nightscotsman

All-purpose should work fine, but cake flour will give you a softer, more refined texture if that's what you want. For layer cakes with frosting and filling I tend to like the structure that all-purpose gives you.

We use a couple different methods for doing small cheesecakes. One is to bake them in flexipans like you mentioned. Freeze, pop them out, place on pate sucre bases and glaze. The other way is using small ring molds. We put them in paper muffin cups, press graham cracker crust mix in the bottom, place the whole thing in a flexipan mold of the same diameter set on a sheet pan, fill ring molds with batter, add 1/4 inch of water to sheet pan and bake. Then we chill them, peel off the paper liner, torch the ring and they slide right out.

Very pretty log, Anne - nice finish How did you get the coloring so realistic? I know what you mean about the buttercream filling, way too rich and sweet. I did one with a mascarpone mousse filling and fresh raspberries. Really good with the chocolate cake soaked with framboise and ganache on the outside.

Thinking maybe i should have went into pastry arts Dave s ← Yeah, 'cuz that's where the real money's at. BWA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAA!

I can highly recommend staying at the Orleans. The rooms are huge (compared to most Vegas hotels), clean, with new furniture, and if you can get one on the east side they have great views of the strip. They have a free shuttle to the strip every half hour if you don't have a car (stops at the Barbary Coast), and you can often get amazingly low rates depending on the season ($20 a night is not unheard-of). I wouldn't go out of my way to eat at any of their restaurants, but I head there for movies at the upstairs multiplex all the time. They also have a big bowling alley.

I haven't eaten at Prime myself, though I've heard it's very good. If you would like a good steak without the dress code you might check out Fix, the newest place at Bellagio. The chef used to be at N9NE in the Palms, the food is very good with cool modern presentation, great cocktails, and it's quite casual. I believe the menu is mostly the same, though of course most restaurants make changes seasonally. I would bet signature dishes like the lobster pot pie are still on the menu. And yes, the interior of Michael Mina is the same - though Olives has been completely remodeled and has a bit more formal feel now.

For one of our restaurants we do a brownie that has a very fragile flourless chocolate cake baked on top (baked in full sheets with pan extenders so they're about 1/2 inch smaller than the pan on all sides). We unmold and cut them by freezing solid (below 0), place parchment on top and an upside down sheet pan. Turn entire thing over and pop brownie onto second sheet pan. Remove original pan and peel off bottom parchment. Cover bottom with fresh parchment and a clean sheet pan. Turn whole thing over again and take sheet pan and parchment off top of brownie. Use torch or hot water to heat knife as you cut, wiping off blade after each cut.

Michael Mina is just the new name for Aqua - no other differences. I don't think either Michael Mina or Picasso (or most of the other high end places) are open for lunch. Olives (exellent), Circo and Cafe Bellagio are all open for lunch, and Petrossian does a really nice afternoon tea from 2:00 to 5:00 pm (reservation required). Don't overlook Jasmine (Chinese) and Shintaro (Japanese) for dinner. Both are creative and tend to get good reviews, though of course Picasso in generally considered one of, if not the best restaurant in town.

My thinking about pairing the almond cake/financier and vanilla panna cotta/ice cream with the beer was to contrast and enhance the beer's flavors. I suspect that if you try to replicate the subtle chocolate and cherry notes in the dessert you will just end up muting them in the beer and it will taste dull in comparrison. Since you say the beer isn't very sweet to begin with, I would suggest maybe thinking about a cheese course. I know it isn't most people's idea of dessert, but might have a better chance of success. Or maybe a not too sweet cheese cake made with goat or blue cheese?

Don't worry, Steve - you won't have to swim back to civilization. The Trader Joe's chocolate bars ARE quite good (most likely produced by Callebaut). Certainly better than Guittard's regular line and a hell of a great price for retail chocolate. I just wish they had a white chocolate version.

I've used it at home and I love it. Much darker and richer tasting than Droste (I haven't seen Bensdorp). It is dutch processed, though it doesn't say so on the label, so you have to take that into consideration when using in a recipe.

Word.

For most situations we use Cocao Barry (easy to work with and good flavor), but I've found out that we recently switched to E Guittard for some things like enrobing chocolate bon bons. I'm told the reason is the E Guittard is more mildly flavored and lets the flavor of the fillings come through better.

Are you looking for ideas on flavors to pair with drinking this beer, or do you want to incorporate it into the dish itself? And where would you say the beer falls on the sweet to dry scale? The drier it is, the harder it will be to match a dessert flavor with, since a sweeter dessert will tend to make the beer taste more bitter. If you want to use the beer in the dessert, I would go with milder flavors that support and enhance the fruitiness of the beer. I'm thinking somekind of moist, maybe warm almond cake (almond would bring out the cherry flavors in the beer) with vanilla panna cotta and beer gelee.

Here's a little tip to prevent the weirdly shaped split on top: after spreading the batter in the loaf pan, brush a thin line of melted butter lengthwise down the middle of the top. The cake will split where you brushed the butter when it bakes up.

We learned a bit more rustic version of the chocolate flower in school. Here's my attempt from class: We used tempered chocolate spread very thinly on a granite table top. Let start to set a bit and and drag the tool quickly across the surface. We used a couple different tools - a garde mange tool that was like a stiff metal loop with a handle, and an increadibly heavy cast iron die originally intended for cutting out shoe leather.

I think there are more recipes for pumpkin pie than there are for brownies and chocolate chip cookies combined. I've tried quite a few and this one from Bon Appetit is the best I've had so far (just for the filling - the crust part of the recipe is a disaster). I don't know if it's the absolute worlds best pumpkin pie ever, but it works for me.

Before you try to deal with you large pumpkin, you should know that usually the bigger varieties are grown to look pretty and have very little flavor. It's the small ones such as cheese and sugar pumpkins that are used for cooking. That said... pie.

Neil, I tried those yesterday. First time with cupcakes so I don't know what I have to expect. They taste very good but are not fudgey and creamy. I checked the chocolate cake with a toothpick until it was dry. The chocolate cake is moist and spongy but the cream cheese center is cooked, not creamy. Is this a good description of the final product or did I bake them too long ? By the way, I just bought Café Beaujolais from Amazon ! ← It sounds like you baked them properly. The cake part should be "fudgey" like a very moist chocolate cake, not like a dense brownie. And the cream cheese part should be creamy like a baked cheesecake, not like a liquid center. I guess it just depends on how you define the key words. Sorry you were dissappointed.

You shouldn't have any problem as long as the kids stay with the adults and they're just passing through, not hanging out in the casino. Be sure to stop by the Bellagio conservatory to see the new fall display.

According to Las Vegas Citysearch: yes.

I have to agree. I've learned to never order pie in restaurants - they never get it right. Especially apple pie. Too homey for the upscale places and the "homey" restaurants usually get the filling out of a can (don't even get me started on the crust). Come on over to the Pastry and Baking board and we can help you out: Apple Pie Threads

Olives (excellent) and Circo (lunch Wednesday-Sunday - I've heard mixed reviews) are both open for lunch at Bellagio. You also might check out Burger Bar in the Mandalay Place mall between Mandalay Bay and Luxor. I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but MAKE RESERVATIONS EARLY! The holiday season is very busy here and restaurants fill up, especially if you want a table for 10. Oh, and a word about buffets: I personally thought the Paris buffet was terrible while Aladdin's was quite good, but bad desserts. I highly recommend the new buffet at the Mirage (called 'Cravings'). P.S.: I just read that Bouchon at The Venetian is now open for lunch on Saturday and Sunday.

Good question. I'm not a lawyer, but I would say you can use any recipe, published anywhere - book, magazine or on-line - in your business. Once it's out there I don't think you can restrict it's use. However, you can restrict the reproduction of the actual words of the recipe itself. The standard we use here on eGullet to include a link to a recipe in your post if it's online anywhere (please do NOT copy and paste the recipe into your post). If the recipe isn't online somewhere else, you must re-write the entire thing in your own words to include it in your post. Here is the complete eGullet copyright and fair use policy that everyone agreed to when they became a member here: User Agreement.

This is very interesting. I have refrained from posting recipes from school since they weren't from publicly published textbooks/cookbooks. Maybe I don't need to be quite so confidential in the future? Although I still don't feel quite right about making them public domain.