RuthWells

Cool. Now maybe Ling will come back and tell us what the garnish was, LOL!

I've not done this, but my instinct is that it would work fine. I'm dying to see what you come up with -- take lots of pictures!

Ling, What is the garnish on the lady apple (?) in the foreground? It looks very tempting!

Thanks, CB! I used the royal icing recipe from The Cake Bible, which does indeed dry hard. I haven't been piping alot recently and thus did not trust myself to ice them "freehand", so I used stiff icing to outline first and then flooded them with thinner icing. The reason some of them look sort of two-tone is that...... umm...... I ran out of icing and had to make more, LOL! And I'm never very picky about matching colors exactly. So some cookies ended up with different colors.

Have you ever frozen Pavova before? I never have, and would be leery to try it. I love Jturn's idea of frozen mousses in flexi-molds.

LOL, I've been known to bake non-stop for weeks in prepping for a party, and then not even sample one of everything! I'd much rather bake than eat.

I doubled the Pierre Herme recipe this weekend and made my first-ever non-meringue macarons! Next time I'm going to whip the egg whites a bit stiffer in hopes of getting a more pronounced dome on top -- I was a bit skittish at Ms. Greenspan's description of the whites' remaining wet and glossy, and I think I under-whipped just a smidge.

Valentine cookies. Had fun making 'em.

Pastry flour is softer -- lower in protein -- than A/P flour. It may even be softer than cake flour; I would use a mix of 75% pastry flour, 25% A/P flour to sub for cake flour. Or, you could probably make some killer biscuits with the straight pastry flour.....

Too, too cool, Fred! Well done!

I have, out of desperation, used salted butter for choc buttercreams in the past (I also use RLB). I don't mind the salt along with the chocolate, but I think it would be overwhelming in a less strongly-flavored buttercream. If you'd like to try to remedy the situation, making another batch and mixing the first batch with it would help alot. But if you're stressed or pressed for time, I wouldn't worry about it -- a little salt with chocolate isn't a bad combo!

This is definitely going into the "to try" file.

I lust for that crust. Yum! You guys are killing me.

Harold McGee points out that egg-thickened mixtures need to be cooked at least a couple of minutes, otherwise an enzyme will cause the mixture to thin out considerably over hours to days. I've noticed this myself and was glad to know why. ← Interesting -- I wonder whether that's why my frozen pastry cream thinned out? Perhaps I should let it cook high for a few more minutes? (I'm always worried about scorching.)

I have a friend on another cooking board who bakes chiffon cakes in regular, round cake pans all the time. I would be a little leery of a bundt pan, as you mustn't grease the pan for chiffon (it needs traction to rise properly), but a round springform pan should be fine. I made a lemon chiffon cake this week, and it was heaven!

I made an interesting discovery about pastry cream and thickening over the holidays. I had made a batch of pastry cream and frozen it. When I thawed it, it had thinned out considerably. In a (rare) flash of inspiration, I reheated the cream to the boiling point and it re-thickened beautifully.

Oh. My. God. Can I come over?

This may be a dumb question, but what the hell is a sugar warmer? ← I almost posted the same question; then I figured it must be a box for keeping pulled sugar work warm and pliable whilst working with it......... am I right?!

Hi Seth, If I remember correctly, Rose's buttercream recipes call for up to 2 oz of liquid as flavoring (liquors, extracts, etc.) and I have always found this to be too much liquid. Are you adding any liquid flavorings to your base recipe? If so, I suggest using half the amount that she lists, which works for me. (I'm a huge devotee of her buttercreams and make them often.)

I'll be interested in your report!

Sure. The recipe I use is Herme's. Its been posted here. ← Thanks much.

Lemon cream, yummmmmmmm. Sounds more fun than 10x sugar and lemon juice. Do you have a recipe?

Lemon chiffon cake from Rose Levy Berenbaum. Heaven. ← I second that. That's probably my favorite lemon cake. ← Do you embellish it at all, Patrick, or do you serve it au naturel? I'm making one for an office birthday next week and am considering a simple lemon glaze.

Lemon chiffon cake from Rose Levy Berenbaum. Heaven.