RuthWells
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Posts posted by RuthWells
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I have a friend who wants a chocolate cake for her baby shower with a chocolate frosting that is not buttercream. She doesn't like buttercream. Any ideas? I thought chocolate ganache but isn't that usually poured over buttercream for a smooth finish? Hmmm...javascript:emoticon(':hmmm:')
You can do a light, whipped chocolate ganache -- think chocolate whipped cream, all grown up. I have a few different recipes and will be happy to post proportions, if you like. You can also use standard poured ganache (or glaze) with no buttercream underneath.
Or, rolled chocolate fondant, which tastes like tootsie rolls.
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Sadly I won't be able to do brioche with you guys.
Can't wait to hear about your experience and see your pics, however. 
I'm not going to get to it until next week, myself -- this week just disappeared somehow.
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Thankyou!:) I piped all the flowes on directly on the cupcakes. They way I managed not to bump any of the flowers is that I started with the Roses first and then set them up in the fridge. Then I moved unto the other flowers finishing with the " Marigold" look to fill in any spaces.
The Roses arent perfect as I had trouble getting the right angles when I piped, but that didnt matter as every other flower pressed against the roses so it hid all the flaws;)..
-- Jane:)
Chilling the cupcakes down between flowers is a terrific idea -- d'oh! Good technique for cakes as well, I should think, when you're going for that over-stuffed look. On my list of things to try!
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Fabulous demo, ChiantiG! I really appreciate your taking the time to post these -- nothing beats seeing new techniques in action.
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I dont really seem to have a problem with falling whipped cream. Perhaps it is because we always eat it all up before it can sit for too long! This may also have something to do with it: I always stiffly beat ann egg white and fold it into the whipped cream. This probably gives it added stability. And, depending on the recipe I'm whipped cream in, I may flavor it- vanilla of course, or maybe some peach brandy. Whipped cream flavored with the latter is divine with fresh summer fruits! (We have fresh white peaches in the yard right now
)Cheers,
Robert Kim
Interesting. The egg white remains completely uncooked, I presume?
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Hello There:)
Here are my latest cupcakes made from Italian Buttercream and the vanilla cupcake recipe in the Whimsical Bakehouse Book.
I just want to say all you guys have taught me tremendously over the last year of me lurking!..
A BIG THANKYOU!
-- Jane:)
Miss Jane, those are GORGEOUS!!! Thanks for posting. I would love to hear a little about how you managed to pipe them without incurring crippling hand-cramps.
Did you pipe the flowers directly onto the cupcakes, or did you pipe the flowers onto nails and transfer them? I aspire to such beautiful buttercream flowers, but have yet to achieve such splendor. -
I'm sorry for the confusion. I don't mean 12" high, as in upright. I'm trying to make this cookie, only much larger, for a bridal shower.
http://www.bellaregalo.com/shop/catalog.mv...ingdresscookies
Obviously, it needs to be enlarged to feed multiple women, but I need to know if I should do anything different to make sure that the middle is done, but the edges aren't overcooked, etc. I guess I didn't word my question quite right, my husband laughed at me too. But then he's a carpenter, so you know the terminology has to be just right
If you're trying to feed "multiple women" from one cookie, I'd suggest that you rethink and make a sheetcake instead. You can borrow the design idea on the website (they're pretty cute cookies!) and carve your sheetcake into the shape of a wedding dress, and decorate accordingly. Much easier to execute and serve, I think, than one large cookie.
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I may or may not be able to join in on Thursday, but I'll try!
Ooh, I want to bring something to a big pool party on Saturday -- maybe the twice-baked brioche would fit the bill?
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I'm sorry to hear about your kitty, Jennifer. It's nice that you got some support at work (especially after reading Wendy's horror story on another other thread).
I loved reading about your new job and all that you're experiencing! I think I'll be a real pastry chef in my next life, but 'til then, can I live vicariously through you?
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A week away from here, and there's lots to catch up on. Ruth, your croissants look great, especially considering it was your first try! The stretching part is really nerve-wracking, isn't it? I had the same problem and broke the "tail" off more than one croissant in the process.
Thanks, Jennifer. Yup, that tail is quite tricky! I was quite proud to progress from 3 ridges to 4 by the last set.
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Nice to have some recipes to compare. Being a croissant neophyte, only a few things from your experience jump out at me --
Formed them Saturday night, refrigerated immediately, brought to room temp for an hour or so before baking. Hardly any rise.For comparison with the BwJ technique, after forming mine they rose for 3+ hours (and no refrigeration beforehand). I'm guessing that yours needed several more hours at room temp prior to baking.
This recipe called for forming, then letting them triple in size before washing w/ egg. At tripled, they were too delicate for egg, so I forwent that step.The BwJ recipe has you brush with egg wash immediately after forming, which probably makes more sense -- they're much less fragile before that final rise. Then, BwJ has you do a second egg wash after the final rise. I'm sure that the lovely golden brown crispy crust is thanks to that final egg wash.
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Like puff pastry, the first turn does look rough -- although Ruth, yours looked very good -- then, as the butter gets worked into the dough, it starts to look a lot better.
Oops -- I think the picture I labelled as the first turn was actually the second. I've edited the thread accordingly.
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Thanks so much for the feedback, Dorie. It must have been an amazing experience working on BwJ and getting to see all those wonderful bakers in action.
... I'm remembering that the butter packet should be enclosed on all four sides to form a rectangle, the way you would do it if you were making puff pastry.That makes perfect sense to me, and I can even visualize it -- thanks for clarifying! If I'd had more confidence in my knowledge, that's probably what I would have done, but I really wanted to follow the recipe as closely as possible.
One last thing, the croissant dough does freeze, but the best thing to do is to shape the dough into croissants, freeze the croissants on a lined baking sheet, then pack them when they're frozen. Defrost the croissants, still wrapped, overnight in the freezer, then give them a rise and a bake in the morning.This also makes perfect sense. I think I'll do this with half of the croissants from the second half of the dough -- I have a tendancy to eat more of these than I should!!
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Great job as usual Ruth! Those look amazing. The interior looks perfect to me and made me forget that croissants are supposed to be crescent-shaped. Did you say that's your first time making croissants? I want to make some, but I better wait when my entire family, or some friends are around to ensure that I don't eat them all.
Hi, Rhea -- you are the same Rhea S from CooksTalk, yes? Glad to see a familiar face!
Yes, this was my first time making croissants, and if I can do it, so can you. Go for it! -
Oh my goodness, those are beautiful!
I have been lurking on this post (as well as eGullet) for the last week or so, and I think the croissant photos have pushed me into buying the book, and joining in!
Thanks, and glad to act as enabler!
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Croissant heaven this weekend:
I spread the recipe over several days, letting the dough rest for 24 hours between each turn. I'm sure that this was a good thing. Here's the dough pre-butter packet, after its rest in the fridge:
It's still wrapped in plastic wrap in this photo, and you can see that it expanded quite a bit. I should have wrapped it more loosely.
Next, rolled out with the butter packet centered (more or less):
As you can see, I didn't do a stellar job of shaping the butter and the dough initially, though it doesn't seem to have done any harm.
The next step is the only one that confused me -- the recipe states that after centering the butter, you pull the top and bottom flaps over the butter, and then stretch the folds to the side to make a neat packet. I just couldn't picture that, and here's what I did do:
I wasn't quite confident it was going to work out -- the first rolling looked like this:
You can see that the butter is starting to break through in places, so I quick folded it and threw it back in the fridge for 24 hours. Here's the second fold -- still a bit rough.
By the final ("book") fold, things had come together:
Shaping the little monsters is where the real patience is needed. I wasn't able to roll half of my final dough "book" to the required size of 14" x 26" (the only time that happened throughout the recipe), so I settled for about 15" x 15" and started cutting out triangles. I kept the triange bases to 3" to make up for the lack of length, which may have been a misstep. The stretching of each triangle prior to rolling was the most nerve-racking step for me. It was a hot day, which I'm sure didn't help, but the butter kept breaking through, which caused me to lose my nerve and not stretch them as far as recommended. I kept half of the triangles in the fridge while rolling the first half, and the second half were much easier to manage -- so I suggest that anyone attempting this recipe add a 10-15 minute chill for the triangles prior to stretching and rolling. I have no pix of the stretching and rolling as I was freaking out just a bit! But here are the final rolled croissants, prior to the final rise:
Those are half-sheets, for scale. You'll notice that I acheived 3-4 "ridges" per croissant, so I have a way to go to acheive the perfect 6!! Good thing I still have half of the dough in the freezer for practice. Here are the risen croissants"
I found that any amount of curvature that I had managed to acheive while rolling was lost in the final rise -- the rising tends to flatten out the shaping. Note to self -- make rolls more curvy next time. Or make more curvy rolls.
These were absolutely delicious -- crackley crisp outside, flaky-chewy-sweet inside. I brought a bunch to Virginia while visiting friends this weekend and they raved. Ten minutes in a 350* oven the day after baking restored them to almost-fresh-baked quality. I'll definitely be making these again.
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The cakes came out great. Nice dome, soft and fluffy. I had to eat one to see how they tasted. Very good and buttery. Thanks for the recipes, I'll use them a lot.
That's great to here, Pastry Mama! Glad that it worked well for you!
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Hmmm... I have always been a RLB fan, but I also have this recipe book so maybe I should have these two added on my "To Try" list..... thanks, Ruth!
Let me know what you think, Diva. Until I bought this book I was a complete devotee of RLB, to the exclusion of all others.
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Ruth, I had a couple of cups of whites left over from making canneles, so I tried the white cake recipe tonight. I admit, I'm pretty impressed with it. I'll post some pictures soon, but here my initial observations.
1. The cake is very sweet. Not too sweet for my taste, though.
2. The cake baked out very flat. I baked it in a 10x14" pan, and it looks like a used magi-strips, though I didn't.
3. The cake is springy, and cuts cleanly, as you said it would.
Hi Patrick,
Glad you had a chance to try it -- thanks for the report. I agree, it is a sweet cake. I tend to instinctually short-measure my sugar, so I probably use less than the recipe calls for. Tis definitely sweet, though. It is a good use of leftover whites. I've been chasing the perfect macaroon with my extra whites; so far, no glory there.
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Brandywine Picnic Park is nice for a summer outing if you have a large crew and don't mind spending some cash. http://www.picnic.com/
Oh my -- looks like quite a place! Probably a bit much for our group, but I'll keep a note of it.
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Being new to eGullet, I hadn't seen this thread until today.
I got my copy of BWJ in 1997 or 98.
I have made the Rustic Potato loaves many times. My husband loved them and said they were like the bread that his grandmother had made. Also made Pain de Campagne many times. I made the Swedish Limpa but wasn't satisfied with it. Just doesn't come up to the one that our "Swedish Chef" made at a local smorgasbord.
Now I'm inspired to try the Brioche.
A local French trained baker that owns a B&B was selling beautiful Brioche and petite pains au chocolate at our Farmer's Market last year, made with ingredients he was importing from France.
Unfortunately, he isn't there this year. I'm afraid it wasn't cost effective in a such small rural community. They were heavenly!
I've enjoyed reading through this thread even though I haven't had time to read everyone's adventures yet.
Keep up the good work, all.
Did you try the Brioche? Bought a pan at Wms Sonoma and will endure the 99 degree kitchen heat in Chicago to give it a go with you.
I don't have the right pans, but I could probably jump on a brioche wagon in a week or so......... (lots of compulsory baking projects on the schedule for this coming week).
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Ruth, I'm really interested to see how your croissants go. I haven't made them but I don't see why you couldn't freeze them and bake them later. Are you going to give it a try?
I've spent the last hour looking through the book for some suggestions on what I'd like to do next. I don't have any guests coming to dinner soon and am in fact going to be on vacation for a couple of weeks in a few days. So I need something that's immediately consumable by 2 people or could be frozen!
I'm definitely going to do the potato loaves. But for things I haven't done: matzos have intrigued me since Seth first talked about them waay up thread. Gingerbread baby cakes sound interesting. Perhaps Lemon Loaf Cake, Crispy Cocoa Cookies, Mocha Choc Chips, Tourte Milanese (I'd use store bought puff pastry I think, or possibly just make the puff pastry and freeze it until I'm back from vacation), Alsatian Onion Tart.
Interested in any of those? Have other suggestions?
In the absence of expert advice, I will probably freeze 1/2 of the croissants prior to baking and bake the other 1/2 right away. I'll report back on the success (or lack thereof) of the venture! I did the second fold last night; third fold tonight and shaping in the morning. I will be away for the rest of the weekend (during which time croissants will be consumed) so I won't be able to post pix and results until Sunday evening at the earliest.
As for next projects, I've been drooling over the Alsatian Onion Tart and could probably get that done this week....
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There's always a Phillies game. They help set up picnics.
Brilliant -- thanks! I think my bosses would love this if we can manage to schedule it. Otherwise, the Newlin Grist Mill looks like a great option.
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So, I will start off with my favorites:
1- Freta's. A huge contributor to my time at Penn, Freta's was rather nondescript, save for the line which always emanated from her cart. The meatball hero was sublime, and I always enjoyed her egg and cheese in the mornings.
Freta's is a family institution for us (we're a Penn family)! It's been a looong time since I've spent time in U. City; glad to know she's still around.
"Baking With Julia" by Julia Child (2005 - )
in Pastry & Baking
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Welcome, Staximo! Let us know what you start out with.