annachan
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Posts posted by annachan
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I was thinking of making cheesecake lollipops for a party. My idea is to make balls out of the cheescake with a melon baller or small disher, freeze them, dipped in chocolate and roll in graham cracker crumbs and maybe other "toppings."
Instead of baking a cheesecake the usual way, can I eliminate the crust? Can I use a regular recipe and just skip the crust? Would I bake it for the same amount of time and temperature? Will I need to use a one piece baking pan instead of a springform?
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Williams Sonoma is selling Beer Brittle, a peanut brittle with beer added.
Sounds interesting and would like to whip up a batch.
Anyone got a recipe? Suggestions on when to add the beer, what type of beer, and how much?
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i would use one vanilla bean and 1/2 t vanilla extract. but that's just me
Thanks. I'll give that a try.
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what amount of vanilla paste does the recipe call for, and what is the recipe for?
It's the Salted Butter Caramels recipe in Carole Bloom's Truffles, Candies & Confections. It calls for 1 tsp pure vanilla paste.
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I got a recipe that ask for Vanilla Paste. I don't have that. I have Vanilla Beans and Vanilla Extract. Can I subsitute either or a mixture of the beans and extract for paste? If so, what is the conversion going to be? One tbsp of vanilla paste = ?
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Believe it or not, I just picked up some at Cost Plus over the weekend. They aren't fancy, just come in gold, silver and red. If you're interested, I found them by the kitchen section of the store.
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Thanks for all the ideas.
Will go and take a look at the sign up sheet to see what other people are bringing then decide what to bring.
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I admit to occasionally taking a large wad of fish or pork floss and chewing on it for 5 minutes.
Yum.
Pork floss....yum....
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I think coconut would go well with soy milk. Maybe by adding coconut milk to soy?
I also really like savory soy milk. Some scallion, dried shrimp and sliced Chinese donut.
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Fondue chocolate are generally expensive and don't taste too good. If you use couverture chocolate, you will most likely have to add oil, unless you're able to find a high cocoa butter chocolate.
I'm not sure where you are, but in South San Francisco, there is a great wholesale place I discovered recently, Marque Foods. They carry a belgium chocolate (Grand Place) for under $4/lb. The milk is great but the dark is not as intense as I like. Other brands they carry are E. Guittard, Callebaut, Valhorna, and a few others. If you really want fondue chocolate or coating chocolate, they are available there as well.
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annachan, were do you work? aka, what do you do?
I take particular pleasure in making food that kind of refers to my work... (I work in a research lab with tropical fish... so I make alot of fish cookies and crackers that poke fun at science) is that a possibility with your work place?
well.... I work at a school, inside Juvenile Hall.... so, not sure if there are anything appropiate to poke fun at....
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As John said, keep the chocolate in motion its the trick here.I dont have the melter yet ( thinking about get one soon ) so I melt my chocolate on bain marie ( bowl dont touch the water ) then set on my counter and stir stir stir till gets down to the right temperature,I use an hairdryer to keep the chocolate form thickening if I am using it for long , but you need to be very carefull if it gets too hot you need to keep stirring it and then use it ,get the feeling for it, and another thing , the more chocolate you have in your pan the longer the tmeper stays , but keep stirring
I think that was a problem, I didn't stir enough. No luck in being able to get a tempering machine wthin the next week or two. I'm thinking of investing in an electric pot stirrer.
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It's that time of the year again. I usually don't have a problem thinking of something to bring, but this time around, I'm coming up blank.
So, here are some of the limitations:
1) I'll be bringing some homemade candy/chocolate and there will cake and cookies. So I'm leaning toward something savory, but I haven't ruled out sweets.
2) The party will be at 2pm, during our regular meeting. So, something easy to consume during a meeting would be good.
3) I need something that I can make the day before.
4) Something that is meant to be served room temp or cold. There's a fridge at work but nowhere to reheat anything.
5) It's got to be homemade as people expected me to.
6) Spinach dip has been taken.
Any ideas?
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For a large crowd, pasta dishes comes to mind. For something fun, do a pasta buffet. Make a few different pasta sauces (i.e. marinara, meat sauce, alfredo, pesto) and cook a few different types of pasta (spaghetti, bowtie, penne, etc.) and let people choose what they want. You can add some garlic bread, salad, meatballs, grilled chicken/shrimp, lasagna and dessert to the spread. I like the idea of having people assemble their food as it encourage interaction among guests. Other similar ideas would be to do a taco or a crepe buffet.
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Thanks for all the help everyone!
Another question: I tempered some milk chocolate for dipping today. Tempered it to the temperature it should be. Put the bowl in another bowl lined with a heating pad. Still notice some white streaks toward the end of the batch. I'm wondering if the heating pad isn't enough to hold the chocolate in temper. Should I go back to leaving the chocolate over a pot of warm water instead?
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Steamed sponge cake....
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The basic of trifle is cake, custard, fruit (usually berries) and cream. For the holiday season, it's nice to have a chocolate version. Since good raspberries and strawberries aren't easy to find this time of year, maybe consider a mandarin or orange and chocolate version.
A few other ideas: Chocolate Roulade, Yule Log, Tiramisu.
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Alright, it's our first year trying to make truffles as gifts and we ran into a few problems.
1) Paillete Feuilletine - we were told when getting them that they will stay crispy in chocolate. Well, that didn't happen in our ganache. It turned into a soggy, paperlike texture. It there a trick to keeping them crispy in the ganache? If not, what else can I do with them? (Other than eating them out of the bag....yum!)
2) I'm seeing stripes on my chocolate coating. The chocolate I used for dipping (61% E. Guittard) was too thick. So I added some cocoa butter and tempered the chocolate again. It worked great for dipping, but it seems the cocoa butter had separated and produced white stripes. Other than dipping everything in the milk chocolate I have, what else can I do? Is there a proper way of adding cocoa butter to the chocolate? Would I still have an issue if I get a tempering machine?
1) I had that problem the first time I tried to make a crunchy hazelnut praline ganache. Eliminate all liquid in favor of an all butter ganache and you will retain your crunch. Just remember to add the butter at room temperature so it doesn't split the ganache.
After doing some searching online, the recipes I saw was to just combine melted chocolate with praline paste to make the ganache and then add the feuiletine. Does that sound right? Should I add butter to that? If so, how much?
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The shrimps I used to love are larger ones (~ 2 inches) with the shell still on. They were more chewy than hard. The scallops weren't that bad when you break them up into small strands.
Also love those little dried fish seasoned with soy, sugar and chili.
Oh yeah, Burmese tea salad....tofu fa....stinky tofu....chestnuts....
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My favorite is to stir fry ong choy with fu yu. It's supposed to be really good in mutton stew.
Another favorite of mine is just adding a cube to my plain porridge.
As in oatmeal porridge?
I like it in congee, plain or otherwise.
hzrt8w has a pictorial using fu yu and bitter melon.
Whenever we have roast chicken, my husband always requests a cube or two of fu yu to eat with his chicken. I don't think it's the Scottish/English way. I think he's gone overboard on fitting into my Chinese family!
I meant congee. But oatmeal porridge works too. I love beef or bovril in my oatmeal....
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When I was little, I definitely loved dried shrimp. I also munched on dried scallops. Another favorite is pluffed rice with sesame seed and tea.
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With Michael's recipes, I never use the invert. I just don't like it.
If you leave out the invert, do you use another sugar in place of it? The same amount?
I wonder if the invert is used so that the truffles can be kept longer.
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Alright, it's our first year trying to make truffles as gifts and we ran into a few problems.
1) Paillete Feuilletine - we were told when getting them that they will stay crispy in chocolate. Well, that didn't happen in our ganache. It turned into a soggy, paperlike texture. It there a trick to keeping them crispy in the ganache? If not, what else can I do with them? (Other than eating them out of the bag....yum!)
2) I'm seeing stripes on my chocolate coating. The chocolate I used for dipping (61% E. Guittard) was too thick. So I added some cocoa butter and tempered the chocolate again. It worked great for dipping, but it seems the cocoa butter had separated and produced white stripes. Other than dipping everything in the milk chocolate I have, what else can I do? Is there a proper way of adding cocoa butter to the chocolate? Would I still have an issue if I get a tempering machine?
3) We're been using the recipes in the Chocolate Obsession book. There are two major differences I see in that book and some other books. One is the use of invert sugar (I'm running really low). The other is the use of an immersion blender (my new KA immersion blender died in the middle of the third batch) to incorporate butter into the ganache. How crucial are these steps? In what way will the truffles be different if I were to use recipes that exclude these steps?
TIA for your help. If we can't get the truffles right, my friends are stuck with toffee, honeycomb and marshmallow this year....
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If you haven't already, another great place to find restaurant reviews is on Chowhound. Together with SFGate, you should be able to come up with some great choices.
cheesecake without crust
in Pastry & Baking
Posted
Yeah, I'll have to get them all prep before hand.
As the the mold, I'm not so worry about the sticking as I'm worry that not having a crust may somehow affect the recipe.
Thanks everyone for your input.