gfron1

what would the proportions be for the Isomalt/fondant/glucose caramel, I'm not seeing it anywhere. Never mind, just found it

I just froze my boiling liquid in my ice cream maker - wow! Basically 8 gallons or so of water that had chocolate leach into it for six hours, boiling down to 4 cups of liquid. It was very thick and while it was warm a threw in a few sheets of gelatin for good measure. It was so intensely rich with just a hint of the white truffle. Very good. And no waste - see how environmentally friendly I am

i didn't read the story as the reviewer was there to do a review, just that she was there and was a friend of the owners.

I'm working on something similar and I'm trying pouring the sugar on a hot baking sheet with silpat to allow me more time to spread.

Pasta 150g Wheat Flour 50g Semolina 2g Salt 3 Eggs 40g Powdered Sugar 50g Cocoa Powder, Natural 1C. Sugar Whisk the flour, semolina and salt together. In separate bowl combine eggs, powdered sugar and cocoa. Pour egg mixture into dry ingredients and combine with a wood spoon and then fingers and work until thoroughly combined. Form into a ball, wrap in saran wrap and let it sit for a couple of hours or overnight. Ganache: 150g Heavy cream 300g Chopped 70%+ Chocolate 15g White truffle oil (add more if you want it more intense) Pour cream in a measuring cup and microwave until just starting to bubble. Immediately pour the chocolate in the cream and let rest for one minute. Using a small silicone spatula combine until shiny. As soon as you have a good sheen, add the oil and continue whisking/folding until thoroughly incorporated. Let rest until firm (one hour in the fridge or 3 hours on the counter). Then fill your ravioli and boil in sugar water. Full details are at my blog HERE

If you count out the ones that burst during boiling, then they turned out really well. I would have liked a slightly more refined pasta (you can see how crude/rough it is), but otherwise, when you bit into the center and it oozed truffle ganache, and with the slight acidity of the orange...nice combo.

Wow, have I ever been uninspired probably because of fatigue. I've got to get this skeleton of this menu done today so I can get my food order in for the week (small town perils - we don't have daily food deliveries). My dinner is already sold out so I need to get moving on this. Enough whining...a menu coming soon for you to pick apart.

Here's the end result - thanks for your help everyone. 240 of these suckers were sent out!

I have three things that are working - and apparently I'm the only restaurant in town that's staying steady. My food suppliers say that everyone else is way down. 1. Ethnic specials are part of my regular menu - I rotate weekly between Cajun (I also do the muff as well as chicken maque choux), Korean (bibimbop), Thai (a basic curry over rice and tom ka gai), and Greek (gyros and moussaka). This regular change up at an affordable price keeps them coming in for variety. 2. Meals to go - now some 40% of my business since I added it. I started with bison meatloaf, bison lasagne, salads, sushi and quiche (my best, best seller). In the past week I've added a rotating ethnic meal to go that is a complete meal (includes salad and sweet). Last week was lamb tagine, this week is bento box, Spanish lamb stew then gumbo for mardi gras week. 3. Classes - again, I was doing this before, but its become even more important as people focus on home cooking. I offer a class every other Sunday (my cafè closed day) and they have sold out ever since I started them. We have a restaurant that is competition for us and they've been advertising reduced prices and a new sushi day. I haven't seen an impact. My reaction was, "sure, reduced prices means reduced sizes." Not sure if its true, but its my reaction.

Here is said box. I'm not using the ribbon - that was just a try out. And to cap off this story, someone bought one of my butterscotch cheesecakes in a box and as they were walking to the counter, the cheese cake dropped out of the bottom into her purse. I accused her of shoplifting and gave her a freebie.

delish as ever isomer! And what clean edges (now I'm just harassing you!). Here are a few recent things. Butterscotch cheesecake Inspired by something I had by Adrian Vasquez at Providence, White truffle infused ganache inside of chocolate pasta with blood orange reduction and cracked pepper. And with the same ganache, I made this lil treat

Absolutely not. We have a restaurant in town that's been known to follow people down the street and into other businesses to find out why they tipped so low. The fact that they did that answers the question in my book. If the customer wants to tell you, and you've made it possible for them to (a friendly manager, attentive serve, comment cards), then they will.

midway through the event, and with a small lull in the crowd, these ideas really helped. One issue I didn't anticipate is that my water is so brown and the steam so intense that I can't see my raviolis to find them when their cooking time is up. I've learned to count the in and out.

I love Valrhona - super dark and super strong.

great suggestions. I'm one hour from the event so I'm going give both ideas a quick trial run.

File this in the 'waited til the last minute' box. Today is our town's annual chocolate fest. I've done a chocolate ravioli filled with white truffle infused ganache. Tastes great, looks cool, and i've figured my boil time at 8 minutes. But, here are my questions: First, until you bite into the creamy center the flavor is kinda bland. I didn't salt the water. I did try a sugar boil which was a bit better. Any suggestions to improve the outer taste which will be the first impression? Second, I have to do 240 of these so I feel like I need to pre-boil then do a last second revive. I've never had to do this in a mass production setting. What's the best technique to keep it from getting soggy and bringing it back quickly? thanks

you're picturing it correctly, but unless the dessert is frozen, you wouldn't be able to reach in and grab the base board. I'll be posting a pic tonight with how I'm using them now. I also wondered if I couldn't market it on its side - not as pretty, but easier to get the dessert out.

A bit pricey. My cubes worked out to be .37 each which is easily added to the cost of what I'm putting in them.

The reason that Eileen gives is why I avoid parchment, especially as thin as I'm getting. Try the towel on your next use and see what you think.

Its not been my favorite book. I always have to consider that my elevation is the problem, but of the 10 or so recipes I've made, none have been quite right. This morning I tried the pistachio rose cookies, which tasted good, but again, they didn't bake quite right. I do like it because its offering something slightly different in terms of flavor profiles.

Increasingly I've been rolling things out between two silpats. In particular, my torta de acietes have been going gangbusters, so much so that I was approached by some local investors to mass produce (my answer was no). The two silpat method works great for this because I don't have time to deal with the stickiness, and I get a very uniform thinness. This morning my silpats were sliding around on the countertop so I put a towel underneath. The result was an even thinner product. This has allowed me to get nearly paper thin - literally. Is anyone else doing this type of roll out?

In many US states there are home-based food business laws. I can't remember what its called, but in some states you can do some food processing up to a certain amount. I found a post at lawguru.com that said it can't be done, but I do believe this is a state-by-state basis so it might be worth asking a state appropriate question. Or just cut out the middle-lawyer and call your health dept.

I wonder if I could deconstruct an artichoke, make a center out of...something...but then reattached the artichoke petals. According to the food pairing site HERE, artichokes go well with trout - I could do a trout mousse base.

Yes and in fact I'm packaging cookies in them right now, and I've been thinking it would be fun to do a marshmallow cube in there - 3 x 3 x 3 of choc, vanilla and straw...or something like that, to make it look like a rubics cube.

So I just bought THESE clear cubes to sell my pastries in (mostly 3" mousses, etc) and they are sexy as hell, allow me to display in the freezer or cooler (and counter although I haven't yet), in other words I love them. Except one thing. How the hell is the customer supposed to get the dessert out of the box?! You can't. We had to open the bottom and carefully pull the dessert out - and you know how fragile mousse is. I'll keep using them for now, but its apparently not my solution.