Tweety69bird

Basically, you want to use enough syrup so that your cake doesn't dry out, so concentrate more on the edges of the cake rather than the middle of it, as these are the parts that dry out first. You don't want to saturate the cake too much. What I do is use a simple syrup (equal parts water and sugar - bring to boil and then let cool) and brush it on with a small pastry brush, again - concentrating more on the edges. I dip my brush into some syrup (that usually has a bit of rum added ) and don't drain it before moving it to the cake and let the excess transfer to the cake. I don't smush the brush onto the cake, in order to minimize the crumb factor. I hope this makes sense.

Local Quebecker here. Yup, filipe has it right. Don't pronounce the R. Choc-o-la-ti-ay.

Great Pictures! Thanks for taking the time to show us all!!!

How about buttercream or ganache with mint extract added? If you want green colour, you could always add it in there too. Sounds yummy already!

Maybe you got this result because the mixture of the fat and non fat didn't want to mix. Perhaps you could try sitting the bowl of buttercream in another bowl of hot water so that some of the BC melts down, and then try to re whip it. Good luck.

If it's true that misery loves company, then count me in. I tried 2 quite different recipes for fudge in the past week, and they both didn't work. I did use a thermometer, heavy pans, stirred when supposed to and didn't when I wasn't supposed to etc... The end results were some chocolate mess stuck in the bottom of the pan, that actually tasted pretty good when you could chissel off a chunk, and the second batch is sitting in an 8 x 8 pan all in crumbles. I'm hoping that I can figure out something to do with it. Any suggestions are welcome. It was supposed to be maple pecan fudge. At least the crumbs taste good...

I agree, and it's deffinately worth that extra step to have a nice smooooth end result!

For what it's worth, I was taught to always strain ice cream mixtures before putting them in the ice cream machine. We used the creme anglais method, but there's still the risk of having little bits of egg in your finished product, which is beyond unappealing!

Um.. how about putting the jam in a cheesecloth lined strainer and let it drip? Sorry, I don't know about any kitchen water-vacum...

You can cook the jam on the stove to evaprate more of the water content until it is more thick. You won't see how thick it really is until it cools down again.

Badiane - Would you use salted peanuts or non salted? The reason I ask is because the recipes I have looked at call for salted peanuts, and of course, I have non roasted, non salted. Can I add salt during the roasting process? How would I go about that? I'm assuming I would have to coat the nuts in some form of oil or something so that salt would stick to the nuts. Thanks.

I use the recipe it Bo Friberg's book, and he has a sour cream topping in his recipe as well. The directions call for the topping to be added when the cheesecake is finished cooking, and then put back in the oven for 5 minutes to let the sour cream layer set. I don't see why there would be any sanitation issues, as long as you keep the cheesecake in the fridge. Hope this helps.

I bought a cookie press last year that finally works properly! I don't remember the name, but it's an Italian brand. If there's one thing I learned about cookie presses, it's this: buy metal ones, forget the plastic ones - they break on me usually on the first run. Good luck.

OK, here are some pictures from the Chocolate Show that I've been meaning to post. Now that my camera problems are solved, here they are. This was a demo by Stef Aerts making a piece montee that was done at the Belcolade kiosk. I stopped by every once in a while in order to get an updated picture. The chef said that he was having some issues with the temperature in the room, which was making things more challenging. Ah... it's coming together. I asked the chef to pose with his creation for me, and then I explained to Chef Aerts how to come to EGullet and find these pics when he got back home to Belgium. Sorry for the delay Chef!! Here are 2 other beautiful piece montées that were already done. Great work Chef!! Thanks for the demo, and taking the time to answer my questions!!

duckduck, is the flavour of the smoked salt throughout the caramel or is it only sprinkled on top? I actually have some smoked Halen Mon salt at home, and this would be a great way to use it. Thanks.

Maybe a bit more... you don't want to loosen your mousseline, but you want to have a nice flavour, but not overpowering. Taste it and see.

I didn't add any pistachio flavour, that sounds kind of interesting. I wonder if it would be too nutty with the marzipan on top and pistachio in the mousseline... I believe you could add in some rum...

Ok... going from memory here.. don't have books nearby.. so I hope this helps. When we did it in school (funny, it was an exam cake too), we did a bottom layer of cake, then ran the sliced strawberries all around the edge of the cake ring, inside of the acetate. The, we made a mousseline cream with pastry cream and butter, and that was piped onto the cake layer. Then we had all the extra strawberry bits left over from cutting the slices, and we layered that on top of the mousseline. Then, I believe there was another layer of cake, and then a thin layer of mousseline to come to the top of the ring in order to have something that the marzipan layer would stick to. We coloured the marzipan pink, and then rolled it out and added some texture to the top of it... not really remembering how we did that, but I suspect that it was by dragging our serrated knife across it to make "waves", and then that layer was put on top of the ring, and rolled on with a rolling pin to cut it and Voila! Fraisier is done. Finishing was a few chocolate dipped strawberries, and Fraisier written on top. Good luck, and I hope this helped you!!

lapatisserie, thank you for the info. It's too late for this year, but I will be prepared for next year. I wonder how many EGulleters will be at the show! I leave Montreal tomorrow for the drive up to NYC. I am SOOO excited!

I would be happy to post pictures when I come back!!!

I don't think they'd run out of tickets... at least I hope not!! lapatisserie, would you be able to tell us how to go about obtaining a professional pass? It's too late for this year, but will be useful for next year, I didn't see anything about that on the Chocolate Show website. Thanks!!

Omigod, GET YOUR TICKETS IN ADVANCE!!! The line up at the door in insanity. If you get your tickets before, you can walk right in and get inside. Also good to know that if you do have tickets, you don't have to be in the crazy line that goes around the block. This year the tickets are being sold through Ticketmaster, so I don't know how fast you can get them, unless you have the option to print them out right away (I think you do). I believe tickets are day-specific, so if you can print them out right before you leave for the show, you're laughing.

It's all about pacing yourself!!! There will be an amazing amount of chocolate there to sample.

I'm going!!! I plan to be there on the Friday, and deffinately don't want to miss Anil Rohira's demo on Friday at 6 (I think... maybe it's 6:30). There's a thread in the P&B section that follows a class that he gave earlier this year and I would be really excited to meet him. Last year I met Jacques Torres, and again this year Jacques demo will be at 3:30 on Saturday. The amount of people that go on the Saturday is insane, be ready to be pushed and bumped into... (even though everyone is on a good chocolate high) ... so I had to make an executive decision to only attend on the Friday (especially that the tickets are 25$ this year, and last year I had a 50% discount off the 20$ price...). Also, I will be missing Ewald Notter's demo on Sat, but since Anil Rohira worked so closely with him, I'm just as happy to meet him. Also, really looking forward to Jacques Wicked hot chocolate!! YUMMMY. I can't wait!

That's exactly what I thought as well.... with the amass of wonderful helpful knowlegeable people here, the wealth of information would be very hard to beat elsewhere. Most especially that you can get answers to your specific questions.