pastrygirl

@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

Yes, there’s a kill step, she tends to bake things pretty light, but breads approach 200f so I suppose the internal temp of blonde shortbread should still be above 165 and kill salmonella. Long-proofed bread doesn’t creep me out, wonder why this does 🤔

What do you all think is the safety level of leaving raw shortbread out at warm room temp (75-80f) for 18 hours? Assume no eggs, just butter, sugar, and flour.... It will be baked, but I still fear that pathogens could grow. Or maybe it’s my years of pastry experience wherein cold dough has always been easier to handle and that’s why it seems so wrong. 😂 (This is not my doing, I have a renter in my kitchen.)

Bars/blocks are useful if you want to make chocolate curls or shavings for decorations. And if you temper by seeding, a larger piece is easy to remove once the rest of the chocolate has cooled. I hate it when I over-seed with small pieces then have to try to pick them out*. Other than that, I say callets (or pistoles or feves) all the way for ease of melting and measuring. *one of the reasons I bought an EZ Temper, no more lumpy un-melted seed, just smooth silk

To me, "chunks" describes relatively large but irregularly cut pieces while "diced" pieces would be smaller and more uniform. Perfectly appetizing in chocolate chunk cookies, chunky peanut butter, Nestle Chunky Bar, Chunky Monkey ice cream ... as long as the chunks are not being spewed.

Don't believe everything people say. "Fresh baked" at some places means taken out of the Sysco box in the freezer and baked at midnight for the following day. Are you going to sit around your commissary all night waiting for UberEats orders? If you have to pay an employee to do that, do you still make a profit? Even if the cookies get picked up at perfect chip melt level, you can't control the 3rd party delivery driver. Can they sit in a car for 15 minutes? 30? 45 while the driver goes across town to wait for a more lucrative order? I know you want to sell the perfect cookie, and another way to sell sounds great but the extra revenue needs to be worth the time and labor. Add instructions to microwave for 20 seconds or something. Have you ordered from your competitors to see how long it takes and how the product arrives? Might be worth it to see what you're up against.

A billion servings a week? Probably more! I blame the 1980's ... saturated fat fears and pork's 'the other white meat' re-branding.

Why not just keep a dozen or two of the heat- sealed ones around for delivery apps?

Even though summer weather has slowed my chocolate production considerably, I still leave my EZ temper on 24/7. To me it's not about volume of silk but having it at my fingertips whenever the mood or need to temper chocolate strikes. The unit is very quiet and only adds a few dollars per month to my electric bill.

You could call it a trifle but there are some technical differences to the others. Fool doesn't have cake, just fruit and cream. Buckles, slumps, and grunts are batter or dough baked together with fruit rather than prepared separately and layered. Sorry, I'm kind of a pastry nerd. 🙄😊

sprinkle powdered sugar on it, serve it in bowls, and say that's how it's supposed to be (no matter how it comes out)

I think you made it according to the recipe and picture ... did you have ladyfingers left over, or does cream on berries on cream without a middle layer of cake just seem unstable?

It should work. Mascarpone is just thickened cream to begin with, so there is plenty of fat to make a stable foam (your stiff peaks). You need minimum 35% milk fat to whip nicely.

I think you could get away with 6 cups of berries, sliced after measuring. Say the slicing and the balsamic packs them down to 4 cups of balsamic berries for your two layers of mascarpone mix which are 1.5 c each. That's more berries than cream, and you still have the 12 more berries reserved for garnish, which could be another 2 c if they're large.