nightscotsman

I haven't taken classes at either school, so I can't be of much help, but I can say that I think the pastry books put out by Bellouet are far better than those by Lenotre. Not sure how this reflects on the actual schools.

Bellagio currently has several openings posted on their corporate web site for positions in the pastry department: 4 openings in the main pastry kitchen 1 opening in Picasso 3 openings in Michael Mina (formerly Aqua) You can apply on-line, or if you're interested in a job in the main pastry kitchen, PM me and I will send you more direct contact information. I don't know for sure where in the kitchen these positions are - could be banquets, restaurant desserts, buffet, danish, cakes, or chocolate - but there is a major expansion tower opening in December, including a new dedicated pastry shop, so every section will need more people for the increased work load. Bellagio is a union shop, so pay and benefits are excellent and employees are treated very well. work days are normally 8 hours, 5 days a week with time and a half for overtime and double pay for holidays. The executive pastry chef is MOF Jean Philippe Maury and two members of the latest World Pastry Championship gold medal team are on staff. For a hotel of this size... well, any hotel actually... product quality is very high. Almost everything is made in-house from scratch using high quality ingredients. I work in the restaurant dessert team with four other bakers and a pastry chef supervisor. We make all the dessert components (final assembly and plating happens in the restaurant at service) for seven restaurants and room service, plus finished individual pastries for five retail outlets. I'm happy to work in this section of the kitchen and have learned a lot. We make a wide variety of product and we each rotate through several stations during the week so we don't get bored doing the same thing every day.

Here's a dessert I developed for a mystery basket challenge in school - caramelized pineapple, banana fritters and passion fruit sherbet: The fritter batter was very simple: 2-1/2 cups AP flour 1 cup sugar 2 Tbsp baking powder 2 cups cold water (you could sub all or half coconut milk here if you like, though it might make the coating a little heavier) 2 cups unsweetened dried coconut combine flour sugar and baking powder. whisk in water until smooth. dip bananas to coat lightly and roll in coconut. fry in 350 degree oil until golden brown. drain on paper towels. These came out very good with a light, crispy coating and creamy banana inside. The insides stay very hot quite a while, so you may want to warn your customers. The batter should keep for at least a day in the cooler. The acid from the pineapple and passion fruit was a perfect compliment to the bananas, so you may want to introduce a fruit sauce of some kind to go along with the coconut gelato in your dessert. It would help cut the rich-creaminess of the whole.

I agree - we always used a stick blender on our chocolate ice cream in school. Unlike a ganache, there is such a high ratio of liquid to chocolate that it's really the only way to get the mixture completely incorporated. Do not use an electric mixer. This will incorporate way too much air and the beaters don't actually spin fast enough to do the job that a blender would. Actually, now that I re-look at the recipe, I can see that Medrich is trying to get you to make a ganache-like mixture first with the smaller amount of hot liquid before adding the rest. This should work as long as you make sure the mixture is very smooth before adding more liquid. I would use a whisk rathar than a spatual, and when you pour the initial amount of hot liquid over the chocolate, let it sit for a couple minutes to let the heat melt the chocolate before stirring. You could also melt, or patially melt the chocolate in the microwave beforehand as suggested above. But it sounds like a work around for an audience that might not have a stick blender at home.

The production team in our pastry kitchen bakes cheesecakes for the hotel - all of them are baked in water baths. Large, full-size cakes are baked in removable bottom cake pans (not spring form) with heavy duty foil, and individual cakes are baked in rings with waterproof baking cups (like muffin cups) around the bottoms. The bottom crusts are never soggy. I think this might partly be because they use a graham cracker crumb mixture that is very dry to start with - crumbs, a bit of sugar, and just a little bit of butter, not even enough for it to hold together. The crumbs are tamped into the bottom of the molds before pouring in the batter. Another detail is we use very little water in sheet pan around the baking cakes. Only a 1/4 inch is plenty. The idea is you don't need to actually poach them in a bath of water. The water is there to act as a heat sink and keep the eggs in the batter from overheating. This is the same way be bake creme brulees.

Didn't work there, but I did have a chat with the pastry chef. Very nice woman. Also had several exellent dinners there. Fell in love with the bacon-wrapped dates.

Tango has great cocktails, tapas and desserts, plus a fun, relaxed atmosphere and a nice private room.

Right - the sugar should form a ball that doesn't stick to your fingers, but is still soft and pliable. Good luck!

Unless you do a lot of sugar syrups on a regular basis, I can guarantee that "eyeballing for doneness" will not work. The only reliable ways of telling if the sugar is cooked to the correct stage are to use a thermometer or drop some in cold water to check for soft ball consistency. Candy thermometers can be had quite cheaply, but the cold water test is very easy and actually more acurate. If you find that you've overshot the soft ball stage, you can actually add a little more water and boil until you reach the correct temperature. Sorry your batch didn't turn out well - I hope you'll try again.

andiesenji is probably right about the time/temperature issue with convection ovens, but not all convection ovens behave the same way. We bake all our creme brulees in a convection and I've never seen the fans blow ripples in the surface. The production crew does cheesecakes in them too, and I don't think they have any problems. We do have to rotate cookies to get them to bake evenly, though. Can't remember the brand of oven we're using. You may have to do a little experimenting. And we also bake our scones in the frozen state every morning.

The problem with the recipe you've found is that you aren't actually making caramel. Some find flavor of brown sugar to be similar to caramel so you see a lot of products and recipes that claim to be caramel flavored use it. Here is a recipe for caramel sauce on Epicurious that should give you what you want. If this is your first time making caramel it can be a little scary. Once it starts to brown it can get overly dark quickly, and the sugar will get VERY hot so you need to be careful not to get any on you. When you add the cream it will bubble up dramatically, so be sure to use a larger sauce pan that you might think for the volume.

The one by Safeco Field is probably the biggest in Seattle. It think it's on 6th - or is that 4th? By the way, I used to think that Washington State Liquor Stores had a small selection and high prices, but believe it or not they completely blow away all the liquor stores here in Vegas. Yeah, you can get the hard stuff in grocery stores, but the selection is crappy and not really cheap. Of course NOTHING can compare to Sam's in Chicago.

Boiling for a minute or two should be fine if you're using flour. However, you can't just sub flour for corn starch one for one. They have difference thickening qualities. I would try to find another recipe that is uses flour.

Since the marshmallows are almost pure sugar, they should keep indefinitely. They will dry out and become chewier over time, so the more airtight the container the better.

Using potato starch instead of corn starch probably won't make any difference in preventing stickiness. I like using potato because I think it has a lighter, softer mouthfeel. What actually might make more difference is if you use a product called "snow sugar" (there's a French name that I won't embarass myself trying to spell). Unlike powdered sugar it's not made from sucrose, and it doesn't melt or become sticky like regular sugar will. However, when consumed in large qantities it can cause... shall we say "a few more trips to the bathroom". The light dusting on a few marshmallows shouldn't cause any problems. It's what bakeries usually use on powdered sugar donuts so they stay dry and powdery. It's available from King Arthur (Sorry if the link doesn't work - making lasting links to products in their catalog has been a problem in the past). Potato starch can often be found in the kosher section of supermarkets or in natural/healthfood stores.

The only thing we glaze for restaurant service is a sugar free (yes, we use sugar free glaze - same machine, two hoses) mango/passion chiboust with berries on top that Cafe Bellagio sells. Almost everything else gets final assembly and plating ala minute. The stuff we glaze for retail is never kept overnight. Whatever doesn't sell that day is thrown away and we make it again fresh in the morning.

Uh huh, we have dedicated machines to heat and spray glaze on all fruit pastries that go in the pastry case. We just reach under the counter, pull out the hose, and glaze a whole sheet of fruit tarts in a few seconds with a very thin even coat. There's no way we could spend the time using a pastry brush and the results are much nicer. Since Vegas has virtually no himidity most of the year, we have to use glaze. If we didn't, they would dry up in less than an hour and nobody would buy them.

My guess is that freezing would make the texture grainy. Most cheeses don't take very well to being frozen. I think browniebaker is right - there's so much fat that it should be fine after a week in the coolah if well wrapped.

I'm afraid I have to dispel this as a myth. In Forest Park - a wealthy Chicago suburb if there ever was one - Gerhard's is a lovely pastry shop in a highly visible central location doing very high quality product. I chatted with the owner and chef for awhile when I visited last year and I mentioned that he probably did a good business due to the upscale neighborhood. He said that's what he thought when he chose the location, but in fact he had to work very, very hard to educate his customers and he probably wouldn't be able to stay in business if he didn't have some substantial wholesale business from the big Chicago hotels. So it seems income level alone doesn't always determine discernment.

In most recipes you can safely replace glucose with corn syrup, and vice versa. The main difference is corn syrup has a slightly higher water content.

I haven't done a caramel filling myself, but I have a few suggestions on the other questions: I've found powdered egg whites at Whole Foods, so if there is store in your area you might try them. You can also try what has been discussed in the other threads - use old egg whites. Just set them out at room temp in an uncovered bowl for about 24 hours. The whites will lose some of their moisture and the resulting meringue will be stiffer and more stable, which is the reason for using the egg white powder anyway. We did this all the time in school and it's totally safe. The unfilled cookies can be stored perfectly well in the freezer for weeks in airtight containers. Be sure to defrost in the fridge still in the container.

Wendy! Say it ain't so! By the way, if you still want to try the mini madeleines, I would increase the oven temperature about 50 degrees and bake them very quickly. That way they won't have time to dry out all the way through before they're done. In fact, you might try that with the larger ones for a moister finish.

In my experience, carrot cake does not traditionally include raisins. Pineapple, coconut and nuts yes, but raisins would tend to dominate the carrot too much and turn it into more of a generic spice cake.

No egg whites, but here's a recipe for white chocolate bavarian that's very good. The key is the relatively high level of salt. It doesn't taste salty, but it greatly reduces the sweetness of the white chocolate which can be cloying. White Chocolate Bavarian Anglaise base: 125 g milk 125 g cream 7.5 g sugar 110 g yolk 3 g salt 50 g white chocolate (pistoles or chopped) Make anglaise with first 5 ingredients and pour hot over white chocolate. Blend as for ganache and let cool to room temp. 867.5 g anglaise base 5 g gelatine (bloomed in water) 450 g cream Melt gelatine with 20% of the anglaise base warmed in the microwave. Add rest of anglaise and cool to 32º C. Fold in whipped cream, half at a time. Use immediately.

Another convert to the cult - hee hee! Can't really say why they end up tasting so creamy, but I suspect is has to do with the high quantity of corn syrup/glucose. I actually prefer the strawberry puree unstrained. Seedless would certainly be more refined, but the seeds are small and innoffensive, and they served as a reminder to people that they are naturally flavored. Berries with larger seeds like raspberries I would certainly strain.