nightscotsman

I think English lavender works well in cooking. It tends to grow large with long flower stems. You want to pick the flowers when they are still in the bud stage - just at the point when the start showing color. If you pick them in full bloom a lot of the fragrance and flavor will have been lost already. I like lavender with honey (honey lavender ice cream is a classic), dark chocolate, peaches, and sour cherries. You might also check out these previous threads on cooking with lavender here and here. As for the cheesecake idea, I would start with a reliable recipe that includes some liquid like cream. Infuse maybe 2 or 3 tablespoons of buds in the heated cream and let steep for half an hour. Strain, remeasure, and use in the recipe.

Mmmm... peking duck. Oh, and the orange chicken!

Wendy, coat the pans generously with a butter flour mixture: 100 g pastry flour to 500 g butter. Just soften a bit in the microwave when you need it and brush on with pastry brush. Works like buttering and flouring, but much faster and much less mess. Also - and I'm sure you already knew this - the madeleines must be removed from the pan as soon as you take them out of the oven. I think they make a nice garnish to some fruit desserts or ice cream. A nice change from the now ubiquitous tuile.

I would have loved to know what each item was, but just had to guess by looking. The judges had detailed diagrams with all the components spelled out, so they could tell what everything was supposed to be and if anything was missing. It seemed that the Japanese dessert had a missing component, but I couldn't tell for sure. It was basically a blob of white stuff (looked like cottage cheese) on top of a peach soup. Germany's was a disaster. It was so top heavy that they could barely carry it out without it falling over. In fact, one of them did fall over just as it was being set before a judge. The problem was the bottom tuile tube that the ice cream and what seemed to be an apple fritter was ballanced on was completely hollow with nothing in it. It was funny to watch the French judge remove the top items and react in surprise at the empty bottom. I think Belgium lost points for relying too much on the glassware. Their items seemed to lack difficulty and structure. I would have loved to taste Taiwan's dish since the main component was a carefully constructed banana tarte tatin.

OK, here's my first instalment of photos - the plated desserts. We were standing right in front of the French Judge, Olivier Bajard, MOF, so these are fresh from the competitor's kitchens. I'll post them in the order they were presented to the judges. Since the judges aren't told which country's dessert they are tasting, I can accurately attribute only a few of the items. Could somebody please help me out with the ones I'm missing or got wrong? Team 6 - South Korea Team 7 - France Team 8 - USA Team 9 - Australia Team 10 - Singapore Team 11 - Switzerland Team 12 - Belgium Team 1 - Poland Team 2 - Germany Team 3 - Japan Team 4 - Netherlands Team 5 - Taiwan

Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember them announcing that 40% of the score was degustation, 30% organization and working "clean", and 30% visual design. Does that sound right? I haven't seen the final point scores (not sure if these are made public at any time), but I heard that another thing that the Belgians got marked down for was using sugar to glue together their pastillage piece, which is aparently against the rules. Although it was very hard to see anything of how the teams worked from way back behind the sponsor seating section, I think most teams had one person on sugar, one on chocolate, and one on degustation. I know that's how the US team was organized. The only exception that was noted was the Swiss team, where one chef did both the sugar and chocolate show pieces (but didn't finish the sugar). The only direct complaint I heard was from the French team who thought the US team was disorganized and didn't work clean. Oh, and the Belgian's complained that they got marked down for using sugar on the surface of their chocolate piece, but other teams used color and gold dust without any issues.

I would actually freeze the dough before baking at a high temperature. Another tip (that I haven't tried yet): Jacque Torres begins with a larger square/rectangle than he needs. He partially bakes it until it shrinks, but is still a bit soft, then he takes it out of the oven to cut a circle the size he needs. Back in the oven to finish baking. He also brushes with corn syrup thinned with a little water during the second bake to give it a shiney, caramelized surface.

Well, then there's always "Chudge". No, I haven't made it myself, but I confess I've wanted to ever since I heard about it.

The controversy continues - apparently the Belgium team has "returned" (to put it politely) their medals in protest over the US team's win. And the French team announced that they will not be back to compete in the future. Ah, the drama...

I've tried a couple of RLB's chiffon cake recipes, including the Orange Glow, and really like the texture and moistness. She has a Lemon Glow Chiffon Cake recipe in the Cake Bible, though I haven't made that one yet.

I have LOTS of photos which will take me awhile to edit and post. I'm afraid I won't get to it until my "weekend", Tuesday and Wednesday. It's been interesting hearing some of the behind the scenes goings on. The Japanese team had all their equipment hung up in customs and had to buy everything new. Although I thought their sugar showpiece was beautiful (though very unorthidox), I'm told that it wasn't at all what they had planned. I also heard that although many were sure that Belgium should have taken the gold, the judges thought they broke several technical rules that cost them points. And the French team was very pissed that they didn't win. Here are the final standings: Gold Medal: TEAM USA Congratulations to Jean-Philippe Maury, M.O.F., Patrice Caillot, Claude Escamilla, Chris Hanmer. Silver Medal: TEAM BELGIUM Marc Debailleul, M.O.F., Philippe Rheau, M.O.F., Stephane Leroux, Serge Alexandre Bronze Medal: TEAM FRANCE Olivier Bajard, M.O.F., Pascal Caffet, M.O.F., Philippe Parc, M.O.F., Alexandre Gyé-Jacquot, M.O.F. Best Sportsmanship: TEAM SWITZERLAND Franz Ziegler, Urs Regli, Adrian Bader, Rolf Muerner Best Sugar: TEAM SOUTH KOREA Kim Young-mo, Jeong Young-teak, Jeong Chan-woong, Kim Young-hoon Best Chocolate: TEAM BELGIUM Marc Debailleul, M.O.F., Philippe Rheau, M.O.F., Stephane Leroux, Serge Alexandre

Oooh, wait until you get to ice creams. Be sure to get a bunch of quart containers to pack it in and an insulated carrier of some kind to take it home. And I hope your family and/or friends like mousse cakes.

Thanks very much for the recipe, mybench. What brand of cocoa do you usually use for it? Dutched or not? Oh, and it would be great if you could add it to recipeGullet when you have a chance. Thanks!

I would use the basic method that Annie outlined above. I would just add that to make sure the bottoms are coated properly and sealed, you should pre-coat them in tempered chocolate (if the chocolate isn't tempered, you will get gray streeks when it sets and will melt easily in people's hands when they pick up the cookies). You can use a small offset spatula or even a very clean and dry pastry brush to thinly coat the cookie bottoms. Let the chocolate set, then set them on the dipping fork (you might even be able to use a regualar dinner fork if you don't want to buy one or can't find them) chocolate side down and dip completely in the tempered chocolate. To get a thin coating and reduce the chance of big "feet", when you dip each cookie and it's still on the fork, "tap" it on the surface of the chocolate to pull off some of the excess. This is sometimes called "pumping". Then you can scrape off the chocolate on the bottom by running the fork across the edge of the bowl. Oh, and I would dip the cookies at room temperature. Otherwise they will cool the chocolate too quickly so you'll get a very heavy coating and your bowl of chocolate will become too thick to dip with after just a few cookies.

I think it's traditionally used like quince paste - as an accompaniment to cheese and other savory items. I haven't had the guava, but the quince is fantastic with manchego.

I would suspect that would just give you a foam since there is so much fat in the anglaise.

No, just the traditional flavor. They are mini molds, so I do prefer my standard size copper ones. They are very thick aluminum, possibly thicker than the ones they sell at William Sonoma, but I don't know it that would make a difference.

The FoodTV special on the last Sugar Art Show was just on last week. Some very impressive work from a range of entrants with wide ranging backgrounds. Thanks very much for the heads up on this year's show. By the way, I'm assuming "kerry" is none other than the charming and talented Kerry Vincent? Welcome to eGullet, and I hope you'll come back to share your wisdom with us in the future.

Actually, the mini aluminum molds I got in France work just fine - results almost indistinguishable from the tin lined copper. I've never been able to get good results from silicon molds, though I've tried a couple different brands. Something about the way they are all attached at the top keeps them from baking evenly in a conventional oven.

You really should give them a try. It's probably the easiest, fastest yeasted bread you can make, and soooo good warm out of the oven. You can keep the dough in the fridge for several days and bake as needed. "Baking with Julia" has a good recipe.

Jeez, how much stuff do you egg wash? If you thin the egg wash with a bit of water or milk and strain well, you can also use a hand trigger spray bottle for small or occasional jobs. Use a brand new bottle and never use it for anything else, of course.

You could also try using a hand blender on the mix when it's cool. Just try not to incorporate any air. Also, make sure you are using a very fine strainer.

In Vancouver at Diva at the Met we had lovely and refreshing dessert (actually one of several dessert courses) by Thomas Haas of fresh pineapple "carpacio" with cilantro sugar. The combination was perfect. I assume he made the sugar by grinding it with well dried fresh cilantro in a food processor.

Yes, Philip Mihalski at Nell's on Greenlake. I'm thinking Salumi.

You could buy several cake stands in various sizes and stack them to form a tiered display. Doing two or three towers this way would look impressive and relate to a tradiitional tiered wedding cake. If you wanted to get really ambitious, you could make cake stands from poured sugar or pastillage. This would very inexpensive and let you make them as unusual as your imagination.