pastrygirl

Perfect! That’ll be the plan, then - construct for easy and uniform serving. Thanks!

Thanks, both of you! It’s a large venue so i’m sure they cut a lot of cakes, though who knows with the staffing shortage everyone seems to have. Plus, a firm middle layer might make more sense to support risers for the top tier. I’ve only done a few tall stacked cakes, this is for my next door neighbors daughter so it’s kinda VIP - or at least people I’ll see again and want to make happy.

Cake construction question - I have a wedding cake order next month for about 175 people. I think it's going to be 14" round, 12" round, double-height 9" round, and a separated 6" layer with her great-grandma's cake topper. My question is about the double-height layer. Should I layer cake and filling as usual but just make it super tall, or will whomever has to cut the thing appreciate it if there's a goo-free zone of cake-cardboard-cake in the middle so they can separate it into 2 x 9" cakes or more easily cut it? I mean, I could make two regular layers with 5 layers of cake and 4 layers of filling, not frost the top of one and just stack the other on top, or I could make one giant cake with 10 layers of cake, 9 filling, and no cardboard in the middle. I almost never have to cut cakes so I don't know if it matters but I thought I'd ask. The filling will either be salty caramel or raspberry, and the icing will be meringue buttercream, not as sturdy to handle as a crusting icing or fondant. Or any other tips on giant wedding cakes? Thanks!

pate de fruits, frozen desserts, cookies, nougat

If you want a softer caramel, just cook it to a lower temp. Processing it would probably be a disaster! If I'm making chewy caramels, I cook them to about 259F, but if I only went to 240-something I bet it would be liquid enough to pipe once cooled. If I'm making a piped caramel center I make a thin caramel sauce and thicken it with chocolate.

Hot refers to things like pate de fruits that are poured into a frame then cut and dipped. Since you'd like to pipe your jelly instead, let it cool then liquefy it in a food processor.

Felchlin Sao Palme 60% because it makes me money! It's a well-rounded semisweet couverture at a decent price that goes with a lot of other flavors, and what I use most of in my chocolate business.

Even 2005, but few things last forever.

Have you tried straining it?

In my experience giandujas are more runny because of the added nut oil which is liquid at room temp, but the cacao butter solidifies if it's tempered. Depends on your ratio of course. I make a peanut butter gianduja that's 1 pb : 2 milk chocolate. It is quite runny at 89F but will break all the guitar strings if I wait too long to cut it. I find gianduja a little hard as a bonbon filling though - it's so nice to have that contrast of crisp shell and soft filling. When you add water and emulsify, the texture changes. A small amount of water will thicken it too much. That's why chocolate is so weird - accidentally get a tsp of water in your pound of chocolate and it seizes, but add a cup and emulsify and you have ganache. BTW, if anyone else wants the Notter book, message me. Mine's in good condition since I never use it - I keep Greweling in the kitchen and Wybauw at home, (plus others). And I mostly just make it up as I go along anyway

So all desserts are puddings, but not all puddings are desserts? No wonder we're confused! Mom would make Dutch Babies sometimes for Sunday breakfast, IIRC served with powdered sugar and lemon juice. I don't think I found them all that exciting.

brown paper bag, aluminum foil, duct tape ...

Ms Yoon recommends eating her bonbons within 10 days of purchase. So you can have super runny fillings like she does, or you can have shelf life. I think the only thing you're 'doing wrong' is having unrealistic expectations. If shell molding just doesn't work that well with thicker ganaches, try dipping or enrobing cut pieces or scooped balls instead.

I think a lot of times when meringue buttercream looks like a failure it can actually be salvaged just by beating more. Soupy? Beat more! Looking curdled? Beat more!

I've been thinking about this recently. I generally call it cocoa butter, but I suspect cacao butter would be more correct since cacao is the fruit. But then should cocoa powder also be cacao powder? Should 'cocoa' only be used to refer to a hot beverage? I think @keychris is right, 'cacao' is marketed towards to woo-woo health & wellness market to differentiate it from chocolate and candy. FWIW, my Felchlin boxes list cacao kernel and cacao butter as ingredients, while my Valrhona bags list cocoa butter and powder in English and cacao in every other language. Some of my finished products list cacao, cacao butter, and cocoa powder in accordance with the original labels but I've been wondering if I should pick one and be consistent.

amylase? https://joepastry.com/2013/egg-yolks-the-enzyme-problem/

I believe it was around 1999 or 2000 when I was at my first restaurant job. I don't recall what changes may have been made, I was just a pastrygirl trying to figure out my plated dessert menus, not involved in management. But yeah, I think you'd have to raise menu prices and cut a few hours of labor where you can.

I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with atmospheric water absorption. Chocolate is always packaged in something moisture resistant and the sugar is not so incredibly hygroscopic that it is sucking water out of the air through its coating of cocoa butter. Remember, fat is waterproof and we’re talking dense, fatty chocolate, not cotton candy.

The lack of tip credit is why so many restaurateurs on the west coast are trying various service charges. Here in Seattle minimum wage for everyone is $13/hr. Cooks are making $16-20, and tipping habits haven’t changed so servers are making more like $30+ with tips. Americans seem to love tipping, so service charges aren’t always well received. I dont have an answer, but it (labor cost shooting up) does throw a wrench into things and widen the front vs back of house divide. Good luck!

Does anyone have any non-couverture chocolate that they can check the ingredients for added cocoa butter? I think for bars, you're fine with just cacao and sugar, it's the thin shell molding and enrobing that begs for added fluidity.

Chef's choice! I think anywhere around 50-85 grams or 2-3 oz is a good bar size. Though I suppose a "reasonable" serving size is more like an ounce of chocolate at a time.

Is extra cocoa butter always added? I thought there was enough fat in the nibs already. I checked a couple of Felchlin couverture boxes, and they do have cocoa butter listed as an ingredient but I know there are other chocolate makers who make a big deal about using only two ingredients, cacao and sugar. So maybe the extra fat is only if you want couverture? Dandelion is one of the 'we use only cacao and sugar' companies: "Even amongst our fellow New American makers, our chocolate is special because we only use two ingredients: cacao and sugar. We don’t add cocoa butter, vanilla, lecithin, or any of the other usual chocolate suspects". http://www.dandelionchocolate.com/process/#anchor Bellflower, too. I actually checked out this guy's "factory" a few months ago, they have a tiny roaster and do production in a converted 2 car garage in a residential area. It gave me hope for the commercial kitchen pipe dreams I have for my garage. http://www.bellflowerchocolate.com/bean-to-bar-chocolate/ However, I can't tell you how smooth or fluid either of those chocolates are.

Was trying to explain percentages over on another food site, where someone had used Callebaut 70% as an example. The chocolate is 'minimum cocoa 70.5%' and has a breakdown of 38.9% cocoa butter and 33.6% fat free cocoa solids, which add up to 72.5%. Another poster says "you wouldn't expect the 38.9 + 33.6 to equal 70.5, for the same reason that a cup of water and a cup of sugar equal less than two cups total volume" which I'm not sure makes sense. Sugar dissolves in water and a cup of each will make 1.5 cups of simple syrup. But chocolate is solids suspended in fat, and Callebaut would be starting with the whole bean, not mixing pure cocoa butter and totally fat free cocoa powder. So, what's up with the 2% variance? Anyone have an explanation, or is it actually 72% labeled as 70%? https://www.callebaut.com/en-US/chocolate-cocoa-nuts/70-30-38nv/70-30-38

Probably. But also consider that nibs already have a significant portion of the work done - the roasting, cracking, winnowing, and a preliminary chop - so they may be higher priced than raw or whole beans. And sugar is inexpensive, so that drives the price down unless you're making a 100% unsweetened chocolate.