gfron1

What would be an example of an elegant classic French dessert?

Prickly Pear Tuna Sake

PaulRaphael is thinking foil, and I am thinking soil. I would plate them on/with a chocolate soil - finding the right % to match with the ice cream.

Here's the recipe I used: 120 g Cream 145 g Water 160 g Sugar 60 g Cocoa (I used Valrhona) 12 g Gelatin (I used silver cause its what I had) Cream, sugar and water to a boil, add cocoa and bring to boil. Cool to 103 F and add gelatin Set in bowl of ice water and bring to 75 F

I found one on a Japanese website that looked even simpler to use, so I did. Cream, water, sugar, cocoa, gelatin. I had all of those ingredients in my cupboard.

I didn't have the time to boil the oranges, so I used a bunch of peel from orange and lemon and boiled in dense sugar for 20 minutes, then added orange juice to get the moisture back to where it should have been.

I made my own and it was very fast, very easy and super tasty. My cocoa was Valrhona, and my gelatin was silver sheets.

I'm bah humbug about special diet foods, but The Old Foodie's recipe in post #3 chronicled in THIS topic is where I got the recipe. It truly was amazing.

The Old Foodie did me right! This was an amazing cake - post #3 above. I ground my own nuts so they were a bit large, but worked fine. Thanks Old Foodie!

A birthday cake for a friend who can't eat wheat (she poofs a lot ). Almond chocolate cake with orange and lemon peel. Its darker than it looks in this picture:

My first try at mirror glaze. I didn't prime the cake with a buttercream so its glaze on cake. Still, I'm pretty happy. My question is though that I had what looked like an oil slick in one section. All I can guess is that when I strained my glaze into a cup to pour onto the cake, either the strainer or the new cup had something in it that led to the slick. No one noticed but me. Any ideas? This was a gelatin glaze. Look! You can see the birthday girl's face!

I think it looks great - and if you had done it the 'easy way', wouldn't that have meant a cake from the grocery store which would have sucked! So good job!

Wow that sound decadently delicious!

If I'm correct, that is the same as Amchur Powder, which, while not commonly available, is findable in Indian stores (and my little market).

Polar Bear - you've heard from a bunch of us, now since you are a student I, for one, would love to hear more about what you're thinking. I know when I ask my intern about desserts, I ask him to brainstorm flavor combinations, textures, traditions, etc. So what's going through your mind about this dessert. Another way for me to say this is that it's easy to take someone else's dessert and replicate, but to make your own is much more fun and rewarding.

I'm not quite sure, but I was thinking of a whole bunch of layers apple, dough, apple, dough... I don't want to construct it in the end - I want it baked in final format.

This has been very helpful - thank you all. We had never thought about business partners - and now we definitely won't. We really just want to lease out the space to him and have tight enough reigns that we feel comfortable. I had not thought far enough out to him having employees because right now it would be just him and just when we are open. But, just as our business has grown, so might his - and we would expect it to if he's housed with us.

I come from a family where my dad fried our pancakes in oil, so I've never been particular for light and fluffy. But, today I used Bittman's light and fluffy recipe, subbed in duck eggs, added a T of walnut oil and decreased the baking powder to 1t. When they were cooking I thought they were going to be terrible - turned out they were the best pancakes I have ever had in my life! And...I didn't even fry them.

Good timing Kerry. I've been playing with an idea for a while now that involves pastry layers in between apples (haven't figured out how to keep them crisp, or at least non-soggy, yet). Unfortunately I'll be stuck with whatever my big box market has for apples.

They'll be fine as a sauce just harder to work with - meaning removing the skin.

Not ideal, but doable. The problem with the wait, is that all of that steam is going to lead to fairly slimy chiles. If she can freeze (after bringing them to room temp) them that might help. I would also suggest having her switch bags at the end of today so the moisture is taken out.

Looking forward to the rest - thanks for posting your trip!

I think bringing him on as an employee is a great suggestion...if he'll go for it. He's owned his own restaurant so ego may drive that decision. The win-win is that we get his experience and he gets a space without the facility hassles. Many of your concerns are ones we've talked through (you've given me some new ones) and some are manageable through a good contract. We've looked at this like a marriage...and ultimately a divorce. But there's often a fight that leads to that divorce isn't there. Thanks for the drug inspired feedback

I've been sitting on a bottle of durian extract for over a year...I have no idea what I'm going to do with it.

I'm very happily operating a gourmet and international grocery in the middle of nowhere. We've been in the black from day one (I don't know how that happened) and have received accolades from across the country. We've recently added cooking classes which have all been sell-outs, and started monthly international themed dinners to tie in with our local international film society movies. These latter forays into prepared foods have had people looking at us differently, and now everyone who considers themselves a chef and didn't have their own kitchen wants to partner with us. The chef who is doing many of our classes wants to do gourmet to go - which she will be great at - but she only wants to do dinners. Another person approached us to do paninis and deli-counter foods (high end to match our store). He has an impressive resume (which we will confirm) such as managing a San Fran Whole Foods deli counter. I asked him to make a proposal which was only conceptual. I was hoping to get a business plan that talked finances, insurance, marketing, facility maintenance and upgrades, etc. Part of our mission is to incubate local food businesses, so I'm not totally scared by his weak response since I will now make sure he thinks about these matters. Has anyone done this before? Any warnings you have for us, or positive suggestions? I want to be very careful writing up our agreement just in case they don't work out, so as to minimize the impact on our solid reputation. Thanks in advance.