Sugarella
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Posts posted by Sugarella
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Actually, I just checked with the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office and Mille Crêpes is not trademarked, nor has a trademark been applied for. I found Piece Of Crêpe, Holy Crêpe, Full Of Crêpe, but no Mille Crêpes. Interesting.... someone has trademarked the letter "M" though......
Under trademark law, you can just go ahead and start using the little ™ symbol, so long as a trademark does not already exist on a word, sort of like declaring squatter's rights. Should anyone dispute the mark in the future, all they have to do is prove they've been using the mark prior to the dispute. Interesting how it works. Guess they needed to save a few bucks going the poormans route on this?
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From a business prospective I wouldn't share anything that gives you (a) a competitive edge, (b) differentiates you from other cake makers © could be a new and innovative method /ingredient (which could be patentable)
I agree. I don't mind sharing recipes that I've gathered from books or other media and telling people where I got them, but if it's something I've created myself, then no. Business is business.
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Thanks everyone.
Abra - I'll be trying that recipe just as soon as it's berry season around here. (I think I may go a little lighter on the rosewater though....)
Gfron - thanks for the links and recipe...
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We use rosewater in my house to cure the common cold -
Mix half a shot rose water, the juice of one lemon, a good spoonful of honey and hotwater in a glass and drink.
Really helps open up your sinuses.
That's a cure for the common cold in my house too. Except I omit the rosewater and reduce the lemon by half, add a few cloves.... add a cinnimon stick.... add a double shot of grand marinier......
Al Wadi. I like it.But for others, in Italy they sell a rose water in a cobalt bottle in the pharmacy , but that one is just a skin tonic not suitable for drinking......are we talking about the same stuff?
Ah, I think you may be on to something here..... I wonder if my stuff is meant as a skin tonic?
I think my next step is to be off to an iranian or lebanese shop and see if the shopkeeper has any ideas....
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I love rose water much more than orange.....
When I lived in NY I used to buy it at Kalustyan. I expecially like it with rice puddings and often make a simple syrup for mango or peaches salads with pistachios.
But I have your same reaction with peanut butter, I just find the smell disturbing.
If you want to send me all you bottles I would not get offended
Hah! I'd take you up on the offer, but Ontario isn't allowed to ship its garbage to New York anymore.....
Do you remember the brand that you used to buy and liked? Country of origin? What the label looked like? Anything?
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Thanks everyone for the responses. I think I get it now.... it should be used very sparingly and diluted..... sort of like real saffron; otherwise all you get is horrible bitterness? Am I right?
I suppose, in that respect, the fact I swigged it straight would be part of the problem.
Does anyone have a tried and true brand they prefer? I just looked and it looks like all of my bottles were either crafted in Iran, Turkey, or Istanbul.
(???)I LOVE orange blossom water, Ling. Next time you add it to a buttercream or the like, try adding just a small splash of orange blossom wine to the mix too... it's exquisite!
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First, it wasn't a fundraiser...just an incredible event put together by the very generous host and hostess! (I know, I know...can you BELIEVE the spread? My head is still reeling....)
The Peruvian chocolate and cabernet sauvignon stood out among the other two hot chocolates I sampled. (One had too much rum so I couldn't really taste the chocolate, and the other was a very smoky Indonesian chocolate, I believe!) The cabernet sauvignon added body and depth without masking the Peruvian chocolate. It was a delicious, very adult treat!
Thanks....
And thanks to The Lord (hehehe) for the response also. I am still completely IN AWE at what you put together here. Incredible!You know.... I was up @ 5am today just when you posted this after 2am your time.... I was wondering if you'd go off to bed and wake up wth a tummy ache. Did you?
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I think ours had twenty-two...so it was really a Vingt-Deux Crêpes!
Have you actually had Lady M's, Megan? I'm wondering if there's anything missing from the crepe/pastry cream/kirsch combo as described from what Lady M is actually making.....
(Still planning that road trip to NYC...
)Personally, I'm appalled that they decided to trademark the name, especially since they had nothing to do with its invention.Well it wouldn't be the first time someone trademarked something they had nothing to do with creating.
But....that's how trademarks go, unfortunately. Personally, I'm torn on this one. I acknowledge the brilliant marketing ploy of the trademark (notice we're all calling it a Lady M Mille Crêpes and not a crêpes cake....) , but now what is every other pastry chef supposed to call it if we can't use its real name anymore?
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I keep getting bottles of rosewater given to me by various people, and I have several bottles of it hanging around now doing nothing. Try as I might, I just cannot bring myself to add this vile stuff to pastries. People rave about how lovely a scent and taste it's supposed to have, but to me it smells like the worst excuse for artificially scented crud I've ever comes across, and it tastes like.... well I don't know what it tastes like..... but it makes me have to wipe my tongue off wth my sleeve. It's just plain disgusting. Mildly reminiscent of the industrial cleaners they use in hospitals, actually.
So it has just occurred to me that maybe the stuff I've been getting has really been cheap knockoff rosewater and not the real stuff at all. I've never bought any myself so I wouldn't know what to look for. Is it really lovely and ethereal the way people describe? What should I be looking for?
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Ah, I see. Thanks.
I was just wondering if there was something else to call it considering Lady M refers to it as the Mille Crêpes™ with the trademark....... perhaps the rest of us should be calling it Vingt Crêpes. !!
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LordBalthazar, how did you manage to organize such an incredible event? And may I ask how many guests were in attendance?
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Stupid Question: Seeing as this is so popular in Japan, does anyone know what this pastry is actually called in Japanese?
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^^ .... I was just going to say that!
Cakes and Sugarcraft published by Squires Kitchen in the UK. They also publish Wedding Cakes - A design Source .... both magazines would be tremendously popular amongst the sugarcraft crowd, especially if you could eventually offer back issues.
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Absolutely incredible. Those Christopher Norman brownies look scrumptious! And the hot chocolate with cab sounds incredible....could you tell us a bit more about that?
And.... excuse my ignorance but, what was the purpose of this event? (Well, I know the purpose.... EAT) But was this a charity event or fundraiser or something? How did your hosts manage to get ahold of all of this without going broke?!
Thanks for sharing such great pics...
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I wanted to produce a chocolate that has two layers of color, with bronze powder on top and some green color sprinkled underneath. The mould was half-circled shape.
First of all I polished the chocolate mould, then I tempered the colored cocoa butter to 96-97F, then sprayed it inside the mould using an airbrush. then I used a small knife to tip up a little shiny bronze powder and sprinkled it in the mould. I waited for about an hour or two, then I poured chocolate into the mould.
After I released the chocolate from the mould, there were some cocoa butter sticking to the mould, causing the surface of my chocolate to crack. There were also some shiny bronze powder stuck to the the cocoa butter inside the mould, causing the surface of my chocolate to have big holes on the area where there should be full of shiny powder.
I have tried not to use any shiny bronze powder and only finger painted the mould with the colored cocoa butter, as the result there was no problem at all and there were no colored cocoa butter sticking to the mould.
The mould was bought from Chololat-Chocolat, the colored cocoa butter was from Chef Rubber, and the shiny bronze powder was from PCB.
Did I do anything wrong throughout the process? Exactly why did my finished products resulted in this way?
Those look great sirch. Apple green and gold goes so well together, doesn't it?
I suspect your problem with the cocoa butter sticking in the mold has to do with it not being totally solidified. Sure, it may look solid, but it isn't quite. Try chilling the molds with the cocoa butter in it, then bringing them back to room temp, then filling them. See my post on page 4 of this thread with the steps for these truffles.
As for the powder.... I suspect you just had too much in there. Try adding just a light dusting of the powders with a large brush, then blowing any excess out of the mold before chilling, resting, and filling.
Edited to add: And welcome to eGullet, by the way!
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And I may be entering controversial territory when I say this, but it doesn't hurt to inflate your past experience a bit. You sound quite intelligent, from your posts, so getting the entry-level job at a restaurant is going to be demoralizing and brutal - you don't want to be a busser at the finest restaurant in town, believe me, so it would be better to start as a front or back server at one of the lesser establishments - and if you have a good friend in another city who will commit to answering a phone with a "Thank you for calling [whichever] restaurant! How can I help you?" and then give you a (fake) reference, you will have a leg up. I'm sorry. I know lying is wrong and all, but the restaurant "fraternity" is quite hard to break into, and earning respect from your co-workers as a starting employee is going to be really difficult, unless you pretend that you've been doing it for a little while. The customers can be really difficult, but your co-workers are more likely to break you, unless you have a strategy.
Just make sure you don't say you worked for Vandelay Industries!
I agree with the food tutor on this one. You worked for a few months 20 years ago, huh? No.... make that you worked at several places over the course of several years 20 years ago. So you're still out of practice, but now you have way more experience, see? Be smart about it and make it very old jobs that weren't high profile. As for references....references should be from recent jobs anyways, not 20 year old jobs. "Sorry, I can't remember who my manager was way back then...." Do you think a restaurant manager is going to track down that restaurant you say you worked at 20 years ago? Of course not....they have a busy restaurant to run and they know the other manager does too. Besides.... they won't be keeping records of who worked there 20 years ago anyways.
I'm not talking about lying for jobs where you need certain certificates or other credentials or education, for that matter...this is waitressing. And as with all "schmoe jobs".... If you're smart enough and clever enough to fabricate and pull of a white lie, you're smart enough to be a waitress.
2. If you can't pull it off, and they find out, you're not only fired, but your lie will follow you and will make it even more difficult to break in to the new field. If your prospective new boss finds out you lied to get your last job, he/she is going to wonder what other kinds of dishonesty you're capable of.If you can't pull it off you didn't get the job, period. The only way to "continue" pulling it off is to remember what you said on your resume in case it ever comes up in casual conversation. Otherwise, how would anybody ever figure it out after she's hired?
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Hi Joe,
I have windows '98 and a high speed connection. Half an hour ago I went to the site and my screen froze with the animation on the home page, I waited and waited.... then I tried to shut down the browser by pressing ctrl+alt+del.... that popup screen froze... I waited and waited.... my mouse disappeared and would occasionally flicker back on and off the screen but I couldn't control it, and I finally had to shut off my computer from the back, start up again, go through the windows scandisk, waited and waited, then finally got back here online to tell you that your website is broken.
Seriously.... a lot of people won't be able to access it so please seriously consider what everyone upthread has already mentioned.
Having said that, YES, I would absolutely be interested in a service like this. There are plenty of magazines I don't buy because either they're in the wrong language or there's just the expense of purchasing so many magazines from overseas. I think this is a great idea you've got here.
Are you going to be featuring just the current and subsequent issues, or will you be looking into offering past issues that are out of print as well? And will you be offering english language magazines, or just those that will be translated into english?
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I looked into being a waitress pretty seriously last year, actually. I work in financial customer service, so I already know how to "eat shit" as Chris put it. I also have a semi-busy cake and pastry business on the side, but I was looking to supplement my income with a well paying serving job on weekends during the off season for cakes, and would keep the regular job.
I'm all right looking; not a hottie but not a troll either, I'm 33 and I clean up ok when I want to, and I'm in pretty good shape. Previous serving experience is just 4 months when I was 20 in a little upscale lunch spot. However, I know quite a bit about food, and a fair bit about wine.
Guess what? NOBODY at the good places would hire me. No real experience, they said. Apparently you really have to put your time in at chain restaurants before upscale trendy places will consider you. At least, that's what I discovered. And there was no point for me going to work at a place like that because the money wouldn't be worth it, in my case.
I have other plans for my life, but if I was in your shoes looking for a new career, serving wouldn't be it, simply because, what are you going to do when you're 50? 55? 60? What if you don't have the energy to keep up with the job until you're ready to retire, then what?
If you really like the idea of serving, I'd still recommend you go for it, just don't quit your day job. Maybe you will land the crappy shifts in an upscale place, but there's still more money to be made there on a Tuesday than at a hectic chain restaurant on its busiest night, I think.
....And I really like skye's suggestion to consider training for a position with wine... it may take a long time to get there but there's definitely great money in it, and respect as well.
I most certainly agree that office jobs suck.... I cannot wait til the day I can quit for good. Best of luck with whatever you decide to do.
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K8: I know exactly how much I left out, half. I doubled everything but the sugars, so I ended up with something that was a cross between a cookie and a scone.
You probably shouldn't just add in all of the missing sugar if you've already baked some.... then they'll be way too sweet right? Or gritty? Try to figure out how much sugar is missing now that some of the dough is gone.....
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^^ .....sounds like you know what you're talking about to me, Art.
You should participate more often.
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Sugarella, what is the easy way to do the sides of a 3 inch cake? I (unexperienced me) find it harder to do than a large cake. I'd love a lesson!Ah, thank you very much. That was my concern that the acetate wouldn't seal the cake completely and therefore leave it exposed to air and drying, making it inedible. I bought a 2.25" cutter, so that was going to be the size (2" tall with one layer of filling). They will be individual cakes, not tiered.
I was probably going to offer them boxed in those little decorative acetate boxes. I'm sure the cut edges are going to be a pain for me. I should probably look into buying that pan in my previous post. Ok, obviously I'm going to have to rethink this a bit then. I'd love to know what easy method there is to icing these tiny little buggers. If it's with that icing tip, that never seems to apply the icing close enough to the cake to seal it for me. I've had issues with the icing falling off of cakes when applied this way. Any thoughts on using the chocolate "wrap" instead?
2.25" diameter x 2" high + filling? Are you sure you want them that tall? This is petit four sized but twice as tall. It's a great look but depending on the filling you use you'lll have little cake tops slipping and sliding all over the place while you're doing this!
Make sure you torte and fill the whole sheet cake first, and make sure your filling is something that'll cling firmly to the cake. Something like a meringue buttercream or a ganache, applied slightly warm, will get into the nooks and crannies of the cake, then after you chill the whole thing it'll solidify and the 2 layers will be STUCK.... know what I mean? Make sure the filling you use isn't something slippy like a fruit puree that'll mostly just sit between the cake layers.For the chocolate enrobing.... oh gosh I would not try to "wrap" something as tiny as these with anything like modelling chocolate. It'll be too small to do all that fumbling, and besides, you'll need something on the outsides of the cakes anyways to get your wrap to stick to it. Instead, if you're going to go the chocolate route, use a pourable ganache.
When I was referring to buttercreaming (hey - I invented a new verb!
) the sides of a small cake I wasn't referring to something this little in diameter.....for those I'd try to dip them from frozen or at least super chilled, or would pour something over them.For a mini cake that's one tier and is about 3 or 4 inches in diameter, you can buttercream the sides quickly and easily. And no, not the icer tip. That stupid thing is useless as far as I'm concerned.
You'll need surgical gloves. Not those plastic food service gloves that are loose, but the latex gloves that fit tight. Place all of your minis on trays with enough space around them to ice the sides, same as if you were trying to ice them with a spatula.
Hold one cake down firmly on the top with the fingertips of your non-dominant hand. Using the index finger of your dominant hand, scoop enough buttercream for the side, hold your finger firmly and striaight against the cake side with the fingertip touching the tray, and run your finger around the cake 2 or 3 times (lifting your other hand here and there of course so you can actually go around) If you do it quick and sort of "pivot" your finger at the last second before lifting it from the cake you'll end up with smooth sides all the way around. If excess buttercream gets all over the tray touching the cake, leave it alone and clean it up later, or you'll just end up smudging everything. Do the sides only, then chill the whole tray so the sides are firm.. (This is easier than trying to pick them up with fresh buttercream on them.)
Once chilled, use a spatula to run around the perimeter of the bases of the cakes to cut and remove the excess buttercream on the tray. So now you should have perfect sides..... then use an offset spatula to cover the tops in one sweep.
This only works with little cakes that are 2" high or so or the same length as your finger, otherwise you'll just end up leaving finger marks on the sides. I wish I could demo with pictures but I hope it makes sense. Hollar if it doesn't. It sounds tricky but you'll get the hang of it quick and you can easily do hundreds like this pretty quick.
Oh.... and your link to the pans didn't work for me but I think I know what you're talking about. If you're going to invest in pans for minis that are about 2" diameter see if you can get the removable bottomed ones.... you WILL use them..... great for all sorts of mini pastries and mini cheesecakes are so much easier with those pans.
Edited to add: I ditto your sentiment about cupcakes..... I won't do them either. Weddings are modern society's last bastion of chivalry, class, and formality. There is no other occasion left where it's still standard practice to send an invitation, or write a hand-written thank you, for example. Weddings are special in our lives, and they should be treated as such. Cupcakes at weddings say "Hi.... we're rednecks....can you tell?"
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I use the acetate strips and I seal the ends together with a sticker with my logo on it, or with the bride's new monogram should she request that. Buuut.... these are only used for mousses, etc. I would't dare use them as a covering for flour based cake that has been cut because they WILL NOT seal the cake edges, air will get in there, and you'll just be serving people dry cake.
How mini are we talking here? 1" or 1.5" like a petit four? Or 3" or 4" diameter? Are you doing these as individual cakes that'll still be tiered like your earlier example or are these just part of a pastry platter and single tiers?
If we're talking the former size....dip them to coat.... if we're talking the latter size...there is a very easy way to buttercream your sides on a mini single tier cake....
Cut cake shouldn't be left exposed to air for more than an hour really because air is its enemy....I'm afraid you'll need to do the sides, even with a clear glaze, to ensure an exceptional product.
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I think I'd pass on the "stuffing" though.
SB
What would be an appropriate stuffing for roasted poohbear?
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Hmm, wonder how that stuff cuts (slices/serves)??? Doesn't it meld into the cake icing??? No it probably stays firm or else the webs & stuff would break hmmm...
I haven't used it in forever--mine is so old it's a solid mass in the bag. How does it slice????
Well, that depends how old it is, or rather, how long ago you piped it. Generally if it's newer it cuts sort of like fondant does (think of it as rubbery royal icing, because that's what it is.) After a few weeks though, I expect it would dehydrate completely and would probably shatter when you cut into it, same as royal would. Not 100% sure on that one though.
Sharing Recipes
in Pastry & Baking
Posted · Edited by Sugarella (log)
I haven't noticed any lazy posters....I must not be paying attention.
eGullet is a very different place than other message boards online. We are not a recipe site; we don't list thousands and thousands of crappy recipes, only a chosen few gems. I know of several people online who have joined eG, only to come to the conclusion that it wasn't for them. Perhaps some people out there are just looking for the same old message board, you know?
Good point, and part of the reason I don't give out stuff I've created myself. We all know a lot of home bakers have a tough enough time deciphering regular recipes and getting the correct results.... if I give them directions for something I've made 3x as complicated than what they're used to seeing, and they try it and fail, they might assume I gave them a crappy recipe on purpose. And that's not good customer relations, is it? I agree with chefette that it's flattering to be asked, but unfortunately the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The other reason I don't give out my own creations is that it'll inevitably end up online somewhere, which in turn will inevitably end up in one of those supermarket checkout recipes rags, and I'll inevitably end up hearing from a customer, "Hah! .....you got this recipe from Martha Stewart!"
But again, if I use an exact recipe out of a book or magazine, I'll just tell people that's what it is.