gfron1

Our town has had a bike tour for about 15 years and this year scored a major coup by having a competing race fold due to loss of sponsorship (Chrysler), and obtaining a multi-year deal for a major sponsor of their own. The result is that we'll have one of the largest and most prestigious races in the country, and one that international racers come to because it is a great training race for the Tour de France. With all of that, I want to honor our visiting teams by making Paris-Brests. From all that I can tell, its just a choux ring with pastry cream filling. Easy enough. But has anyone seen any unique recipes or designs that might be helpful? Thanks.

It has taken me a while to respond to my friend, but I did so this morning. Something about his use of "pun" really bothered me. I very much disagree that I'm presenting jokes, and puns aren't too far off from jokes. So here at long last is my response, to which I assume he will present an even more pointed response

Check out the Cookbook & References Index, but my current favorites that fit your category: Hermè's (Greenspan) books (old and new) Iuzzini's new book

Larry - whenever I get wedding cake requests my standard response is "I'm not a decorator, and I'll do anything but a wedding cake because a wedding cake is about memories and there are others more adept in that arena." Unfortunately, that normally makes them want me more so I show them my cakes and that still doesn't persuade them. The problem is everyone else's cakes are like Wal-Mart cakes so in a couple of instances I have made the cake and subcontracted the decorating to someone more handy with a piping bag.

Here's what I ended up doing - a hell of a lot of spray and flour, and a couple of strips of parchment in my silicone mixing bowl. Sure enough it lifted right out, but the parchment didn't leave a clean enough finish. I'm going to try smaller strips of parchment and a different recipe - I wanted honey cake for this version which is especially dense and sticky. And this is the effect that I was going for:

Here's the final product - I, like Tri2Cook, do not claim any skill beyond a kindergartener when it comes to decorating cakes...but it was very tasty Grapefruit shortbread, black tea infused honey cake with szechuan peppercorns, white chocolate with szechuan, grapefruit bavarois, celery mousse and celery gelee: The whole process is at my blog.

a friend recently gave me a flourless choc cake that was beyond incredible but I don't have a recipe...might be on google.

Yeah - no worries. To me this is all about brainstorming. Lots of cool fun ideas, but at the end of the day who knows what will stick. I want to push into new territory like I do with my food, so the more outlandish the idea, the better...at this point in the process. My next stop is my uber-geek friend who will know about all of the gadgets that have yet to hit the market.

Today I'm thinking about lasers and fiber optics...not sure how they play into things yet.

Here's the recipe I recently used: To make 2.1oz / 60g of gavottes (lace crepes) 1/3 cup (80ml) whole milk 2/3 Tbsp (8g) unsalted butter 1/3 cup – 2tsp (35g) all-purpose flour 1 Tbsp / 0.5 oz (15g) beaten egg 1 tsp (3.5g) granulated sugar ½ tsp vegetable oil 1. Heat the milk and butter together until butter is completely melted. Remove from the heat. 2. Sift flour into milk-butter mixture while beating, add egg and granulated sugar. Make sure there are no lumps. 3. Grease a baking sheet and spread batter thinly over it. 4. Bake at 430°F (220°C) for a few minutes until the crepe is golden and crispy. Let cool.

Thank you. I'll make a second batch this morning - it'll just have a shorter ferment.

Besides mirror glaze, THIS is my favorite cheat. Its just the ol' orange exotic cake that's built upside down in a spring form. I can't edge or pipe worth crap, so I do this and you all think I know what I'm doing

I've never made injira before and I'm doing a recipe that says 1 lb of teff flour with 3 C. warm water and some yeast. I expected it to be like pancake batter, but its very, very watery. Is this correct? I'm giving it the 24 hour ferment time right now so I can redo if I need to.

you're looking at it. help me decorate it and I'll show you the guts

Wanna decorate my cake for me? I'm just wiped after a long couple of weeks of great sales and I've been dorking around with this cake for far too long and quite simply I don't care how it looks anymore - have you ever finished a product just so you can post it here? Well, this is mine. Its going to be great, but it definitely needs those final touches. So here's what I have from bottom to top: grapefruit shortbread very thin layer of 85% tempered chocolate honey cake with black tea and szechuan peppercorns grapefruit mousse celery mousse celery geleè The theme is really the grapefruit, but the celery will be right behind it. So, any suggestions? I'll do whatever you tell me to as long as I have the ingredients. Thanks.

I recently did a dish where I used corn start dusting to create a binding. The thought was the moisture would make it sticky, and the cooking would solidify it somewhat - worked like a charm.

I'm working my way through those recipes starting with Marmish's - good stuff. I made some modifications to suit my tastes. The only other update is that I also now have 2 or 3 yogurts every morning which has been good, and I'm walking away from the kitchen to eat my lunch.

I didn't make that comment, but I'll respond to your response. How chefs position themselves says a lot about their style of cooking, and more importantly, what style their book is. So when I read the comment about it appealing to housewives, it raised a concern about whether the book was the appropriate style for what I'm doing. Its not geared toward housewives btw. This book is geared toward the apt home cook and young pros.

In our area this has translated in the recent months into no baked goods at our farmers market that weren't created in a commercial kitchen, and no eggs except from registered poultry growers. And I'm like you that I want safety, but where have we lost common sense.

Its okay - I get it all the time b/c my screen name. The menu gets voted on today by the organization.

What's scary is people have always said I look like Max Headroom (thanks for reviving my childhood teasing!) Last night a friend suggested that we find a parallel site and skype teleconference the two meals on large screen tvs. Using the conference technology the large screen would be the attendees, in two smaller screens it would show the two chefs, and running graphics of the dish. Interesting idea. My first thought was that it doesn't enhance the meal, but as others have said, it would enhance the meal through expanding the social element. That leads me to think about the old TRL on MTV where they had running chat on the bottom of the screen.

Not enough veggies and fruit...I thought I had a nice balance (I am short of fruit). The spring rolls are actually salad rolls so they're filled with veggies plus the slaw, potatoes...but the fact that you're perceiving it that way means my guests might also. Nakji's suggestion of crudite might just fit the bill then...as far as the Korean items, I'm not even familiar with those so I would have to do my homework.

Twitter came up last night when I brought my geek spouse into the discussion. Admittedly its a tech that I haven't embraced yet. But it did get me thinking about the parallels between meals like this and walking through a museum or listening to an orchestra. In each instance we reach for peaks, stimulus, rest periods, etc. At all of my past meals I've taken a few opportunities to come out and talk to the crowd - at points that I think they need a sensory shift/rest. I could achieve the same effect through twitter or such where I send out my motivation or inspiration behind a dish. Another caution that I want to keep in mind is that I don't want to give too much info away because the man behind the curtain is more fun than seeing him pull the levers, so achieving a healthy balance is what I'm going for.

OMG! That is too perfect! I didn't mention this because I'll start a different topic as I get closer t the event, but the theme will be urban legends. I also love the interactive food blogging experience idea. As for Chris' screen on every table...I'll have to think about how I might set this up. Now I'm thinking this might be a fun project to partner with the local college on. Google Earth is another super idea!

That sure is a subjective question. The reason I created the dulce de leche was because sugar cream was a bit over the top for most people, so the sweetness was tempered some.