pastrygirl

You're not the one who concerns me. Mayo on a hot dog? 😲

It'll be an interesting one to watch. AMZN wasn't profitable for years but look at them now. Of course, few people are as driven as Jeff Bezos 🤑

@sarah72, yes, go ahead and chill as needed. Also set up fans and de-humidify as possible to keep dry air moving. Warm & humid is the worst.

I'm happy to confirm her hypothesis, I don't care for either substance on anything, too sweet. Not really into regular mayo either. Give me hot sauce on my eggs and mustard or vinegar for my fries. A grilled cheese sandwich is perfect without condiments.

I'm not a customer, I eat meat but very little beef (I only buy it in the forms of pho, jerky, and pepperoni) and never crave a burger, just never cared for the texture of ground beef. But there is definitely a market, lots of people do crave burgers but might want another choice for various reasons. Investment-wise, I think it's worth keeping an eye on. Can they scale up quickly enough to satisfy fast-food demand? Are they currently profitable or expecting to be soon? It's only been 2 months, but Schwab gives BYND an F grade (strongly underperform). Risky but possibility for high reward if they can pull it off?

If you stop there, you’re going to need double the groceries for when the munchies strike ... mmmm, French fries ...😋😂

Also fresh soft chevre, goat cheese has stronger flavor to begin with so might be more satisfying in terms of cheese-iness. Not sure about salt content there.

I think anything aged and drier will have more concentrated salt. How about fresh mozzarella marinated in herbs, pepper, and vinegar? Or ricotta, he can make his own to control the salt and add herbs or a bit of much stronger cheese (blue, Parmesan) for flavor.

You're welcome. My usual caramel sauce is equal parts by weight 40% cream and caramelized sugar, no butter, plus salt and vanilla bean depending on use. It is flowing at room temp, spoon-able when cold but can separate after a few weeks at room temp. I've never tried it in bonbons, but usually had caramel sauce on something during my restaurant pastry chef days.

Do you caramelize the sugar separately then add the cream and butter, or are you cooking it all together until the mixture colors? I suggest the former method, and keep going with upping the cream. Or add liquid in the form of liquor - rum, cointreau, bourbon, etc..

Maybe authors have multi-book deals with publishers the way recording artists have contracts to release x number of albums with x years? Or 'publish or perish' is not just for academia.

No screaming, no declarations, just a question.

If they catch you

@Jim D. Thank you for taking the time to do that and satisfy my curiosity. Wybauw says ganache at < 0.65 is microbially stable so yes, @teonzo, you're right, nothing much is going to grow overnight and it'll be baked anyway. But how do you like Ina's shortbread? I use half that much sugar for the same amount of butter & flour.

then there's this https://www.eater.com/2019/6/28/19171476/grubhub-seamless-cybersquatting-restaurant-web-domains

Sorry, I had meant to respond earlier, hopefully you're still around. I make a lot of bars and have had that issue. I think it's just the nature of the beast that a flat layer of chocolate will curl as it contracts. My approach is to work quickly and in batches so the bar is filled and completed before the first layer has fully released from the mold. Once the bottom layer of chocolate is set, I invert the molds onto parchment and let them fully crystallize and release (in the fridge this time of year). Then i just lift the molds off when I'm ready to wrap the bars. But say I'm making 40 molds worth of bars ... I have 40 molds but if I shelled them all then filled them all then capped them all it would take too long and the first layer would start to curl. Instead I shell 6 or 8, fill and cap all those, then do 8 more and by the time they're done the first batch is ready to pop out and I can re-fill those molds. I used to make a caramel bar for which I would make a soft caramel, cool it in a thin layer, cut it into strips, lay a strip into each bar shell, then bottom. It worked well enough with my old molds. I think your main misstep was waiting overnight.

@teo good points, you’re probably right. But that’s why I asked, it seems intuitively wrong to me but maybe it’s perfectly safe, just not my way of doing things. Speaking of buttercream, I had a guy stop by to demo an aw meter once and all I had around was Italian meringue buttercream so we tested that. I was surprised at how low it was, something like 0.55.

Thanks! I trust science

@Jim D. i was thinking of your aW meter. Doing any baking soon? I’d be curious what the aW of raw cookie or tart dough is. Maybe the sugar absorbs any water in the butter and activity is lower than I think?

Yes, she does a couple of farmers markets and is trying to get wholesale customers. I'm trying to believe that baking is enough and maybe it is (hopefully), but then I start thinking how moist, low acid foods are perfect bacterial breeding grounds and I'm still grossed out. I'm thinking of cooked rice and baked potatoes - would you leave those out for 18 hours at 75F then assume it's fine as long as it's re-heated to 180F? Again, maybe, hopefully, but can you be 100% sure? I'm not normally a germ-ophobe, I eat street food, leftovers, occasionally invoke the 5 second rule, scrape the mold off my cheese, whatever, but I've never seen this practice professionally and it would never occur to me to let dough sit out an extra 17 hours just to avoid the hour it takes to come up to from fridge temp. And risks that I'm willing to take are not necessarily risks that the general public can or should take.

Because then it's too short to twirl nicely around your fork.

I also want the restaurant owners to make a living and not a bad one at that. Are they still adequately compensated after the 30% fees? Can restaurants charge extra for food ordered through the app? Most restaurants don't have the margin to take 30% off their regular menu price.

True! I’m off today, sorry! We try not to overlap working because either she has the oven on while I’m making chocolate (not good when it’s already warm) or I need the oven myself. All this is true, not my problem, I just think it’s kinda gross. As long as it’s not dangerous, she can have her warm dough.

I don't know, soft dough is easier in terms of strength requirements - rolling cold dough is a workout. She leaves butter and frosting (American buttercream, I think) out overnight, too. I'm secretly hoping one day the butter will fully melt and drip all over. Maybe in July, it hasn't gotten much above 80f in there yet. Personally, I keep my butter cold, if I need to cream it I'll cut it into pieces and by the time I've mised everything else out it's soft enough. If not I torch the bowl as it's beating. I'll let shortbread warm up a bit so it shatters less but I still want it cold enough to hold its shape. Doesn't almost every pastry dough recipe say to chill before rolling? Oh well, there's more than one way to bake a cookie. Dough does go bad eventually, gets funky or cheesy after too long but I guess you all are right that it's not really that hazardous and baking will sterilize it anyway. As long as she pays her rent, I won't report her to the authorities 😂

True, but wouldn't the 15-20% water that's in the butter be enough to support life for any microbes that are in the flour? Even if you're going to kill them later, why let them multiply to begin with? Maybe chocolatier-ing has made me paranoid about available water