ejw50
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Posts posted by ejw50
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They are really good.
I DID get a chance to visit the new shop at Aria last summer. I can't recall what I had there, but one that I liked from a previous visit to the Bellagio shop was "the intense" if you really like chocolate, you will like that one.
I just took a trip to Vegas and saw both. They have some minor differences
- the one in Aria is right inside the casino so potentially more cigarette smoke.
Though, the aria is the least smokey casino in Vegas IMO.
- the one in aria sells standalone chocolates. I didn't see this in the Bellagio location
- the one in Bellagio has the chocolate fountain
- I did not see the aria location after 11a so didn't see the pastries at aria
- I felt the aria location was a little morecramped in the line. Aria has seating
As part of the shop Bellagio you eat in the lobby of hotel
- both locations don't bring out the pastries until later around 11 or so.
Before this its croissants danishes fried donuts and so on . I can't remember if it was always like this or not.
The pastries are a little different now compared to 3 years ago and will try to post pics later
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I got this one from amazon. Looks like it's two takes on every recipe - the classic take and the PH take.
Pluses:
- beautiful photography. Every dessert has a picture - similar to PH10 and patisserie of PH
and different from Desserts by PH or Chocolate Desserts by PH.
- very big book. Good deal for the money.
- Very interesting for the classics - some of this is in his Larousse book, but the level
is a little bit harder here.
- As with all PH books, his take on things and flavors is really what sets him apart
from others.
minuses:
- If you have all the PH books already, there's not a ton of new stuff.
That is, if you've seen Ispahan, maybe you don't need to see it another 3 times.
- Recipes are in between home baker and pro, leaning towards pro.
That is, he leaves the stabilizer out of the ice cream,
but assumes you have pistachio paste. My preference is one or the other (full pro
or full home baker).
- some of PH's takes on the classics seem to stretch the connection to the classics a little.
- This is not a technique book at ALL. All techniques are assumed.
- Technique is another area where he's in between home baker and pro.
He assumes you'll spend time to make 2 types of mousses and macerate cherries and grind up pistachios.
But then assumes you don't have acetate liner to put on your cake ring and will use a hair dryer instead.
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Somebody must be a Buckeye fan?
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some quick updates in case somebody reads this thread (as I did)
Payard's - closed now. Opened up a new chocolate shop with pastries at a different location.
Fauchon - closed now.
Petrossian - tried a pain au chocolate and tart. As described by Vivremanger, tart was a puff pastry base, mine was puff pastry base, frangipane, jam, and fruit Really liked this. They have regular tarts too, did not try. Macarons are nothing special, tried a few.
Couple of others that I went to this time around
Madeleine Patisserie (la maison du Macaron) - Excellent macarons, they are in the same class as PH's.
Macarons are expertly made - soft, not too crunchy, without a 'gap' between the shell and inside. Great flavors. Croissants have a wonderful buttery flavor.
Kee's chocolates - Creme Brule chocolate is awesome, almost pastry-like. You won't see anything else like it
in any chocolate shop anywhere. Lots of interesting flavors. Macaroons nothing special, would not get again.
La Maison du Chocolate - went to the one on Madison. Supposed to be 3 locations total in NYC? Excellent as you'd expect, if maybe less innovative.
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some quick updates in case somebody reads this thread (as I did)
Payard's - closed now. Opened up a new chocolate shop with pastries at a different location.
Fauchon - closed now.
Petrossian - tried a pain au chocolate and tart. As described by Vivremanger, tart was a puff pastry base, mine was puff pastry base, frangipane, jam, and fruit Really liked this. They have regular tarts too, did not try. Macarons are nothing special, tried a few.
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At the chocolate conference, one of the Uster Chef's temperature
aiming point for the airbrush was 95. 95 in meant 85 out, which
was the temperature she aimed for. From what I saw, she did
not temper the cocoa butter in any special way.
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You can't really measure boiling water with an IR. If you read any directions which may have come with it, they should say that you it won't get a proper reading off of boiling water or reflective surfaces. With boiling water, you will pick up the temp of the steam coming off the top of the pot.
but yes, they are fun to have around.
Directions? What are those?
Good point. I'll try it on the oven next. Or maybe a piece of ice.
Unless somebody has a better idea about a standard in the 90-180F range.
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wow nice find Kerry!
For those macaron fans, I compared the macaron recipe we got to the
recipe in Herme's 'Macaron' just now (not the recipe in 'Patisserie').
Pretty similar recipe - both use the same technique of Italian Meringue added to a nut powder+powdered sugar + egg white mixture. Ratios of ingredients are pretty similar as well.
Also just got myself an IR temperature sensor.
As Steve pointed out to me, you really have to get close with this thing. My boiling water test showed 102-104C until I got within 1 inch of the water, when it started showing in the 100C range.
Fun new toy though, and it was great to pick up that tip from everybody there!
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Where can I buy fruit purees like we were using this weekend in a smaller size? Thanks.
Susan
The purees are available from a number of sources.
After trying them out, I would probably not pay for them except in a few cases.
I think you can make your own raspberry from the frozen food section that's just as good.
Apple, kiwi, pear, banana, oranges, limes - these things are pretty consistent and available year round.
I would probably only pay for a few things that are not available throughout
the year, are too inconsistent, are terrible at my grocery frozen, or are exotic.
Mango would fit here, as would lychee, currants, mara des bois, stone fruits (at my grocery anyway), or cherry.
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Where can I buy fruit purees like we were using this weekend in a smaller size? Thanks.
Susan
The purees are available from a number of sources. The difference between them is how much you have to buy at one time. I've been buying from L'Epicerie. The purees are in 1 kg tubs which seems to be industry standard. They keep in the freezer for a long time. Simply cut out what you need, and put the rest back to keep frozen.
The 3 primary brands for purees in the USA are Boiron, Sicoly, and Perfect Puree. I've not found a "retail" source for Perfect Puree and haven't tried the product but it seems very common in restaurant bars.
If you live near Napa, you can buy Perfect Puree at Whole Foods in Napa Valley.
That's what they told me on the phone anyway.
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Bob, glad you liked the videos.
Great find Pat! I also thought it was salty.
But that's what great about the session: it doesn't
matter if you like it or not. It's time to experiment
without pressure of making for somebody else.
Thanks Lior for the havla!
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habanero and raspberry (I think). There were 3 raspberries
on the day, I liked them all; interesting to see the different
textures and raspberry power that people chose to use.
Passion fruit, same cocoa butter, but one in white, one in milk,
and did some in dark. I kind of liked the milk taste the best,
but we agreed that the white looked the best.
cherry (left), raspberry (I think), salted caramel (the beans),
and forgot what the pyramids were.
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Betsy, Karen, Chris, Mary, along with Bob's
cinnamon pyramids and his grandfather's popcorn (really good!)
No explanation necessary.
the panner
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Pics from the first day's get together
Donna with 3 kinds - black raspberry, peanut (in the peanut shell), plus one more
that I didn't get a chance to try. Tasty.
Kelly with nice ice wine she brought
Mike with two - one was straight dark chocolate, very creamy, very nice
texture. The other was what Kerry talked about - heating White chocolate
and stirring it every hour for 8 hours (or something like that), then
making a ganache out of it. Hard to see from this picture, but Mike had
excellent technique and attention to detail on his pieces.
Steve with a cherry (that we copied the next day) and I think a passion caramel.
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For those interested in day 1 demo, here are a bunch of highlights.
1.
- Macaron dough folding technique mentioned by chocoera, answering questions about it.2.
- correct texture for Macaron dough3.
- Macaron dough piping by chef Nathan4.
- Macaron dough piping done by curls, with coaching from Chef Nathan5.
- correct mixer speed and incorporation technique for Italian Meringue.6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrtHUKEYWak
12. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyUcheF4WQI
13. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn_G3_MZ6a0
14. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klcVEzdBzjk
15.
16. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4YIEWGNt0I
17. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQdOVUlrhZU
18. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IroUXEtPjt4
19. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST8iJu5ErQA
20. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMVi-JPDKC0
21. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcxLrjmQujQ
22. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko6fvcegPFE
23. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tpviMphLLQ
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First of all, Steve did an AMAZING job planning.
Here's my mental notes. I am sure some are wrong.
Will post pics and vids later.
day 1, demos with chef Amanda Haba and Chef Briea Nathan
of Albert Uster.
Macaroons
- they used convection oven. no mention of leaving door
open a crack or anything like that.
- Chef Haba tried lots of recipes, had lots of failures.
Kind of reassuring, actually.
Like this recipe she gave, almost fool proof. Somebody mentioned
PH. Supposedly, somebody who has worked in PH's shop said
he does not use the recipe in 'Patisserie'
nor the one in 'Macaron'
- Asked about whites. Chef Haba said she will take out whites
morning of (rather than days before or week before)
- making of italian meringue - Incorporation was slow,
mixer speed was medium or so (not high). vs. Fast incorporation
and high RPM. At one point, felt bowl was too cold, used torch
to heat it up and correct, preventing syrup
from sticking to sides.
- To mix dry, used food processor instead of sifting technique.
- Chef Nathan likes to use a scraper to make Meringue/nut paste.
Better feel of dough, better control of process.
- Favor silpats over parchment.
- Piping Macaroon Dough - pipe, stop piping, circular motion,
finish going forward. Maybe not totally going forward, but think that way -
pulling backward gives unwanted peaks in dough. Chef Nathan
uses middle finger in off-piping hand to gauge distance from
silpat. Piping too close = no feet on macaroon.
Chocolate airbrushing
- Albert Uster has a nice luster dust spray product
- with airbrushes, cocoa butter should go in at 95 F, which will come out
at 85. Going in hotter than 95 will result in runny airbrush
effect. Used an infrared reader to measure temperature, decreasing
messiness by a lot.
- when doing finger technique, temperature not as important
because finger will create temper
- Be sure to keep the airbrush warm - If you need to cool it,
do not put airbursh into the fridge along with jar.
- Immediately after airbrushing, wipe mold face down against
a paper towel to clean. This prevents cocoa butter
from getting into the chocolate (extra important for white chocolate).
Chocolate filling
- They did not go over tempering, they had tempered chocoalte available.
- Used standard ladle filling technique.
- In absence of vibrating table, used a more violent rocking technique to air out bubbles.
After filling, rocked hard back and forth, then turned mold 90 degrees asn
rocked hard back and forth. Much more active and noisy than
just rapping it against the table or tapping it a few times.
- After dumping, Chef nathan uses a scraping angle where you are pushing excess out
(vs pulling) with the spatula.
Ganaches -
- We asked about tempered vs. non tempered chocolate. Chef Haba did
not feel strongly that you needed tempered chocolate to make ganache.
- their chocolate salted caramel recipe subbed ~10% milk for cream.
Chef Haba said for fat % reasons.
- They used immersion blender for all ganache
- when using jam/marmalade + ganache, jam/marmalade goes first.
- After piping, they wait for 24h for evaporation. This prevents
gap between ganache and bottom, better for shelf stability.
did not take extensive notes at capping or popping out stage.
lab work
thermometers - reinforced that IR thermometers are the way to go.
Going to get one on ebay for sure.
On overseeding the melt- Steve: It's above 80, it will melt.
Kerry - Immersion blender. Can strain if necessary (we strained
as immersion blender was in use and we were short on time).
On overfilling molds. Kerry - use finger to get out
On gaps after backing - Kerry: To prevent, vibrate more after backing.
Can repair in variety of ways.
On dipping: Jim (form Steve): Wicked 'hard', almost redipping
the piece, where surface tension helps pull off excess chocolate.
Much faster than vibrating it by hand or wicking just the very
bottom off, with no loss in finished product.
Chris: use cake cutter wire to scrape bottom of praline.
Kerry: Not necessary to use knife to scrape top of praline
(as I saw once on food network competition).
Fruit purees, my opinions. Steve brought 4 and we tried
them all. Frozen Raspberry puree and passion fruit were not superior
to a good frozen raspberry at whole foods or passion fruit concentrate
in chinatown. Cherry and mango were definitely superior to whole foods frozen equivalents,
For me, still not worth it for chocolate work, but possibly worth it for pastry work.
flavor preferences. Taste really subjective.
Example: mango bonbon that we made .
Susan loves it, Mary and I think alcohol is strong,
Chris and Jim hate it (too much mango).
For me, reminder of two things:
1. taste is subjective even among experienced chocolatiers
2. a reminder to pay attention to molding and shelling technique
since unlike taste, technique is universal. Kind of like
playing defense in basketball - even if offense is up and down,
defense is consistent.
- shelling, after dumping out excess chocolate
Uster Chefs liked to put mold face down to create a lip.
Some egullet'ers like it on side. Tried both ways. I felt lip makes things later
easier (piping, capping), but face down reduces margin of error on shelling.
I thought putting on side was safer overall, and did not create a pool
of chocolate on the bottom. Pluses and minuses of both.
- Tried out single-use polycarbonate use that has cocoa butter
print on the inside. Donated by Linnea's.
http://linneasinc.com/Catalog/Scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=7371
Mold is floppy, so hard to use. I did not have the skill to use it.
Did give a great marble effect though that was accidental.
It should've been hearts, instead it looked like realy nice marble.
Kerry figured out it was from chocolate melting the cocoa butter
and the vibration smearing it. Pictures are taken, will post.
- Did not like the smell of any of the oils except for mints.
- Events of day 1 was reminder that mis en place is much
more important in unfamiliar kitchen and with unfamilir equipment
and unfamiliar recipes. At home, everything is second nature and error correction
is easy. In new kitchen with new equipment, margins are much smaller.
- Jim and I struggled to make a wet caramel at the scale of Schott's
book. We quadrupled the recipe on Steve's suggestion.
In future, we would make dry caramel or quadruple recipe.
- Steve recommends a perpendicular angle when scraping into bowl
(different technique from the Uster chefs)
- For molds, Steve recommends piping at lower tempeatures approaching 80(chocolate melts at 80),
Mike seemed to like 85 or so. I tried lower temperatures and higher temperatures with
the same ganache this day and have to admit
I still like piping at 88-90 or so in a cool room.
Don't know what others's experiences are here.
- Learned a neat airbrush concept from Mike on white chocolate.
Idea was to use an ivory cocoa butter, which is just enough contrast
with white chocolate and gave it a really nice pop. I would
not have thought white-ish on white would work so well.
- Also learned a good reminder from Mike to pay more attention to temper
technique in a foreign kitchen. Technique and error correction that is second nature
and automatic in your own kitchen is not so in new kitchen.
- Tried both giant revolation temperer and mol d'art, still think Mol d'art is easier to use.
day 2 talk
- Steve had nice easy way to think of preservation from Wybauw.
Wybauw's ideal ganache is 1:1 choco:cream. Remove some cream, add butter, increase shelf life. now add glucose (invert), increase shelf life. You're at 4-6 weeks now.
Now add sorbitol, increase shelf life again. Now add alcohol, you can get up to a year.
Wybauw didn't run AW experiments, so is not a rigorous study. But nice qualitative way to undersatnd it.
- Somebody (forget who) objected a little, shelf life (safe) vs. shelf life (taste) are not the same.
- Steve showed Shott's taste combo table. Then pointed out rosemary+caramel
is not one Shotts lists as OK, but many people use it (Elbow I think?). So taste
is subjective. Chris mentions a book, the flavor bible (?), where author goes through
flavor combinations and say what worked.
- Talked about the importance of naming. Steve had a "bananas foster" that nobody would try. But we couldn't imagine that "banana" or "banana caramel" or "banana rum" would have problems. But they're similar things. Hypothesis was that 'bananas foster' is an old dessert that nobody has anymore and nobody is familiar with it.
decorations
- Gold leaf on molded pieces - from Kerry. INstead of carefully
unfolding and putting in mold, use static electricity to 'stick'
it to the top after unmolding.
- Fruit powder can be substituted for luster dust for color.
Flavor is strong enough to give flavor.
- discussion on coloring molded pieces. Erica wanted to change things up
but customers still think blue = lavender and red = raspberry.
Mixing up colors ends up confusing customers.
Many note that airbrushing really attracts customer, taste
is sometimes secondary. Reminiscent of classic dilemma in the arts of
'artist' vs 'practical'. Mention that molds can be used
to reveal insides - examples coffee bean molds, cherry mold, etc...
- Kerry mentions one chocolatier who distinguishes flavors
by 2 dots. Every single chocolate uses the same mold, just
the two dots difference. lame - o.
- discussion of whether you sell stuff you don't like.
Steve says no - it's part of his value added artisanal story.
Others (I missed who) says yes. Example (I think): doesn't like cardamom,
but for people in other parts of world, no alcohol, cardamom is
a more familiar spice, why not?
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yikes really sorry to hear this pringle
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a little late, but is there anybody staying at Springhill who could give me a ride tomorrow?
Name Eric, 617-224-7308.
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I realized I forgot my paint scraper, thermometers, and scales though.
That's what I get for last minute packing!!
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ok final list after packing: melter and vibrator.
Will bring some pop rocks. We could buy nut pastes at Albert Uster anyway right?
assume others will bring bring molds, airbrush, cocoa butter/luster dust,
regular brushes, and anything else.
See you all there! Looking forward to it!!!
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my flight is arrives Th night at 10PM, departs 8:50 Su night.
I'll take the supershuttle unless somebody tells me this is a bad idea.
I'll be at the Springhill suits.
I do not have a ride to the restaurant. So if we need cars then let me know
that before I book the supershuttle.
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I wanted to triple check before next week. I will be bringing a "large" (3 kg) temperer and RobertM has offered his ACMC (3 kg. Is anyone else bringing a melter or temperer? We have a variety of chocolates in significant quantities to work with. At a minimum, I would like to be able to keep a dark, milk, and white chocolate going.
Many thanks.
Steve
I could also bring a melter. I have a 6kg mol d'art.
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along these lines, what are everybody's experiences with fruit mousses and shelf life
in the freezer?
That is, a standard fruit mousse with pulp, gelatin, water, Italian meringue and whipped cream
in roughly (roughly!) 1.5: 0.1 : 0.3 : 1 : 1 ratio?
Genoise Troubleshooting
in Pastry & Baking
Posted · Edited by ejw50 (log)
Pierre Herme's recipe in Larousse is 4 eggs, 40g butter, 140g flour, 140g sugar. He doesn't say what pan, but I've found
this works for 8 inch rings or pans. Scaled 1.5, that is 6 eggs, 60g butter, 210g flour, 210g sugar. My quick thoughts
- agree with Marie-ora, who suggests beating until eggs are cool
- agree with lovesgenoise, who mentions beating the heck out of the eggs and his suggested times to beat.
It's hard to beat it too much. This may be one of your problems. The less it's "inflated" the less margin you have for deflation.
- splitting that recipe into two pans seems like not enough batter . You can always cut off the top or bottom.
PH's recipe recipe for 6 eggs (in Greenspan's "Desserts by PH") is for a single 9 inch pan with at least 2 inch sides.
- the batter definitely deflates when you put in the butter. Agree with suggestions above that you take some out (I take out 1C)
and mix it separately with the butter and then mix it back in.
- if you pour the flour through a strainer with medium holes into the dough, you can get rid of a lot of the lumps.
- you can butter/flour the sides, but you don't have to. You can just detach it with an offset spatula at the end.
- AP flour is fine.