[Purpose of yeast in homemade rootbeer]

Adminstrative apologies...I thought the pastry group would know best about the taste effects of yeast, versus the beverage thread folks...and I am posting this here to pull it out of my previous thread on hot rootbeer desserts since this is a very specific question.

and now the question...

In making rootbeer from scratch, the recipes call for cake yeast. I assume the purpose is for carbonation, and some basic googling confirmed that, but I'm not so sure I believe that is the sole effect. I do not want any carbonation, but I do want the flavor to be right. So, do you think that yeast has a flavor impact on rootbeer that I might need to keep it in for?

Thanks

[Hot Rootbeer Dessert]

SA = sodium alginate - little rootbeer caviars

I had thought about the cake at one point - super infusing vanilla into the cake, but have shifted away to a more moist dessert.

[Hot Rootbeer Dessert]

I'm back on this project finally and hope to have it finished this weekend. I have a question for anyone who's made rootbeer from scratch. I have all of the ingredients, but it also calls for yeast cake. What is the purpose of the yeast? My assumption is that it has more to do with carbonation than flavor...is this true?

The dessert is no longer hot. Since I've been playing with sodium alginate, the dessert is SA rootbeer inside of a tuile orb with vanilla foam. It make sense in my head...now will it make sense on a plate!

[Agave Nectar]

I use it fairly regularly and in fact used it in the pastry challenge round 2 for my sage ice cream.

[Marie Antoinette]

The food was gorgeous but it all made me think about athenticity. Did they have gelatin back then? I thought I saw macarons. The pastries were beautiful, but I've seen better on Patrick's postings

[Restaurant economics in the Midwest]

The people that I've known who've gone into the restaurant business have opened their ethnic/quirky restaurants where they live. These are not the folks who are expecting to make a million, rather they want to do what they enjoy. And if you're wondering what type of restaurants will open in a white, middle class suburb, my guess would be chains because the chain has followed the demographic. However, go into any area with a higher ethnic population (even in a suburb) and you'll find the ethnic shops (side-by-side with the chains if it is in a suburb).

For example, we are almost daily asked to open a chain of our store in Las Cruces. We know it would be profitable, and in fact would help business here in our small town because of shared freight costs, but I have no interest in drivng to Las Cruces - let alone 10 miles out of my town.

[Where do you go for breakfast in SF?]

I stayed at the Mosser near the Moscone and it was 3 or 4 blocks away from the Moscone in a little nook, owned by French woman. That's all I remember except that it was wonderful.

[You know you're an EGulleter when...]

...when your dog unexplainedly only begs for fancy meals and ignores you when you make an average or poor meal. (True stuff folks)

[Adventures with sodium alginate]

I understand what you're saying and asked myself the same questions after my chocolate caviar. But, I think there are two things to consider. First, there is the surprise or novelty of the experience which is lost on anyone who reads this thread and has to go through the prep process. Second, for me the accompanying items make all the difference. When I tried my chocolate caviar in test runs, I thought they were good, but nothing special. Then when I put them on the tuille, the texture combination was very interesting. Finally, for me, I would never make them for myself, its more about sharing with someone else (see point 1).

[Dinner II: The Gallery of Regrettable Foods (Part 2)]

good god - why did you have to bring that picture back up! I really didn't need to see that so early in the morning.

[Poisoned! Who do we sue?]

I would slightly modify a previous post...is your goals financial compensation, a free meal, OR helping the restaurant improve so others don't go through what you went through. Why a lawsuit - it sounds like a very American response (embarrassedly joking of course). If you got sick off their scallops, then so did others. If your goal is to help them, then simply go talk to them with that spirit in mind.

[Your Daily Sweets (2005-2012)]

Very nice Filipe. I assume it tasted as good as it looks.

[Adventures with sodium alginate]

I used rice milk, dark chocolate syrup and chocolate extract. The syrup was the key to color and the extract was the key to flavor.

[using glucose/corn syrup in candies]

I could say alien eggs, but its chocolate caviar on a sesame crisp with chocolate pastry cream. All were very good

[Adventures with sodium alginate]

here is what I ended up with. Chocolate caviar on a sesame tuile with a dolop of PH's chocolate pastry cream. It got rave reviews. The key ended up being creating an intense chocolate liquid that wasn't thick. I used rice milk as the base.

[Your Daily Sweets (2005-2012)]

I haven't posted in this thread in ages - busy! But this is something I made for our town's annual Chocolate Fantasia event - it was the hit. Sodium Alginate chocolate caviar, with PH's chocolate pastry cream, and set on a sesame tuile.

[using glucose/corn syrup in candies]

Great timing - I made one yesterday for a dessert I did today. I didn't have glucose so I used wild heather honey from Italy which worked perfectly for what you described - granted I come from a dry environment.

[Chocolate Percentages]

And yet one more thought...

I sell high percentage bars to diabetics because they are typically better for most diabetics than a sugar free bar which has sugar alcohol in them.

[Adventures with sodium alginate]

I made my first trial run last night for an event this weekend. I've been mulling over the many comments on this thread, and especially the concerns about chocolate. So, here is how it went.

I bought my 96 dropper at the site listed above, and got my 35 cc syringe at the local feed store for $1.95US. Heeding the warnings about dairy, I opted to try chocolate soy milk just for practice. It has calcium but not as much. I followed the basic recipe for mango and it worked perfectly.

I don't have a stick mixer yet so I put it in my blender and that seemed to work fine.

I started playing and getting the hang of the process - very easy actually.

After I became bored with dropping singles, I tasted some. The texture was perfect for a 45 second soak - liquid on inside. The taste was too tame for my purposes, so I added some extract. They tasted better, but I'm going to work on different liquids now that I've played a bit. You'll also notice based on comments in this thread, that I dropped the SA mixture into a submerged strainer which I then was able to lift out, and drop into a rinse - I was worried about fragility and this caused minimal harm to the caviar - actually none burst, nor were they tough.

Then I pulled out the 96 dropper. Very easy to use.

And here's the closeup.

Tonight I'm making my back up dessert just in case, and I'll try a new liquid mix. I'm going to try rice milk based dark hot chocolate. I'm also thinking about dusting the top with cocoa. I've also decided to go to a black sesame crisp for the base. More later. Thanks again for the help and comments.

I do want to add one warning based on my biggest mistake. I didn't fully understand proportions for this process so, not wanting to run out for my event, I bought 4 big bags of CaCh from Chef Rubber, which if I use half of one I would suprprised.

[Spring Food Traditions from around the world]

Thanks to everyone...I haven't been ignoring these replies, just waiting for some momentum. (Stepping aside again).

[Adventures with sodium alginate]

Kouign...your comment about not wanting a chocolate jello just registered with me. My thought was based off of a chocolate egg cream soda - if that reference means anything to you, versus a thick chocolate caviar. So, I'm expecting a chocolate pop in the mouth - actually 10 per bite. BTW, my backup plan is to reverse the order and do a chocolate mousse with mango caviar, but what fun would that be

[Electric Fruit and Vegetable Juicers]

Champion brand seems to have the best success reviews that I've found.

[Adventures with sodium alginate]

OK - this thread feels so 2006 after having read it again but, my equipment is finally in and I'm ready to try out my idea. No pressure, but the event I'm preparing for is in 10 days!

So my concept is to take a basic tuille dusted with cinnamon, allowed to harden/cool over a dowel to give it a spoon shape. I'm going to then dip the bottom of the tuille in tempered chocolate for flavor and sturdiness. A mango mousse on top of the tuille. The mousse will then be decorated with chocolate caviar.

Alright, that said, I have read and re-read this thread and with only one posting that says you can do chocolate, no one else has tried it yet. If dairy and chocolate are problematic, I can do chocolate extract and soy or rice milk possibly. Anyway, I'll be playing nightly starting tonight, and any comments/thoughts/warnings not previously posted here are appreciated.

And for the record, my head hurts trying to sort through all of this info.

[Spring Food Traditions from around the world]

Thanks Miriam - of course I'd love to see the dandelion beer recipe! In fact, maybe you can post it in recipe gullet.

[Spring Food Traditions from around the world]

As some of you know, I own an international grocery in the middle of nowhere, and I want to throw a Spring party for our customers in early April. What are some of the food traditions from across the US and around the world? I've heard of fall traditions, but surely there are Spring traditions as well.