filipe

Ok... I'll try to answer all your questions. This is an anual event, this was its 8th edition. There are monks, there are nuns, but most of the pastry makers there are professionals. It's open to everyone (who pays for his space, i suppose) who presents pastries or licquors made according to ancient monastery recipes and traditions. The most common thing about this kind of recipes - because many of them have centuries of age - is that they're quite basic on the ingredients they use : eggs (mostly yolks), sugar, almond, nuts. I guess that I can say that more than a half of what was there was based on combinations of these ingredients. I've tried a few different ones...although many of them are easy to find on a daily basis at portuguese pastry shops (jackal please PM me according to that subject, I'll help you with some places where you can go) Eggs and different stages of syrup allow you to create a lot of shapes and to obtain several results. You can check for example my post on "egg-wraps" Those you've called "foytong" are here called "Divina Gula" which means Divine Craving... And then you have egg "chestnuts", "nun's tummies", "angel's throats", and so on... (a mix of porn & religious names...)

I guess I don't want to change a thing about the gelee : it tastes fine, easily set up, nice colour... my question now is about assembling combinations to use it, as it has a really strong champagne flavour - easily goes with savory food, but not that easy with sweet/pastry items

Great Challenge ! I just saw this now, but today I've tried my so desired champagne gelee. (already posted a picture)... and my conclusion was that indeed it's not easy to assemble the champagne flavour in a pastry item...so this challenge comes right in the exact time for some answers/solutions. And I bet dejaq will offer us great results! As for the citrus... YUZU sounds like a very nice "pair" for champagne...

During the last 4 days, up until yesterday, at this place called Alcobaça, here in Portugal (120km north of Lisbon), where there is a huge 12th century gothic monastery there has been a Monastery Pastries & Licquors meeting. As one picture worths for one thousand words I'll leave you with about 9000 words...

I've tried it today 1bottle of champagne (750ml) 100g sugar 6 sheets gelatin water I have made a soft syrup (just let the sugar solve and start boiling) where i had solved the gelatine. Then mixed it with the champagne picture : champagne gelee (with silver sheet in the middle) on a bed of quince jam dusted with cinnamon and milk chocolate It tastes nice, I've enjoyed the combination of flavours between the champagne and the cinnamon. But I don't think this will be easy to use on pastry items. Although it's sweet, it has a very "winy" flavour... Any flavour combinations ideias for a pastry?

Cork is a traditional portuguese product. That is why things get tender while in contact with cork, because we portuguese guys are so tender..

Awesome result would love to taste it I'm also curious whether the sugar container is fragile enough to shatter and eat with the dessert About port wine... I guess that both Sandeman or Ferreira brands are easy to find abroad. Not that they're the bravest, but they're quite fair.

Here in Portugal we use to flavour fruit cake's dough with some Port wine...

The prize was merely symbolic, it was that ceramic piece which is between the two cakes on my 1st photo. If I were not portuguese I would have earned my travel & accomodation expenses... hope some egulleters will apply for this competition next year, at least you'll get a chance to travel for free and participate at this very nice event. There were contestants from Alaska, Poland, Austria, Germany, Croatia, Italy, etc...

Thanks everyone Almost all the recipes I've looked at call for pectin, instead of gelatine or agar, but I don't really know why nor wether to find it. The syrup solution sounds ideal both for using gelatine or agar. Will one be able to notice the champagne bubbles after mixing it with the syrup+gelatine solution or will they "melt" ? I have some silver leaf that I've bought in Paris some time ago...I'll use that instead of gold just to look how it works. If the result looks as expected I'll then buy the gold one. The gold flakes are made from crushed gold leaf, right?

I'm planning on trying some champagne jelly, to use on a future assembled desert. I'm thinking on mixing agar-agar with sugar and champagne, simply that. Will that work? On the other hand I wish to achieve a gold sparkling/glittering effect. Does ayone know any edible product/aditive that will create that sort of effect? Something like Christmas glitter...

You can find mini-marshmallows (american originals) at the Club del Gourmet corner, at El corte Ingles. Look near the cookies and other sweet items, they come in a transparent plastic bag. About the chili and other mexican stuff...why don't ask at a mexican restaurant where they supply themselves? There's one called SIESTA at Alges, on the riverside (near DocaPesca and the Tagus river control tower)

Unexpectly I've won the 1st prize. My competition demonstration didn't went on very well, because the cake wasn´t properly set to be covered with the wasabi ganache (only 20 min in the freeze....) but this turn it went ok, I've made one in advance, which had 3 hours in the freeze by the time it had to be covered. I'm very happy and glad with it. For today's demonstration I've made two different size cakes, one "family-size" and one single. I've used yokan jelly for the decoration For the single one i've used these chocolate-silver dragees, creating this "necklace" effect, which I think owrks nice over the mirror plate I've served it

Yuzu zest/juice (not easy to find the fruit itself but some dried zest and bottled juice can be found at japanese grocery stores) makes a WONDERFUL combination with dark chocolate. Wasabi in the ganache is very good too. Use wasabi powder and instead of water to create the wasabi paste use a little bit of your boiled cream and then mix that paste with the remaining cream. Boil it again and mix with the dark chocolate. Wasabi is nice because its spicy properties are not felt in the mouth but in the nose, like mustard. So that allows you to obtain all the chocolate flavour but with that spicy feeling when tasting. I'm using the wasabi ganache tonight at a chocolate recipes contest, covering a chocolate and green tea mousse layered cake and i really hope the jury feel the same as myself about it eheh

I seem to have read somewhere that for replacing ordinary gelatin for agar-agar I should use half the amount of it (ex: 10g gelatin = 5g agar-agar) Is this true or am I dreaming?

The book will be presented in San Sebastian's "Lo Mejor de la Gastronomia" Congress, which occurs from 20th to 24th November, I guess it will only be available for sale after that. Hope to buy it early December in Madrid It looks awesome And it seems that Paco Torreblanca now has a shop in Madrid, at Juan Bravo St., def/ly a must go

It's very nice to share everyone's local traditions about pastry items, wether it's Christmas, Easter, a wedding, whatever... But i have a different proposal... instead of keep looking backwards why don't this community play an importat role about redefining NEW TRADITIONS? I guess that Christmas is a good oppurtunity for that. What do the 21st century pastry lovers have to offer to the new millenium? (and now for something completely different...) My Challenge to everyone on these forums is : Create a new pastry specially for Christmas, or "refurbish" a traditional christmas pastry bringing it to the present time deadline : december 15th

I suppose it is somehow related with the water from the coffee....

No, just add the matcha powder directly over the melting chocolate, allways stirring. I was afraid it didn't turn out homogeneous but it worked nice.

That's what I did tonight and I'm really glad I did it The colour is a bit "muddy" indeed, but it's pretty close to what i thought to achieve If colours had taste matcha would be the no.1 flavour for green I'm not a big enthusiast of white chocolate. For me it's simply not chocolate. But the final flavour is amazing. I've used 100g white chocolate for 1 tsp of matcha.

Thanks everyone I was avoiding to use food colouring, either paste or not, because i won't have enough time to order it and receive it. I would have to do it through a french or uk supplier and it won't take less than a week. My problem about matcha was not with the flavour - that will work fine because this green chocolate is only for decoration and the base cake already has a matcha mousse layer. What I was afraid was if mixing the matcha powder with the white chocolate paste wouldn't cause any problems for the chocolate to set up, after modeled. Do you think it's safe?

Didn't get your point... oops I'm willing to get green chocolate, solid. I'll start from white chocolate (paste) to reach green chocolate (paste). The question is "how to?"...

Any ideas on how I can turn white chocolate into green? I thought on mixing some matcha green tea while tempering, but I don't know if that will work fine....

Far from being an expert, but I'll do some research and I'll share it. It seems that this year has been a good year in general, not just in the north of Portugal where Alvarinho is produced. About particular wineries... I've discovered one of the best Alvarinhos I've ever tasted this last summer, almost by a random choice (this label looks fine, let's try it...) Got 2 or 3 bottles at home, so I'll tell you its name/origin later, as I can't remind it right now.

Why don't you guys try portuguese Alvarinhos ? ... there's more land beyond Spain ...