Lisa Shock

What's your goal here? Sugar amounts will affect the texture a bit, you'll have to run tests and see if you like the flavor and texture with reduced sugar. If you're trying to make something lower calorie, you really are better off just eating less cake but make it really good and satisfying cake and keep the recipe the same. If you are trying to make a cake more diabetic friendly, remember that the white flour is almost as bad as the sugar is on the glycemic index. And, the fat in the cake helps slow digestion, making it more diabetic friendly. Overall, cake is not a diabetic food, but, the fat is not the culprit here. (with modern medications, diabetics can make more choices and small slice of cake may be fine for certain individuals, when in doubt, ask the individual!)

Panna cotta and blancmange can be flavored with clear flavorings, molded in small silicone molds. then placed onto baked (cookie, pie crust, etc.) bases.

Beautiful scale! Actually, his whole setup looks wonderful.

I really like those photos of that B&W dessert buffet djyee100 linked to. Note that they were creative in using plain black, plain white, and patterned b&w papers, sheaths, cups, etc. to hold some of the desserts like the cupcakes. A lot of the items shown are pretty simple, the papers act as a garnish. The mix of black and white serving pieces also helped the visual appeal. I had one other thought about the food, you may wish to talk to your produce purveyor and see what specialty items they can get. There is a white strawberry, a white watermelon, and some other varieties of melon have white flesh. They could be used in fruit tarts, sorbet, pavlovas, Strawberries Romanoff, etc.

Oreos are made with a special cocoa that is really dark. Do a search for black cocoa and you'll find it, or something similar from a different manufacturer. It's super processed, and isn't quite as flavorful as some cocoas -I'd try to use a little chocolate extract to boost flavor in some recipes. Also, a little black food color will probably be helpful in some cases, like cakes. Flavor wise, there are a lot of extractsand oils which are clear and can be used to flavor creams, icings and fillings. Here are some random ideas: fruit tarts: black cocoa cookie shell, stabilized chantilly cream (maybe flavored with pear essence or orange flower water), topped with glazed blackberries and black grapes and peeled thinly sliced pears or apples (only use types with white flesh) Battenburg cake: use a white sponge cake recipe and a chocolate sponge recipe, work cocoa into marzipan for the icing black cocoa cookie with macadamia nuts, half dipped in white chocolate entremet with layers of cocoa mousse and white mousse (coconut, vanilla, white chocolate flavor) with crispy layers of macadamia nut crunch and black cocoa cookie, dark chocolate glaze on top marshmallows have a good white color, they could be served half-dipped in dark chocolate Italian buttercream also has a nice shiny white color, this would be useful for whoopie pies, mini cupcakes, mini cake slices, etc. meringues are a lovely white, they can be used alone, sandwiched with black cocoa buttercream, and, used for mini-pavlovas with blackberries and black grapes if frozen desserts are possible: coconut sorbet and chocolate sorbet, fleur de lait gelato with chocolate chips, black liquorice ice cream and vanilla ice cream -cups or cones can be made with the black cocoa, or dipped in white chocolate you can buy white or dark chocolate cups (and swirled ones) and make a quick candy or dessert, say, pipe an orange flavored white ganache into a dark cup, or put lychees in them, etc. white and dark chocolate curls are an easy garnish

Were you trying for that multicolor effect, or were the tops behind the transfer supposed to be solid chocolate? (I am assuming the transfer colors were just white and blue.)

Amen. I'd rather eat nothing than a big bowl of ersatz. I know someone who always said he hated whipped cream and did not want it on his desserts. One day, he was where I worked and I handed him a sample of chantilly from the mixer. He loved it, absolutely adored it. Turns out, he grew up in a household that served the ersatz all the time, slathered onto everything sweet, and he never liked the taste -he also felt that it obscured the deliciousness of the actual dessert. Pie was better without it, Jell-o was better without it, etc. I prefer to serve real foods, especially since I serve food professionally to the public. I find it extremely condescending for anyone to attempt to control another person's diet without a directive to do so when they aren't a physician or primary caregiver. Practicing medicine without a license is not the moral high ground here. (as the ex-wife of a doctor, I know a wee little bit about this) I'd be really upset if someone replaced real food with white fluff at my meal. Once again though, I don't understand those who need to slather every dessert with a white foam that more often than not masks the flavor of the dessert it is obscuring. If the dessert is bad, don't serve it. If the dessert is delicious, let it shine on its own. I don't understand why any feels that it's important to have a white foam on a plate at any cost. If the dessert relies on whipped cream, like a mousse or Strawberries Romanov, then just serve the real whipped cream/chantilly for what it is and let individuals decide how much they wish to eat, if they eat it at all. Making an ersatz version doesn't do anyone any favors, and makes checking dietary charts and such for those on special diets more difficult. For example:looking up whipped cream in a chart for diabetics is easy, checking every recipe for whipped, milk and milk-like products not so much. And, since real whipped cream is lower on the glycemic index than most recipes I saw online, it might be preferable to non-fat, sugary whip -at least for diabetics. Now, I have worked professionally as a consultant for a group of diabetics and had my recipes tested for actual numbers, so it is what I am most familiar with in terms of special, dietetic foods. That said, it drives me nuts when lay people think they know what's best for patients and cook them meals without any formal education on the subject. (Dunning-Kruger effect in action) So, before going out and making what you personally think people 'need' you might want to stop and ask yourself why you imagine that the real food is bad, and why you think serving an imitation of that bad food is a good thing -when in fact you could simply serve a different real food (warm fruit compote? cheese & nut plate?) that has all of its flavor and appeal intact.

Read THIS NYT article about wine and cooking. It's my favorite wine review of all time, btw.

Also, try brushing the tops with chicken fat instead of butter.

I use powdered milk in breads, and I recognize that it has uses for feeding people who don't have access to fresh milk. I was referring specifically to the whipped topping recipe when I said this is something I know how to make but, wouldn't serve. Sure, if it were 100 years ago and I were poor and had 5 kids to feed and regular milk was tainted, I'd feed them powdered milk. But, I seriously doubt that I'd be using rare and expensive fresh lemons (definitely not available year-round when I was a child in the 60s) and expensive sugar to whip it into a foam topping with an electric mixer chilled in a freezer. I suspect that there wouldn't be much dessert available to be topped, and not a lot of time available to spend garnishing those desserts because I'd be working 4 jobs to be able to afford to buy the mixer and frdige and keep the electricity turned on. I just don't see this topping elevating any dish in the modern era. I understand that quite a few people posting in this thread believe otherwise. I agree that CoolWhip falls into the category of foodlike substances which I could happily live the rest of my life without. I don't like it, it is nothing like real whipped cream, or chantilly, and I don't see how it improves anything. I am mystified by people who slather it onto every dessert they eat, I always wonder what they're trying to cover up. IMO, a great pie, or any dessert, should be able to stand on its own.

I seriously doubt that powdered milk whipped with sugar and lemon juice ever comprised the sole food option for americans. I'd rather have no whipped topping on a dessert than something that wasn't worthwhile. I've never been the sort of person who just slaps whipped cream on top of every dessert. (Even though I grew up on a small farm where we bartered our beef and red raspberries for delicious Jersey milk and cream from the next door neighbors, and, I owned my own Jersey cow for a few years.) Honestly I'd probably never miss whipped cream if its sole function were just as a topping. (I don't drink coffee, so, the charm of those elaborate 1200 calorie breakfast drinks is lost on me.) I'd rather have no dessert than a weak one and adding weird tasting whipped fluff on top won't improve anything. If I had trouble getting access to cream for whipping, I'd make make baked apples, or a cake, or a berry cobbler for dessert rather than a mousse. This stuff falls into a category of fake and insubstantial foods that I could easily forgo thinking about for the rest of my life. (Other members of the category, for me, include fat-free margarine and artificial sweeteners.)

I did not say they were invented in SF in the 60's, Jatyes, go back and read my post. It was during WW2, as I posted earlier, in the early 1940s (42 they think), and, I met the woman who invented it. And, yes, the Fritos distributor caught onto it really fast and was promoting it in early 1940s signage. The Fritos people were also selling the pie at Disneyland in the beginning, as they were one of the first vendors at the park. Now, it's not the most complex idea, and, I don't doubt that it would be possible for multiple people to have done the same thing. Catch is, especially in TX, the chips were being sold and marketed as a side dish for lunches at luncheonettes where the main dish was a sandwich. Even at Woolworth's, the chile was sold out of a window, not inside, because it was a cheap food being sold to people who could not afford the full lunch in the cafe.

Did you dock the pastry before baking? It does sound a lot more like the cream had a void, though.

Even without the freezing question ( I suggest you make a small sample and freeze it as a test, it should be ok, but different types and brands of cheese can act differently) the baking part worries me. Even if it were made fresh, I'd worry about the sauce getting watery during baking. This project is similar to making macaroni and cheese, except that cauliflower won't act like macaroni. Can you assemble the sauce and fully cook the cauliflower offsite, then mix and place in a chafing dish to keep warm?

If you are concerned about holding pasta, tossing it in some gremolata (lemon peel only, no juice) and a little olive oil will help it not stick together if held warm. If you go with marinara sauce, serve it on the side. If it were tossed together, the acid would degrade the pasta over time. Gremolata alone with some veggies would also be delicious.

This stuff falls into the category of something I know how to make but would never actually serve unless it was specifically requested.

JohnT, I have countertop issues myself. I got a small wooden base from Pampered Chef that works well, they sell it as an accessory for their apple peeler. It would probably be fairly easy for someone with woodworking tools to make, too.

I know that in early seasons of the show, before LCK, not every eliminated chef would return to help out during the finals or some other event. I'd give him the benefit of the doubt, could just be personal issues or a job opportunity, etc. That said, someplace on the Bravo website IIRC he admitted that the competition was far tougher than he imagined and he was in over his head.

Andie, I do know of one very specialized use for the electric wok: keeping boiled sugar warm so that you can use a pot of it in liquid form. -Like the caramel sugar needed for a croquembouche, gateau st honore, or the sugar for making a big batch of spun sugar, or maybe caramel sugar nut spikes. I actually picked one of these up cheap at a thrift shop when I was in culinary school just for sugar work. It works well and the shape is economical in that as you use the sugar up, the pool becomes smaller and less winds up wasted on the sides. That said, you need to make sugar showpieces, croquembouche, nut spikes, or spun sugar every once in a while to justify the owning the wok.

You can whip nonfat powdered milk into a topping. Here's a recipe.

Looks to me like a product that was shot out of a cereal gun then sprayed with a sugar coating, like the sweetened puffed wheat or rice breakfast cereals.

The closest you can get is to make candies with the method that gumdrops are made. (agar doesn't work well in candies, I tried, and you'd see lots of them and they don't exist) Candies like Swedish Fish and Fuzzy Peaches are made like gumdrops, and, if the sugar is vegan they are vegan.

That's reported cases of the public becoming ill from eating in restaurants, right? Because in 2011 in just one case, eight people were hospitalized with botulism -but all eight were prison inmates in the Utah State prison. (they were sickened by a batch of pruno, which someone had tossed an old, foil wrapped baked potato into)

Yes, you should be able to do so pretty much indefinitely -unless it gets burnt or is exposed to water.

You could also pour hot sugar into them to make hard candy, to use as decoration or just fancy treats. If you pipe it in carefully, you can get some nice multicolor effects. Since the shapes are natural, even if the mold bends a little, it shouldn't matter.