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Everything posted by gfron1
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HERE'S a few previous topics that might be useful. And a FEW recipes from RecipeGullet. You might want to look at Ling's Iron Baker challenge in particular.
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Sometimes I just have to laugh at the thoughts that I wake up to... I've been thinking about steam in my sourdough baking, and also about my cheapo standard oven v. my friend's outdoor wood-fired brick oven. What if you took a bunch of wood chips - the ones you use to smoke BBQ, soaked them, put them in a pan in your cheapo oven and used them to steam your bread. I would still do my squirts for high steam content, but I wonder if it would be useful, and if it would impart some type of flavor. Has anyone heard of this technique?
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I'm bumping this topic because a friend has a birthday on Thursday and asked me to make his cake. The only request was vanilla. WTH. Its like the only flavor I have ever not featured! Why not cilantro or celery (I'm a freak). I want to do something fancy not simple. He deserves it and expects it. Any ideas? I'm not sure if I can do something with this - but he loves dark beer, so if I could incorporate that into a dessert that features vanilla I would get brownie points! I'll have to go re-read Mette's Iron Baker challenge.
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Pax - check out my birthday cake from earlier this month. It fits the bill just transposing my mango mousse for chocolate mousse. I also consider myself poor at decorating, but if you read through the responses you'll see a link to the Orange Exotic cake and the super simple decorating trick that i used. Click HERE. And HERE'S a topic on strawberry mousse cake with great tips.
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Two links to keep you busy for a while. First, a Compendum of previous topics in the France Forum. Second, a LIST of all favorite pastry shops around the world in the Pastry & Baking Index. and as a bonus, read Fanny the Fairy's BLOG which just yesterday listed her favorites (she staged/interned at Herme's).
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I guess I'll start off since I am completely coveting your opportunity Chris, and at the same time I'm attempting to find a way to integrate bread production into my hectic daily schedule. Specifically, I'm wanting to bake from my sourdough starter daily as a matter of discipline (and ultimately sales). My question is: This past year seems to be (at least to my learning) the year that we decided to let our doughs sit in the fridge for longer periods of time to ferment and improve in taste. Does chef do this? How does this stack against tradition? And geez, my spouse is going to kill me if I take any more fridge space - tips!?
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Bruiser nudged me enough to make Ong's PB cookies last night as well. I ate one yesterday fresh from the oven, and one this morning for breakfast. They were really good, but I preferred fresh from the oven 10 times more than the day after. Also, I used Maldon instead of Fleur de Sel, which Ong said was an acceptable substitution. I'd like to try them with the Balinese salt pyramids some time for extra textural punch. This is the second browned butter recipe I've made lately (Paul Raphael's ccc in RecipeGullet), and I like that addition, but I have to eat more than one cookie to appreciate it. The first cookie is my scarf cookie which doesn't get tasted, and the second one gets enjoyed. PS - no pics...they looked like cookies, except really big!
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I am more retail grocery than food service, and I'm on a Mac. I use SixthSense POS and love it. They recently did an upgrade which has improved it dramatically for our needs. I know they have a cafe version as well.
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If the regular meal is including fried food, I would suggest not frying the dessert - just too much grease. I would go for things that look fried in that case. Of course you could do the old dessert sushi (couple of topics on that in here), or an old fashioned fish dessert mold (jello, etc.). Basically the same idea, but think dessert tempura if you still want to fry. Sweet batter dipped anything! What about getting a bunch of large oyster-type shells, clean them really well and put a white chocoalte truffle/pearl inside?
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Someone asked why cook for someone who doesn't like it, and I deal with that increasingly every day as I sell more and more of my creations. What I've learned in a short time is that there are days when I want to work the crowd, get my kudos, and head back to the kitchen. On other days when the praise isn't coming, I am thankful for the money they paid, and remember that its a job. I have more former than latter, but its all about keeping perspective. What bothers me more is when I make a super fancy shmancy dessert like paulraphael's browned butter muscovado cookies, and the customers says, "nice cookie." Damn it - its not just a cookie!!!!! I just want to take the cookie out of their mouth and walk back in the kitchen Anyway, I think you're doing a great job and really enjoy seeing the updates.
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A bit of an update. I let the starter go dormant since about the last post (6 months). I love the idea of making sourdough, but the feedings...sheesh! It reminds me of Feed Me Seymour! But I recently read Jackal's ECGI demo on sourdough and it was so easy and logical. So I pulled my starter out 10 days ago. It was pretty nasty looking - a bit of mold too. I stirred carefully and poured a cup into a new jar. I then followed jackal's recommended feeding. It became bubbly again on the third day, and by the fifth literally burst its seems. This jar was half full and it blew the top! So last night I started the process of baking a loaf. And here it is: Its about as good as I could want. I made a few mistakes but nothing that anyone will care about. Namely I turned on the top oven and threw the bread in the bottom one - oops! It gave an extra rise to things. I also would have liked to have baked it a few minutes longer, but this is a perfect texture. An astute observer will notice the bottom being slightly underbaked. That's because my hot stone was in the top oven. Six months later I don't have that super strong sourness that this starter had before, which is unfortunate. My guess is I lost a lot of it in the jar that I dumped out of. So now we'll see if my motivation to keep her alive continues, and if it does I'll work on sourness.
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I freeze everything that I can so I can not worry about the delicate-ness. I have tried the hair dryer and water dip methods. Both work but don't leave the crisp perfections that I look for and doesn't allow me to just grab the pastry with my hands.
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New Mexico does have an official cookie - the Biscocho or Biscochitto. Lots of lard and a hint of anise - delish!
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Someone local will have to say if its still open, but Soul Vegetarian East (there is no West) down near the old Cabrini Greens area was the best vegan food I had ever had back when I went 10 years ago. Vegan normally means just using vegetables, but SVE served down home sould food. I had the ribless short ribs which were made of seitan and they executed them so perfectly that you couldn't tell the difference between a lump of gluten and perfectly BBQd pork ribs. It was outstanding! The neighborhood was rough back then and probably still is, so use judgement, but we cabbed it and did just fine. I just checked and it is still there CLICK. I had forgotten that it was part of the African Hebrew Israelites religion - very friendly group. And for the record, neither I nor anyone in our group was vegan or vegetarian at that time (just adventuresome) and we all loved our meals.
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Oooh yum...caramel coating - great idea! But alas, just a yolk heavy wash. And thanks Alana.
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I haven't made croissants in ages (probably 15 years), but I've been having the urge to do some fundamentals baking lately. I made a few croissants and a few pain au chocolate. Thanks to this topic I made sure they were well baked! There's more chocolate in there than the picture shows!
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Check THIS discussion out. Looks like it might be the same.
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That sure looks like them. But we never cut them, just dropped them like poop.
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What does it say about shipping out? I get my beer from Illinois.
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I don't have the recipe anymore but the memory recipe for me is what we called Shit on a Shingle cookies (we had a savory version of SoaS also). It was cocoa, peanut butter, oats and some other stuff that made it into a refrigerator cookie. I would love a tray of those any time.
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yeah, that was pretty lazy of me wasn't it. Who needs The Pastry Chef's Companion when you have pastrygirl?!
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I know you think those are faults, but I love them! Those lil' squirts would be the first thing I would nibble off.
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Can I ask a potentially dumb question? What's the difference between pudding, custard and pastry cream?
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Access to ingredients maybe. I can crush pistachios, but that wouldn't impart the same flavor. And not living near a major city, I don't have access to all of the fun ingredients that others do. Compounds seem like a good alternative since they have a decent shelf life. In this instance I was using up my Amoretti sampler pack.
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Thanks Torsten. This was for a pistachio mousse that I made this weekend. It was a huge hit - I went on the strong side which was almost too much. I can understand your comments for fruits and some other flavors, but what about nuts? Is the taste difference still there?