Desiderio

Same as Choux i use the badger and cant make fine lines , only spraying , not very fancy airbrush , but works for now. By the way thos frogs look great , it is a polycarbonate mold ?

Ahh I am going with my family in Rome at the end of october ,I have family there , but my parents moved outside ai Castelli Romani , wich its still close to Rome but nice and quite.Honestly more than restaurants there , I will go in serch for a good pizza al taglio place , wich is unique to Roma they usually have rotissery chicken as well , and Gelaterie!!! Yes I think I could live out of those two ,along with the little water fountain all over the center in Rome wich is unique as well , because there is no other city in Italy that have so much water acces as Rome Cant help you with restaurant , I am spolied by my parents , that owned a restaurant a while back , and I cant eat outside my home cause it just doesnt taste right. I hope you guys have a great time and lots of Gelato

Usually I make pastry cream ,and uses flour in small %, its never slippery but creamy ,expecially if you pair it with some whipped cream ( chantilly ).It really depends on the formula , how much milk , flour eggs sugar etc.

Ohh I am so glad I wount be the one have to taste these things Way to much mixing for my taste , other than usual ingredients other animal parts no thanks By the way there is one italian cake or well I dont know what to call it , but its called "Sanguinaccio" and its made with pig blood ( you know they used to use everything out of pork ).Blahhhh Good luck gfron1, waiting for the pics

In which country?Not where I come from is not.italian are very very picky on using vegetable fat for chocolate making .

Yep definately confused ( the bride I mean).It is true sometimes people have an idea and the name doesnt match the real stuff they think of.Millefoglie is as the french one , layers of delicate puff pastry with pastry cream and whatever you like, chocolate pastry cream can be alternate with the vanilla one in layers , that how usually I had the millefoglie.I did one for my birthday a while a go with strawberryes cream .

Kerry and Lorna , great ideas thank you so much.I actually do have bunch of left over ganaches to try , Almond rasbperry sounds faboulous (sp?), I will definatley try the amaretto ( since I got a bottle ),Maybe a nice butter amaretto ganache. Thank you Ladies

I bought some Valrhona manjari, I never had this chocolate before , and while the taste is quite particular and nice , I found it quite zippy ( can I say zippy ) anyway , the back taste of red fruit , makes this chocolate hard to place expecially in chocolate making.I think I need to try some recipe for ganaches and fillings and try using it to cover some chocolates , but the question is , with that kinda of strong taste what kinda of combination would be the best or the more appropriate? Thank you

Great work Ling, thank you for posting the recipe and for all the effort you put into this challenge .The modern Pineapple Upside-down Cake looks fantastic

This is my first attempt to a caramle cake , dont have much time so I made the 1234 cake from Marie's cake ( link above ) and the caramel frosting form here http://southernfood.about.com/od/yellowand.../r/bl10731k.htm I made only two layer , cause the frosting wasnt enough.Next time Ill make a tower . The cake is nice , but the crumb is to open for my taste , it is indeed moist and soft , not too sweet , so works good with the caramel icing. The icing was ok I add cream to the final product to make it more creamy as I was icing the cake , it helped a lot. Next time I would like to try a different cake , omething that would be moist as well but with a thighter crumb.I am going to pair it with the icing from Bill Neal's recipe that Ludja posted ( thank you ). Well , I will report as I go . I think I have decided, reading my CI best recipe book, tht I am going to try the white cake,and Pair it with tha caramel frosting above.Reading the structure of this white cake , it sounded like the one I might been looking for , thight crumb soft etc etc.

I actually think the cake was made from him,and reading the post of the cake or pie thread , someone asked for the recipe , I dont think he ever answered , dont think he would like to share that recipe with us .

I was looking on the net for more info on caramel cake ,since I have never seen one before , and this thread gave me the idea ( I love caramel , dont we all ?! ). I was reading about the 1234 cake and I found a recipe on more than one site and they call it Marie's caramel cake this is it http://www.dianaskitchen.com/page/cake/mcaramel.htm this is another http://southernfood.about.com/od/yellowand.../r/bl10731k.htm http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellit...d=1031769996910

I figured .Thank you Kathy, I will have to experiemtn little bit wih this , I alway wanted to try it but never attempt.

I am courious , it is possible to spread sugar on th top layer and then use a torch type to caramellize the sugar?

Brilliant! I personally prefer the french type of chocolate mousse , simple but soo good perfect texture perfect taste. By the way I know in my itlian book , I have several different and one I can remembr is with a pate a bombe method , was really really good , very nice for cakes etc ,I think I have served this type inside tuille ( thats what you guys call them ?)for a christmas party they were faoulous.

LOL

This is the sour cream chocolate cake that I frostes with the rich vanilla buttercream frosting , the recipe I took from the CI best recipe book, and I simply love it , its great smooth and has a great mouthfeel and taste , I did add vanilla bean as well as vanilla extract I think its worth it ,I am going to bring it for our neighbor bbq this afternoon.

The one I made for the truffle were just plain egg whites sugar and coconut thats the way we use to make them very simple . The flavor of the coconut as I said comes out tronger with the toasting.I didnt add any flavoring and the flavor was just right.

I did some coconut truffle a while back , I didnt use the coconut milk , because the cream wasnt an issue ( I dont know if your costumer wants just coconut truffles because the cream ,vegan stuff or what or just for the flavor),but this is what I did ,I made some coconut macaroons , when they were cold I pass them into the food processor and made a fine powder/ crumb and I added to a dark chocolate ganache , they were quite yummy , actually I should make them again. Just want to say , that I made regular coconut truffle before the macaroon ones and the coconut flavor was more intense in the macaroon ones, I think tosting the coconut is a part of the flavor enhancement ( ahh spell for that one ?? ).

Ahh kerry those are just adorable (even I dont like this word too much ) but they are soo cute ,what a great job with those hallow molds ( are you going to have a class on those ???? )

Thank you so much , as always Egullet works on the self estem ( sp ?),god knows I need some now . John, that was the fist experiment I did with the sheets , but I think I really need to find a thicker chocolate for enrobing ,I find the one I use ( eguittard 58% or 72% atm ) very nice to work with but maybe too fluid ,Do you think I should switch to more viscous chocolate for enrobing , expecially caramels? The flavors , were Creme de Menthe,chai tea, garam masala pistacchios,maple,sea salt caramels and a combination of espresso caramel ganache in two layer ( that was an experiment with the espresso powder ).

These are my creation for the fall, and I think I am going to be making alot of them this coming weekend , a crazy lady ordered a ton of them ( dont they relize I do everything by hand ?? )

Its all depend on the temperature you cook your caramel as well,if that one you made is to soft it might need to be cooked longer.For example when I make the sea salt caramles I cooked them up to 255 ( the recipe calls for 248 ) and I am in altitude and I should be cooking them 9 degree less ( for the calculation I did on the boiling point here ), but that dont work for me at 253/255 they are nice and firm , I can dip them no problem and they have a nice texture ( I like my caramles little firm than soft ). Good luck Another thing you can do is to spread a very thin layer of chocolate on the caramel slab after it drys out cut the caramels and dip.

Thank you guys

I a sorry but as the above , I use a good knife to cut my ganaches/caramels. You might want to look for the home made guitar on this forum. good luck