nightscotsman

I've also found potato starch at Asian markets, next to the tapioca starch and rice flour.

King Arthur sells this stuff, but it's really just orange oil mixed with vanillin, so you can easily duplicate the flavor without buying a special product.

We did mini buches in plated dessert form for one of our restaurants. They were molded mousse cakes rather than rolled, and had chocolate mousse, chocolate cremeux, vanilla cremeux, and chocolate cake soaked with frangelico on a base of chocolate hazelnut praline croquant. We included the traditional meringue mushrooms and dusting of powdered sugar, but what made them over-the-top cute were the tiny chocolate sleighs and christmas trees that were perched on top. Wish I had had my camera to take a picture.

Here is what we used in class. This will create a more "bready" rather than "cakey" product: 50g milk (slightly warm) 16g fresh yeast 60g pastry flour Make a poolish by mixing the yeast with milk, a pinch of sugar, and the yeast in a bowl and covering it with the flour. Let it sit until the expanding yeast causes visible cracks in the flour layer. Add: 8g salt 40g sugar 340g bread flour 220g eggs Mix by hand until as much of the flour as possible is incorporated, then dump it out on a table and knead using the technique I outlined above (this is another one of those pastry things that is much easier to show than to tell). You may need to dust with more flour occasionally to make it more managable When the dough is smooth, elastic, and loses most of its stickiness, add 200g softened butter by smearing it over the dough and using the same kneading technique. Work until it becomes smooth again. place the dough in a bowl, dust with flour, cover with plastic and let rise until double. Gently press out the gasses (be gentle, don't punch), and let it rest in the fridge overnight before shaping, rising, and baking at 375 F (for loaves).

We also made brioche in school several times by hand. Our instructor insisted we do it by hand before using the machine so we would get a feel for how the dough changes consistency as it is kneaded and to know what to look for when it was time to add the butter. We were taught a special technique to the knead the very wet, sticky dough which sounds similar to what you did - though it usually only took about 15 minutes to reach "smooth elastisity". You grab two corners of the dough with your fingers and sort of fling it out onto the table, letting it stretch out and slap down. Then you flip the part you are still holding back over the rest of the dough (sort of folding it in half). Repeat by grabbing the side edge of the dough (effectively giving it a quarter turn) and flinging it out again. It gets a little messy when you add the softened butter, but it does come back to gether and get elastice once again after about 5 more mintutes of kneading. It's worth noting that there are a couple different types of classic brioche: there is the regular "everyday" stuff which has less butter, and brioche mousseline, which has significantly more butter and is paradoxically lighter in texture and richer in flavor. Neither one is traditionally very sweet.

Double-time pay!

I don't mean to gush, but I also own all of your books, Dorie. In fact, yours is one of only a handful of names on a book cover which will cause me to purchase sight-unseen. Keep 'em coming please!

That's fantastic, Mel! My Dad, who lives in Portland, sent me the article from the Oregonian. Hopefully he'll be another one of your loyal customers soon. My Christmas wish for you is to get enough sleep so you can enjoy your success.

Interestingly, the basic technique for making ice cream with liquid nitrogen was described about 100 years ago in a victorian ice cream cookbook. I don't know if this is the earliest known mention, but the idea has been around for a long time.

If you're heading to Trader Joe's, I recommend picking up some of their "Pound Plus" chocolate. They come in milk, milk with almonds, and both 59% (I think) and 70% dark chocolates. The manufacturer (which they don't divulge) is most likely Callebaut and the quality is very good. Of course Valrhona is excellent, but also extremely expensive in the small bars that Trader Joe's sells.

I've never had a cannoli from a New York bakery - perhaps you could give us a few more details on what you're looking for? Does the filling contain dried or candied fruit, or citrus peel? Chocolate in some form? Is it fairly dense and cheesey, light and fluffy, or smooth and creamy?

One possibility is a "cremeux", which is a very rich custard - like a stove top creme brulee - set with a bit of gelatine.

We used instand read thermometers (The kind with a probe on a cable separate from the display) for everything is school, including candy making. Worked fine, though we did get multiple probes since one or more would inevitably fail during the 6 months of the program.

Curry could be interesing... This "weekend" (Tuesday and Wednesday for me) I was thinking of working on an eggnog version. I'll post the recipe if I have any success.

I basically just changed the Martha recipe to add purees for flavor. I also thought she has you whip for too long in her directions. By the way, when I first made them I was using intensely flavorful local NW berries that my brother picked, so the small amount of puree gave plenty of flavor. Using standard supermarket frozen strawberries won't be as strong - though usually better than the crappy fresh ones that are picked too early when they're hard as rocks. I actually tried the strawberry ones from Paris Sweets first. I thought they were nice, but a little too light and insubstantial. I was looking for marshmallows with a thicker, creamier consistency. If you use a non-stick spray like Pam, you should have no problems. The sprays contain lecithin which makes them more effective.

I've yet to find a "natural" cream cheese that doesn't contain carrageenan or a vegetable gum (both are "natural" products), not even at my local Whole Foods store or my high-end cheese purveyor. Do you know of a specific brand or source for such a product? I'd love to try it. ← I don't know a brand or source off-hand, but I've seen it at small healthfood/co-op stores in the past. I remember it being softer and lighter in texture than the Philly stuff. I'm not a big fan of cream cheese in general, so I don't buy it very often. At work we use huge blocks of Phillidephia brand from Kraft.

I found out yesterday that construction on the new Bellagio pastry shop is behind schedule and won't make the Dec 21 opening date of the rest of the new tower. Now it will most likely be "after January 1st". Sorry to those of you who will miss it.

You could just make a slightly thicker than usual ganache. Cut it in squares and people will think it's the best fudge they've ever had.

I remember hearing something last year about PCB colored cocoa butters being not FDA approved as food safe (though of course they are approved in France, where they are made, and chefs have used them for years). That might have something to do with their scarcity. Chef Rubber seems to have picked up the slack.

If you're looking for it in local retail, you'll have better luck in art supply stores. It will come in large sheets and rolls, so you'll have to cut it down to size yourself.

If you look on the package of most cream cheeses, you'll see they usually contain stabilizers and thickeners like carrageenan and guar gum. Some "natural" cream cheeses don't contain these additives. This would certainly make a difference in some recipes that have a high percentage of cream cheese.

Fatburger. Now in Bellevue, Redmond, and Issaquah.

Wow, Wendy - thanks for sharing your souffle experience with us! I completely agree with your tips on not overbeating the whites and making sure to bake completely. We made souffles several times in school, but the recipe we used was one of the rare ones I didn't care for. The texture was closer to a warm angel food cake. When I did a short trial at Charlie Trotter's we did about 100 chocolate souffles and I really liked their version. If I remember correctly, the base was just yolks, melted chocolate, and creme fraiche, with a bit of sugar added to the whipped whites to keep them flexible and prevent overwhipping. The creme fraiche seemed to add flavor depth and help keep the baked product moist and creamy.

← So, basically vegetarian lard.

To be more specific, they have announced for April, though I haven't heard an actual day yet.