chefette

I would be concerned that if you thought marshmellow hardened up too much to be a pleasant filling then the nougat would really be too much. I guess I would talk to your son about what aspects of the 3 Muskateer filling he likes best: Its flavor or is he attracted to the sweetness or to the sort of fluffy/chewiness. For a good filling consistency I would think that maybe you would be best off going with a mousse or maybe a french buttercream or even (shhh) a milk chocolate malt flavored whoopie pie type filling - you know with the crisco and marshmellow and powdered sugar. Might be cool to actually make the cake more of a milk chocolate, coat with a dark milk chocolate glaze, pre-slice and then top each slice with a tiangle of tempered chocolate leaning on a rosette of the filling - even use the tiny bite size 3 Muskateers as a decor piece on each slice

What is the main difference between the cakes and pastries that you are making and giving/selling now (after becoming a professional pastry person) from the cakes and pastries that you made and gave prior to your education? My experience has been that since becomming a pastry person the types of things I make, the ingredients I use, the techniques involved, and the time invested have changed and make many items lesss inviting and accessible to people who would be interested in the recipe. When someone asks me for a recipe it does depend on who they are, how they ask, how convenient it is for me to provide the recipe, my assessment of the person's ability to obtain the ingredients and master the techniques, muster the patience to pursue it. I think it is great when someone responds so enthusiastically to something special that you have created and like it so much that they want to do it themselves. I feel bad though that frequently people want recipes for things that are a bit out of the ordinary: that involve gelatin sheets, almond flour, couverture; that require tolls that many people just don't have laying around; that are composed of several recipes, that require skills and timing, that take hours to complete. When I was preparing for a competition and creating a special cake I basically forced everyone I knew to accept one, to sample some and a few people liked it so much they wanted the recipe. If it were only that simple. Which exact iteration of the cake did they try? Can they get the ingredients? Once they know what is involved will they follow through and make it? I have been so committed to supporting others in their efforts to recreate something I did that I have given them pre-measured ingredients all set to go so that they had as little excuse not to do it as possible. I also checked back frequently to see how they did. Alas I expect thos dry ingredients are all sitting in their plastic bags in the back of someone's pantry. I guess its sort of embarassing - like explaining exactly all the time and effort you put into styling your hair, getting made up - sometimes you just don't want people to know how much work went into something when it appears so beautifully effortless. I believe that the odds of having something (hahahahaha) patentable are pretty slim. Now, if you are in a position where a recipe or presentation is something that you are on the verge of unveiling in a magazine spread or a forthcoming book, or competition or some such thing then maybe you delay giving out that recipe - but even then, the chances that providing this information to someone else will somehow have a direct influebce on you are slim. I typically find that I am a much more enthusiastic giver of information than people are recievers of it. I consider it a huge success when I learn that against all odds someone who never even heard of an opera cake before a) loves it enough to want to make it b) is undaunted by the ingredients, techniques, time required to produce one c) actually follows through and makes something using the recipe I gave them when I really doubted that they completely understood the explanation about making it. I have also found that this actually cements their relationship to me as a professional and indeed does not set them free of me. They may start making their own opera cakes but now they trust me as a guide in further exploration.

Chocolate puff pastry is the answer substitute about 15% of the flour in the dough package with cocoa powder and prepare puff as usual I have an actual recipe but it is not currently accessible

Would every day have to be Brittish tea room day? How about mixing things up and one or two days a week do s japanese tea room day with japanese teas, sweets and such, likewise Chinese, and Indian Then you can do monthly coffee and cake days ala France, Germany, or Italy

The cake is not really a complete standalone - are you serving it with/in a sauce? Use the cake as a component in a more involved dessert. The deep chocolate notes of the chocolate can compliment a couple of other sweeter and/or acidic flavors - like sweet raspberry compote with a rich creamy anglaise or custard

You should redo it I have been teaching my cousin some pastry and she has done a really good job - very adept, last year she made a really nice ice cream cake for her son's birthday - made the ice cream herself, made the cake and filled it with a tunnel of the ice cream - very nice job, then frosted the whole thing with italian meringue buttercream that she made using salted butter - it was HORRIBLE, practically inedible. People will smile and eat what they can manage - but trust your senses - and you say that it comes through as salt - so don't believe that it will be any different for your guests - and that is not the take away message you want them to have of your work. You want to pursue pastry more professionally - so take the professional approach here and fix it, do it right.

Patric is referring to microwaving pastillage - which is one way to create a sort of fluffy coarl looking sugar effect. I believe that what you are thinking of is achieve by pouring the sugar syrup over ground ice, or cubed ice - its fun since different ice shapes and sizes affect teh appearance. You are not really doing a simple syrup as such, but cooking sugar for poured or cast sugar then pouring it into a bucket filled with ice. In France someone told me they did something like that using a container of oil that they had cooled in the freezer - but that may have been speculation and not factual. this might not be the best use of your vanuance pearls and I would discourage that. I would also discourage you from using isomalt - for cost reasons. Try with a good poured sugar recipe at least to test and see if you like the results Now I do need to qualify this respinse by saying that I have not actually tested this procedure. I think that Nightscottsman may have done this at the French pastry School. Also, it may be cobered in the posts from Sklinsky (?) who attended the Uster sugar clas with Anil Rohira If that does not work out you might try some other approaches - depending on what exactly you need to do and what you are trying to achieve. You could do cast sugar in sugar where you pour the sugar into a tub of granulated sugar and gently work it around. Its really beautiful and provides a great structural element in a showpiece - the drawback is that it is fairly unpredictable since each time you do it - the result will be unique. If that doesn't suit your requirements - you could try other approaches with pulling, blowing, and pouring

Looking at the photo you posted - those cakes are definitely naked - and I did not see that any were cracked If its worth doing this - keep trying and go for the gold! Good luck

Well, competition being what it is - it is never a good idea (if you want to win) to allow any variable that could be construed as a mistake - its not like they ask you to talk it all over for them and how exactly you intended to create this network of cracks for visual excitement. Think about it from a total passing stranger's perspective - they look at your cake and the first thing they see are cracks - what do you think they will think? - So what, it tastes really good and look how neatly she chopped the nuts? No, they will think the worst and points will be not materialize. If you can stick with it - keep working and produce a cake that does not crack I was wondering if you moistened the top when you put it in the oven and then brushed it with some glaze or moistener periodically, that may help alleviate cracking.

Good luck with the competition - I hope that it goes well for you Regarding the cracks - is the recipe you are using new or altered from previous uses? Do you always get cracks? I think that meeting the criteria they set forth is good, but I do feel that the cracks may be a weakness. My thoughts on cause of cracking would be possibly that the cake is forming a light skin then is raising too quickly in the oven possibly due to heat being too high or possibly due to a bit too much leavener I am assuming it is a central crack down the length of the cake? I have had very little personal experience with fruitcake so I cannot be too much help, but as a judge in competitions - I know that any element (such as a crack) can be considered a technical weakness and will affect your score so that where you may have that critical point or two to make a world of difference - the presence of the cracking could give your win to someone else. It appears to me that in the loaf style fruitcake most examples are not cracked.

I cannot answer your question - but I am interested in how you propose to 'make' your own couverture are you discussing actual manufacture of chocolate? what will you start with? nibs? beans? or are you actually talking about basically creating a 'mix' of cocoa solids and cocoa butter etc And - of course - why are you pursuing this route? Is this an artisinal cottage industry thing?

the standard http://www.auiswisscatalogue.com/store/mer...SUGRTOOL/702005

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=72260

Did the bride have any suggestions regarding cakes or recipes that she has been able to enjoy in the past? I would start with that. Is it eggs or could she stand whites? A carrot cake might work you can substitute applesauce or pineapple for fat or use oil But I think that it would be tough to find something that the 79 other people would not be more than happy to leave for the bride to eat later

Not familiar with the post to which you refer, but in the Balaguer book, there is a great chocolate filled fritter/buyol page 120 Essentially a milk based sweetened choux pipe into a mold, or just round up shove a couple pistoles of chocolate into the heart, cover, freeze, unmold, fry and serve Yummy hot fritter with molten chocolate center hot from the fryer I left out the spice mix and you can of course vary that to your immediate needs

Please reference Dilbert Pointy haired boss says: "we are having an employee appreciation day" employee points out that the day is a Sunday PHB: "that's the best day for pot luck - you have all day saturday to make something to bring" PHB goes on: "I'll need a voluneer to organize everything - which one of you is the woman?" PHB tells everyone the forecsat is cold weather so they should wear jackets since the party is outside in the park. He says he will not attend since he does personal stuff on weekends So, are you an employee who is being appreciated by offering up concoctions or is the creation of desserts part of your actual job? - meaning - are you catering this? If you are just making personal offerings then you probably want some wow factor. You probably are already acknowledged for your achievements in pastry by your fellow employees - many of whom are actively looking forward specifically to what you will bring since they know from experience that it will be good, so you don't want to let them down What have you made in the past? What do you need to live up to and surpass? What is your transportation situation to get your stuff to the party? Do you have temperature controlled storage available or not? What about serving - people just help themselves? I think that people like having something that is out of the ordinary, something cute, something individual (like a mini cake) You can bake off a couple large sheets of cake in more than one flavor if you like, come up with some suitable filling and then you can cut out, fill and do simple decor so that you have 8-10 serving each of several different cakes. Do something special like the examples on one of Wendy DeBord's sweet tables Doing a large cake is cumbersome but makes a lasting impression alas, you will proably have to cut it in the fury of the party and that is a pain and messy as well. Leave the cookies and brownies for others and do something special and different. Go through somne books and magazines and do something interesting that is a little extra work that intrigues you.

well, to avoid the possibility of giving you the same old - what is the recipe you are using - and what exactly do you dislike about it? Flavor, texture, ... My fav is: 1/3 cup shortening 1 cup light brown sugar 1 1/2 cups molasses (not dark) Mix this together with the paddle stir in 2/3 cup cold water (at this point it looks all curdled but persevere add 2tsp baking soda 1tsp allspice 1 tsp powdered ginger 1 tsp ground cloves 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp salt (I ususally forego the spoon and probably put in about 2tsp of each spice) Lastly Stir in 6 cups all purpose flour let this chill for about an hour or overnight roll out to about 1/2 " thick - or less on a lightly floured board cut to shape bake at 350 on ungreased sheets (I prefer parchment) 12-15 minutes Also makes excellent gingerbread houses with the addition of another cup of flour

Doc, since you asked: we started with a flatbread, troutlings, and duck taquitos from the snacks menu deviled eggs with caviar montauk island squid grilled for main courses we tried Vermont pork chop with sausage some salad thing (AMAZING!) Lamb: small chop, patty , braised, on a bed of mashed potato and greens (Also AMAZING) gruener veltliner red wine from long island fantastic breads - rolls from Sullivan St bakery and house made breadsticks

As serendipity would have it we stumbled upon Cookshop last night. Wow! What a really solidly great meal We just noticed it and it looked attractive, got the menu and stopped in They didn't seem happy that we did not have reservations but seated us - probably at their least desirable table so things could have gone sour really easily BUT Really competant attentive, professional and friendly service Great bread good water refills Incredible food - could not have been more perfect So, why isn't anyone talking about this place. I guess its new - two months old yesterday but still - I though eGers were soooo on top of this stuff Anyone else lucky enough to eat here? If you haven't you really should I would recommend calling ahead though http://www.opentable.com/rest_profile.aspx?rid=4380

for some reason christmas eve is all about gingerbread in my mind Yiu could do a gingerbread house with mounds of great cookies for everyone to munch on and then put out for santa - I particularly like big soft gingerbread cookies warm from the oven you can actually wow your guests by having all your cookies prepped and bake just before serving altrnatively how about a gingerbread cake with sauteed apples and sabayon? I think in the Stars Dessert book there is a nice recipe for gingerbread 'boxes' with warm apple compote and sabayon if you want to go the frozen route - how about a bombe? you can bring several of you favorite holiday flavors together and use edible decor pretty colors- unusual, impressive and easy to eat after a significant meal

As a reference - what would you consider a decent wage? per hour and annual? Benefits? Insurance? Retirement? Vacation? How much are you figuring your typical pastry cook/chef earns? What would you expect in terms of benefits? Keep in mind that coat check job as a reality check. Like Tan says - why spoil a perfectly good love? There are several lengthy threads about school, job transitioning, and compensation. Look them up and read.

I think I asked if the cake people were students So, tell us about this - how did they get the gig? Were they invited? Did they get paid? Did the teams spend any time talking to them about their work? Request recommendations? Or did they just tell them to make stuff? For the cakes that actually got ordered, will they produce them, get credit for them, and get paid the full price for them? Or does that all go to Martha? That brings me to the question of their association with Martha? Do they have and existing business relationship with MSL? Do tell!

As far as Martha goes - she's a style genius - even if she isn't she knows how to find and direct style geniuses. Heck, anyone who can suddenlt make rusty old collanders look like something everyone should have a collection of has real insight, You gotta respect it. I think there are several interesting point to discuss here regarding the wedding cake episode: - The value of conceptualizing/styling/designing the cake. How to create for different markets, judge trends and make a style choice As Chef Peon has pointed out several times she feels that she has not really contributed creatively, somehow feels "cheated" when requested to execute a design created by someone else - so contributing the creative drive has value. If the teams did indeed style/design thye cakes and guide someone to execute that... This task certainly was not about their ability to bake, roll anything out, or do anything at all except be judges of trends, marketers, and designers. In the show Martha said they would each have a 'Baker' and I saw that someone mentioned they knew the decorators - are you saying that they had both a baker and a decorator or is it possible that the 'baker' was also the 'decorator', and were these individuals cake artists or students at the Art Institute? Karl Lagerfeld scribles a 9 foot tall anorexic is a swishy thing on a scrap of paper and a team of people spend weeks agonizing over how to interpret that, how to make a dress and it is a Lagerfeld design - so the designer is the value maker, and that is something we have discussed here in many forms in many threads - the value of DESIGN. The other key element of the task - in fact the primary deal breaker was the marketing and sales. It seems that the teams should have thought really hard about where and how they were going to be marketing their cakes when conceptualizing. The winning team seems to have taken that into account on the basic fronts by having several flavors so that in tasting they had the opportunity to appeal to a wider array of potential customers - or at least more chances to win their affection. In the styling and color choices they made they also had diversity, and did what they could to avoid any real commitments in any direction at all so in the restrictions of that task they had the most to work with and the fewest limitations. At the risk of getting some people irritated, there are several cake paths - brides whole essentially pick a ready made model out of a magaine, or a catalogue, or a sample case. Assuming you created the design from which they select then you are a good designer. - those who want somethinjg along these lines, more creative - who let you know who they are and what they want their cake to say about them and their wedding who maybe give you specific guidance and direction, or maybe just a few nuggets - but in this case I think that they have a real role in the design since they know pretty much what they want and it is your job to make it a reality -then there are those who come to you because you are an artist and a craftsman and want you to create something special from them, for them with no real guidance. This is when you have an opportunity to create a real work of art, but it doesn't necessarily make you a good trendsetting designer, or a marketer, or a salesperson. Oh well, we are who we are. My whole point here is that we shouldn't be getting all wraped around the axel about how the media has made it appear that almost anyone on the face of the earth can just whip up a great wedding cake. Because we didn't see that at all. We saw that 14 people could barely manage to come up with a decent idea for a cake and that even though they had professional help and apparently could get advice from anyone they wanted they failed to come up with something that would even cause you a moment's thought. I think the more interesting thing to think about - that I always do, is this If I were on one of those teams and this was the challenge, what role would I play? How would I handle the situation? What exactly are the critical wickets and what is the best way to blow through them to win? I would think that you would want to know more about the wedding shop, their style, their demographic Look at the trends in the current magazines since that is what the brides are looking at and see what sort of cake styles and flavors are being touted, maybe do a tiny bit of market research to see what brides are dreaming of Look at price points in the market, like anything part of the whole winning strategy is in the pricing - enough to weigh as valueable, and worthy, but within reach especially in this challenge since sales were the discriminator Probably look into how to connect with cake shopping brides - not just rely on those coming to the store but bring in some yourself specifically because of your cake How would you assess and approach this challenge - assuming you were a contender on one of the teams?

Re the dripping with grease - hopefully thats butter. The deep fried things are just some other type of donut and not actually danish.

This is the Chef Dieter’s recipe that I learned. Dieter is a master of viennoiseries. This makes a really delish Danish. Still, you may want to look through a few books on technique if you have never done this type of dough. 250ml milk 55g dry yeast 2 eggs 50g butter (melted) 1t salt 50g sugar pinch cardamom (optional) 350g bread flour 200g cake flour 350g butter proof yeast in warm milk (about 100 degrees F) add eggs, melted butter, salt, sugar, cardamom, flours mix using dough hook attachment on mixer warp and chill to rest about 1 hour pound out the 350g butter to a rectangle to fit on 1/2 the rolled out dough. It should be flexible, but cool and not room temp soft roll the dough out as for puff or croissant to a rectangle about 9x18 place butter pack on 9x9 half leaving about a 1/2” lip around the 3 outer edges and fold other half over it then seal the open edges Do a single turn – wrap chill and rest the dough about 30 min Do 2 more single turns resting at least 30 minutes in between That’s the dough The artistry is in forming and filling There are hundreds of forms and methods Like croissant dough it needs to be proofed after shaping A good reference is the Jacques Torres Dessert Circus book – he does not have any Danish but works with croissant dough. There are several differences, but it may help. Forming the dough really requires illustrations or photos. Some typical forms include Bear claws (includes apple compote as filling) Pinwheels (includes pastry cream and fresh fruit) You may be thinking of a raison filled wheel you roll out the compled dough to a rectangle about 1/2" thick spread with a thin layer of pastry cream (I guess you could also use butter here) sprinkle with raisins (I like adding cinnamon) roll into a tight cylander cut 1" thick slices set on tray. Twist and tuck the tail under the danish body proof til doubled brush with egg wash bake at 375 til golden brown brush with sugra glaze (10x sugar with a bit of milk to make the desired consistency) Perhaps Danish would be a good demo for the pastry thread