ejw50
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Posts posted by ejw50
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I agree that the online translator is a pain.
I don't use the instructions that much, mostly just the ingredients list. Every so often I do, but most of the 'starter' components are described in PH's other English books.
I think with your experience level, you'll find you don't need the instructions either.
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we operate 3 branches that all sell chocolates. anyhow it happens that certain flavors sell better than others wich results in having these chocolates around for at least two weeks or so. as is said one should not forget the "shelf life" given to the customer. i think he also should be able to store the chocolates for two weeks. even with a technically nice equipped chocolate lab its economical impossible to produce very very small batches (one guitar sheet) even if you have only 15 - 20 flavors. on my recent trip to paris i bought several samples from top chocolatiers like marquise de sevigne, hevin, maison du chocolat and roger to compare the sweetness levels, and i found out that our "corrected" recipes at 30% sugar content are well in line with them.
cheers
t.
Torsten, how do your shops store the chocolates? 3 weeks at 'cool' or 3 weeks at 'refrigerator'?
I ask because for me, in the fridge, the only ones I've ever had problems in a 3 week timeframe are raspberry ones (if I don't boil or put lemon juice in them). And raspberry just attracts mold. But the others have been ok for up to 6 weeks or even more - even with a 1.6:1 dark chocolate:cream ratio (and non UHT cream).
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Very nice, Excel is definitely the way to go on these things.
I have a question, does Chef say which one of these factors is more important? I checked a basic ganache recipe that is OK on water content but too low on sugar. Is there even a way to get the "ideal" percentages without using invert sugar or glucose?
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we tried it out yesterday and iam certain that this guy uses 5 - 10 % oil in the chocolate. when we tried without, the chocolate got way too fragile and crumbly.
cheers
t.
Yeah, had to be too good to be true.
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thanks for the vid. That guy has some crazy technique for making ruffles
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OK, did a check of the 'authorities' and this is what they say
Dorie Greenspan - butter + flour, remove after 5 minutes
Alice Medrich - Parchment, no butter+flour, remove after completely cooled with flexible spatula (with all her cakes)
Pierre Herme (Larousse des desserts) - no instruction at all.
Rose Levy Berenbaum - butter+flour, remove right away before cooling.
Bo Friberg - didn't see a genoise, but in general butter+flour cool all the way.
If I had to say for sure, I would say it probably doesn't matter all that much.
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Pierre Herme's book has a photo of him using one to caramelize Joconde cake. So that is another application.
Thanks for finding it, always wondered what one of those things was. Though for $150, probably not worth it for me.
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I think you see a lot of different instructions because you can do it a bunch of different ways.
I use a silpat and a cake ring (no butter). The bottom doesn't stick to the silpat. The sides do stick, but I just use a flexible metal spatula to separate the cake from the ring.
I wait for the ring to cool, but just because it's easier that way.
In the old days, I just used a piece of parchment on the bottom in a springform pan. Again, the bottom doesn't stick, and you can extract the sides with a flexible metal spatula.
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My biggest learning from borrowing David's guitar cutter, is that I don't actually want my husband to make me one, even though he probably could. Because it was way too easy to produce 220 perfect squares of ganache, and way too time-consuming and tedious to hand-dip 220 perfect squares of ganache. Have I mentioned how much I HATE dipping?
Well, you could wait for David to 'Alton Brown' an enrober and ask your husband to do that too. Then it might be worthwhile!
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awesome, thanks!
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great review ejw50, thank you. i was wondering whether to get 'patisserie' or 'ph10' and while i'm still undecided, your review gave me a lot to base my future decision on.
Some more on the comparison: "Patisserie" has 2 large sections - fruit cakes/tarts, chocolate cakes/tarts. Then it has smaller sections petit fours, macaroons and 'vieniosserie" THe macaroons in "Patiserrie" are more basic than in ph10, more about the macaroon than the ganache. That, and it's a 'french meringue' macaroon recipe instead of Italian meringue macaroon recipe. In "Patisserie" there are no sections on chocolate candies , plated desserts, or ice creams. I am glad I got "Patisserie" first because I think it is a slightly easier book - there are more (not a ton, but more) technique pictures, and it has English translation. I think you are more skilled than me, so maybe you wouldn't learn anything from the pictures of equipment and diagrams and things in "Patisserrie" so as always it depends on the reader.
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Inspired by some beautiful Valentine's Day chocolates Truffle Guy posted in another thread, I experimented with some new-to-me techniques this past weekend. I have usually either used the airbrush or hand-decorated with a paint brush, so this was my first attempt at doing both. My brush strokes still need some work, but overall I'm pleased with the general idea...
Are there specific brushes people have found work well for them? I picked up a bunch of random brushes, and as I get more focused on trying to get a certain effect, I find I often don't have quite the right brush, and i'm wondering what your favorites are.
ttt for anybody's experiences. My techniques are purely airbrush or hand-decorated with paint brush and lustre dust (similar to the "Norman love tribute" above. If anybody has any tricks they'd like to share w ith 'splashing' or more detailed designs, I've love to hear them.
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more great pics thanks!
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OK finally a thread where I have knowledge to share instead of soaking everybody else's!
contents
- entremets and tarts (cakes and tarts)
- chocolates
- viennoiserie (sweet/savory stuff)
- ic creams and sorbets
- small cakes and tarts
- macaroons
- fruit pates and other related thing
- plated desserts
- base recipes
~580 pages total
Some generalities:
- On ordering I ordered from amazon.fr, ~130 euros, plus about 20 euros shipping. Total cost to send to Boston was around ~230 or so. I do not know how much it costs elsewhere, but amazon.fr is integrated with amazon.com so they have my info on file at least.
- On French content - It's all in french, and no English translation to my knowledge. If you are unsure, and if you have Patisserie of Pierre Herme (or Bau's book) check the French side then the english side and decide if you would be able to 'translate' the recipes with a little practice. I have 4 french-only books (both Larousse books, secrets gourmands, and this - all PH books) and basically I use the French recipes, but can only decipher some of the fine points. That's where my English PH books (desserts, chocolate desserts, and La Patisserie) help out.
- On difficulty - As with Patisserie of Pierre Herme, if you don't know how to make a Bavarian cream or a fruit mousse, it will be hard to learn from this book. This book assumes you already know how to make everything. All recipes are scaled for 2-4 cakes. Some of the ingredients may not be common (acetate sheets+ rings, atomized glucose, cocoa paste, pailette feuilletine, various dyes, yuzu, passionfruit, lychee, and so on).
- On recipe variety - unlike Patisserie or the other PH books, PH takes one theme and uses it over and over. For example, he takes Ispahan (rose/lychee/raspberry flavors) and makes it in cake, log, chocolate, ice cream, ice cream sandwich, and galette forms. So even though the book is ~570 pages, it's only about 50 flavor combinations. For me this was disappointing since I love how PH pairs flavors. But some may enjoy how PH shows you how to transfer flavor combinations between desserts.
On flavor combinations - Some of them are the following
"Inca" - avocado, banana, chocolate
"Celeste" - strawberry, passion, rhubarb
"Mahogany" - caramel, mango, lychee
"Eden" - Peach, Apricot, Saffron
"mosaic" - Pistachio, sour cherry, Cardamom
"Montebello" - Pistachio, Strawberry
"Aztec" - Chocolate, Orange, Balsamic Vinegar
"Mogador" - milk chocolate, passionfruit
"yu" - orange, apple, yuzu, praline
"plaisir sucres" - milk chocolate, hazelnuts.
"symphonie" - strawberries, cream cheese
the cake/tart section - my favorite section, and most similar to "Patisserie". I've tried a few of these recipes, and like all PH books, and they all work beautifully. Some old familiar favorites are here - ispahan, Cerise sur la gateau, plaisir sucres, a few which you will recognize from "Patisserie", but not too many. All recipse are 2-3 pages, listing components, assembly, final decoration, lifetime, and wine/drink recommendations and one picture.
chocolate section - PH uses an enrober for all of his chocolates. Not much on technique here, this is purely a recipe book. Some interestting things - he uses ultrapasteurized cream (rather than pasteurized), Vegetaline (whatever that is) in some ganaches, and mixes his ganaches with a Stephan vacuum mixer. Most recipes use invert sugar. I probably will not be trying one of these but there are some interesting flavor ideas.
viennisserie - my least favorite type of 'dessert', I skipped this section. no knock on the recipes, just my preference.
Ice cream - A few interesting concepts here. All ice cream uses stabilizer and atomized glucose. I have yet to find a place where I can buy both ice cream stabilizer and sorbet stabilizer onlin, but maybe one of you knows. Most ice creams are a mix of two or more ice creams, similar to his cakes. Basically he's taking his cake flavors and transferring them to ice cream. About 25 pages of interesting "ice cream sandwiches" where he takes uses Macaroons as the 'bread'.
small cakes - similar to big cakes section more of the same. One interesting one I'd like to try is a merengue outside with cream inside with compote layer and cake bottom.
Macaroons - A great section. Basically if you search Fanny's page for PH's macaroons and her pictures, these are the recipes for them. All of them are here - the Ispahan, the coffee one, the olive oil one, and more. The recipe is a little different from "Patisserie", PH uses the italian merengue recipe that Nicole shows in one of the egullet demo (rather than the french merengue recipe in "Patisserie".
Pate fruits section - not my favorite thing, I mostly skipped this section.
plated desserts - did not read carefully enough to review
Overall If you're a PH fan, and if you have his other books, then this is a must-have. If you don't have any of his books, I would get the two books with Dorie Greenspan first (Desserts by PH, Chocolate Desserts by PH) since they are much less expensive. I would recommend "Patisserie of PH" over this since it is somewhat cheaper, in English and the actual number of flavor combinations is similar. Also, "Patisserie" is somewhat better at teaching, for example showing diagrams of the cake layers along with photographs. And the pictures are just as beautiful and the recipes are just as imaginative.
But, definitely worth it for a PH fan. Is it worth 7 regular pastry books? For me yes no question - 7 regular pastry books would not teach me as much about flavor combination and I am a big PH fan. That, and I already have the basic technique for mousses and creams (more or less), so the fact that this book doesn't teach basic technique is OK. So my recommendation can vary depending on your budget, skillset, and other books in your collection.
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Are the recipes laid out basically the same way as in his first book, i.e. basically a list of ingredients, and then three steps: "make ganache," "cut," "enrobe," and about 75% whitespace on the page? I think I'm getting to the point where I can try his recipes from the first one, but man, those were intimidating to a beginner!
Yes, the layout is heavy on the whitespace and the directions are fairly repetitive. If you wanted to, you could collapse all the recipe sections down to a few pages at the cost of the margins and the pretty pictures.
The book is rather pricey for the level of content, especially compared to Greweling which is the new standard any chocolate book will be compared to. JPW knows his material, but Greweling manages to convey it more coherently and thoroughly, probably because he is a professional instructor. That along with the fact that English is not JPW’s first language makes Greweling’s book easier to follow.
Thanks a lot for the review, I appreciate it!!
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I blew my "pastry" money for this month on Pierre Herme's PH10. When it comes in, let me know if this should be my next purchase!!
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Wow, it sounds like they were kinda nasty to you, Kerry. Don't know what's up with that... The spray booth was a good suggestion.
Yeah I agree. Seems they were always rolling their eyes at something or the other.
Some more questions (if you don't mind)
1. On chocolate making and speed. How fast are the "professionals" through each step per mold? Creating shells, piping, backing? I always wonder if I am too slow, especially after seeing Norman Love on Youtube.
2. On the cake height, do you know how his molding cake ring was? The reason I ask is Pierre Herme's book's fruit cakes seem to have 2 layers of cake, cream, some fruit, all in "4.5 cm high rings". That seems a lot for 4.5 cm, but maybe I am missing something.
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Thanks again Kerry, a few other questions
1. On demolding technique. Can you describe the 'twist' a little more?
2. on filling molded chocolates. Some books I have read to wait until the ganache is 90 or so, so that you don't detemper the shells. I take it that chef doesn't think this matters?
3. the 'piping' way vs. 'dumping' way of backing chocolates. You've tried them both, do you have one preference?
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Beautiful work truffle guy.
If you don't mind, can you share your coloring technique on those chocolates? For example, some of them have two or three colors. Me, having only two hands (one for airbrush, one for mold) not sure how to block off 1/2 of the mold. Mind are strictly one (or two) color airbrush or else swirl with brush + luster dust (similar to your peanut butter).
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awesome, really appreciate the photos.
Question on the last photo. If I understand correct, are those chocolates 1/2 liquidy 1/2 ganache on the inside?
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I don't think it's plastic wrap either. Some places, you can buy cakes with sides wrapped in acetate (a type of plastic)
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equality5271, can you post a review? (either here or in the other fine chocolates 2 thread)
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thanks again schneich!
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Apologies if this was posted before, this is a nice vid of Norman Love with Al Roker.
He makes PB+J chocolates here.
It's a different video from the time he was on the other TV show (abc's morning show?) and made Vanilla bean/white chocolate.
raw apples on a fruit tart?
in Pastry & Baking
Posted
I saw a webdemo a while back (can't remmeber who, was in the early days of the web, '94 or so) where the chef did apple fans. He did a layer of frangipane then pastry cream, So the guy wasn't a novice or anything. Strawberries and kiwis were placed vertical, with apple fans and some other fruit, then blueberries dipped in powdered sugar right before service. Looked pretty neat to me.
sanrensho refers to the decoration of the melody - PH puts a fan of apples on the top along with cinnamon sticks.