through before the drinking & depression get way out of control, so many people just let it snowball. I know you're in a bad spot so I'll try to say this nicely - it sounds like you're not really in charge there, so if you're not actually the chef but a sous chef or line cook who has been in the business 6 years total, I have to recommend that you not call yourself a chef, but be humble and call yourself a cook. That is what we all are, each kitchen has only 1 chef. 6 years is a respectable amount of time to be cooking, but still, pomposity can be a factor in people wanting to abuse you. Freezing your backpack is just fun & games. Theft and destruction of personal property are certainly more serious and should be grounds for disciplinary action. Takes some balls to steal the chef's or even the sous chef's stuff. If I'm reading you wrong and you are the big boss, then you surely have enough experience to be able to decide if you want to continue chefing, just take some time off, think about what's important to you. In 2002 I was in a job that made me think I wanted nothing more to do with the business, but after quitting and a little time off, I found a much healthier, more positive and fun kitchen to work in. Six years later I'm still a pastry chef, still get tired of the BS, but still love making good things. If it's really who you are, you'll find a way to make it work. I dated an EMT awhile back, and my favorite sous chef is married to an emergency room nurse - we all agree there are some similarities in the industries - crazy hours, stress, blood & guts. It seems nice to help people, but you have to consider if you can handle a cracked-out shit-stinking vagrant trying to stab you while you are trying to help them. It might be a little too much like the kitchen. Good luck.

Wear what you would wear if you were dining there, but suitable for a daytime professional meeting.

So, it sound like we have a lot of pro-seed folks here. Do you keep all of the seeds in or strain most of them out? I don't mind a little crunch here and there, but I prefer a mostly smooth experience. Same with kiwi, I'll strain most of the seeds out, leaving only a few for contrast. I was just straining the seeds out of 5 liters of passion fruit puree (that's what I got after straining, probably 2 liters of seeds in there). Do you leave the seeds in because you like the crunch or b/c they are so expensive you don't want to waste any? Do you strain for some things but not for others? In Bhutan, passion fruit are super cheap, so I can afford to strain - the locals finally figured out that they can sell them to the hotels instead of just feeding them to cows, but it's still only a dollar or two per kg - one of the few delights of cooking here. Thoughts?

Is the big table still available for reserved parties of 6 or 8 or whatever? You can't really count on it being open for sharing, if the big table is reserved, that leaves only what, 4 or 5 tables and the counter. Arrive early, flirt with the chef -if he's in a good mood : ) -, eat lots, and enjoy.

Chilling the custard separately overnight will be fine, just stir it before you pour it in the tart shell in case it has separated at all.

Greenbean, it came together fine with a spatula - luckily, as we don't have an immersion blender at that location.

The lemon with the pectin was cooked, but the others I just warmed a small portion enough to disolve the softened gelatin, then stir that into the batch. I haven't tried it with ice cream. Are you trying to use less fat or eggs and need thickener, or just trying to reduce iciness during storage? I do cook a lot of my fruit sorbets, just to break down the fruit more so I get a smoother puree, or I also make batches of fruit puree when I have an abundance and freeze them, then thaw and adjust flavors/consistency as needed.

Are you talking poured ganache, whipped ganache, spreading ganache between layers? You do need to use less cream with white chocolate. For a stiff ganache, 2:1 chocolate to cream for dark and 2.5:1 for white, more cream for pouring. I recently made white with that proportion (and lime zest) to ice some carrot cupcakes, it was good at room temperature, pretty thick and stayed on the cupcakes, and the cashews stayed in place on top. It was not totally opaque, but I was also in a hurry and used it still a little warm so it was a pretty thin layer (1/8"?). The extra was very solid after refrigeration.

I don't understand. Isn't the finished product what it's all about?

I've use gelatin in some watery sorbets to reduce iciness, maybe 2 or 3 sheets to a 2 quart batch, it seems to help. I've also added pectin to lemon sorbet, but of course pectin isn't as versatile.

After a 14 hour day at work today, I will say "damn right we work our asses off!" ← Maybe we need to get better at stereotyping savory cooks as alcoholic, dyslexic jocks who can't measure. Ahh, but I guess that doesn't accomplish any more than the FOH/BOH rivalry. But ust 'cuz they roll in at 2pm and don't see the first 8 hours of our day, doesn't mean it was all accomplished by magic elves.

Right, because baking is never stressful, hard work, or has deadlines. I think that there is a perception that pastry is easier, but if you think a good pastry chef doesn't work their ass off, you are wrong. Yeah, if someone sucks on the line, they get sent to pastry, where they generally suck too, only they are not in the sous chef's way, and isn't that what matters? If you're slow, you're slow, it doesn't matter if you're on the line and your entree is not up with the rest of them or whether you're taking an hour to scoop a batch of cookies that should have taken 15 minutes, it's not really more excusable in pastry, at least not to me. I think pastry is more likely (than the hot line) to attract the bored housewife type who makes great chocolate chip cookies and thinks it would be fun to be a baker/pastry chef but doesn't really 'get' the commitment needed. They don't always last long, and sort of water down the number of serious pastry chef who are women. And, like a friend from college once said, little boys growing up say 'I want to be a doctor/fireman/police officer', not 'I want to be a pastry chef', so a guy has to be much more serious about it (maybe that is whythey are all in NY), whereas wanting to cook or bake is much more acceptable for girls , even encouraged from a very young age. I had this extern who told me that he was thinking about studying computer science but pastry school seemed easier, less homework (he should not have told me that). He said he failed cake class, and I believed it. You don't get to just sit around and eat cake all day, you have to make some of it too!

Turndown gift - the chocolate on your pillow in a nice hotel. What is the average stay of your guests? How many rooms? Remember that even if it gets repetetive for you, if they only stay 3 nights you really only need that many different gifts. How complex are you getting - just a few bonbons or a whole assortment? What do you have so far? We keep cookies in the rooms and different cookies and nuts in the cars, and chocolates or cake in the 'living room' common area, but luckily our turndown gifts are all non-food (except the chugo, dried yak cheese, but we buy that) and culturally related.