Dailey

thanks again everyone for the input. i've been calling around to all the stores near me and cannot find the guittard chips anywhere! *sigh* i guess i'll be calling all the health food stores tomarro, thanks saara for the tip!

thanks again everyone for the input. katie, i don't have a super target, just a regular one, gonna have to give them a call tomarro and see if they carry them. mcduff, thanks for clarifying!

sweetside, i'm talking about the chocolate chips, they carry semi-sweet and milk chocolate, they didn't mention anything about the chocolate %. i really love the double chocolate chips by ghiradelli but they switched over to 60% cocoa and i'm not liking that one as much. mcduff, i'm sorry but i'm confused. what does 1m and 4m mean? thanks again.

i love the taste of ghiradelli chocolates and usually stock up when my grocery store puts them on sale. however, i can purchase guittards semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips for $59/ 25 pounds which would come out cheaper for me. i've never tried guittard chocolates and they only sell in bulk so i am not able to sample them. can someone who tried them tell me if they are a good tasting chocolate? or how they compare to ghiradelli? i'd really appreciate it, thanks

hmmm, getting a little more nervous... however, i do like a good challenge. i noticed that the recipe calls for semolina flour, can i get this at the grocery store? isn't this the flour used for pasta? i wonder what purpose it serves in the pasty. also, you mentioned strutto, the recipe only calls for butter, should i substitute strutto instead? actually, i would never be able to find that stuff in my small town, think i could used shortening instead? thanks again!

thank you michelle! sounds great. they looked so good on the "best of..." show on foodnetwork that i've been wanting to try them ever since. i'm a bit nervous making them though since pastries intimidate me, i'm much more confortable making cookies, cakes.

i saw a clip on foodnetwork where a bakery made "lobster tail" pastries, that's what they looked like, hence the name. they have many, many layers and are filled with some sort of cream. i would love to make some tomarro. i searched the web but didn't come up with a recipe, just info on the pastry itself. has anyone ever made these or have a recipe? thanks

i used SMBC for my cakes and always sub half of the butter for trans-fat free shortening. works very well and people always rave over the "whipped cream" icing. also, fondant would work well since it hold up to the heat.

hi lisa! i started this thread awhile ago and must say i still am torn about offering either scratch or mix. i usually bake from scratch but have had such postive reviews from customers who have tried the "white almond sour cream" doctored cake that i'm still offering it. i mean, its impossible to know what a customer is used to, its not like i can say "do you want scratch or a box"? i know once i made a cake for a shower and one of the ladies said "this came from a box". while other guests gushed over it, sooooo, i guess what i'm saying is you can't please everyone! kris, i wish you lived close to me cause i would personally make you a white cake that is perfectly moist and delicious from scratch! i know you've been searching for one for awhile now, are you making your white cakes from a mix for your customers? if so, which recipe are you using? thanks!

thanks merstar!

i want to try the chocolate sour cream bundt cake recipe but i couldn't find the book yesterday at the book store. is this recipe listed in the egullet recipe section by any chance? thanks

^me too! whitetrufflegirl, are you talking about the chocolate sour cream bundt cake?

what about RBL's yellow downey cake? i made it again last weekend and it was so moist and delicious with the perfect crumb, at least for me anyways. i've been doing alot of experimenting with my scratch cakes lately, i've been adding some veg. oil( in addition to all the butter it calls for) to my cakes to achieve a moist cake that will stay moist for several days at room temperture.

oh my gosh! that sounds so good, can't wait to try this with my SMBC! thanks Di for refreshing this thread.

thanks wendy, i'll have to check it out.

what fun following this thread, i have some baking to do! i want to try the recipes from cook's illustrated but am a bit confused. i hear some of you refer to the "new" CI, are there several different books or are these magazines? or do they come out annually? thanks!

the recipe that kate posted (cakemix) has been a standard for my 3-D cakes, its the only cake recipe from a mix that i will used anymore, i bake mostly from scratch.

i got my silicone mats at bed, bath & beyond, i used my 20% coupon. the salesgirl told me that alot of people have been buying them and that the only difference between the silicone vs the silpats were that the silpats are from france? or something along those lines and thats why you pay more for them.

i have both. i used my silpat for baking cookies and the other ones for my fondant and gumpaste stuff. they both work great, my silpats have taken a beating over the years and when i need to buy new ones i'm gonna just buy the cheaper silicone mats instead.

i tried the hersheys black magic cake as well and had similair results as skyflyer3, definitley not my favorite. i'm gonna have to try the CI chocolate velvet cake, scott woolleys brownie cake is my absolute favorite but its always fun trying out different recipes.

thanks for the link serge!

gee, you would think i would have thought about weighing the ingredients on my own ! at any rate, i have the cake bible so i'm gonna go with RBL's chart since patrick already "tested" it. thanks everyone!

i weigh all my ingredients whenever i make cakes and cookies. luckily, most of the time the recipe list grams/ounces but what about the the recipes that don't? i have several charts that convert into grams/ounces but they all state different numbers. for example, for one cup of cocoa, one chart says its 82 grams while another says 125! that's a big difference, has anyone else run into this problem? what chart do you all used? thanks

wendy, sounds interesting, would love to give it a try! currently, my most favorite chocolate cake is the one that started this thread, scott woolley's. i absolutely love it! that cake definitely does not last long in my house.

thanks! i think i'll go with just the nuts and chocolate chips.