nightscotsman

Chef Yosses - I gave your lemon pound cake recipe a try yesterday and had a bit of a problem. The flavor was really very good, but the texture of the cake was very dense and rubbery inside. It also really didn't rise in the oven at all. I thought it might be the baking powder, but I know I added it and package is only a few months old, so I don't think it's gone bad. The finished batter was very liquid, though I made sure it was still emulsified and not broken. Any ideas as to what may have gone wrong?

I had a chance to look through this book when we were doing ice creams and it looks amazing. A very scientific and creative approach to frozen desserts of all kinds. Now that there is an English translation of the text available, it's going near the top of my list for when I get some money. Thanks for the notice, Ted!

How about a nice bit of fruit salad with banana, papaya, or mango - or all three? Some caramelized macamadia nuts might be a nice garnish. Or maybe a banana sabayon? A warm banana fritter would bring in a temperature contrast.

There are many different types of sponge cake - genoise, biscuit, joconde, chiffon, etc - and hundreds of recipes for each. Perhaps you could give us a bit more information on what you are doing with the sponge cake and what you've tried so far, and maybe we could point you in some more productive directions?

Welcome chef Yosses and thanks for the pound cake recipe. Sounds really good!

To get the clock face on the tuile we silkscreened the design in reverse onto silpats using melted unsweetened chocolate. After it set, we used a stencil to spread the tuile batter on top of the printed design and baked as usual. You just have to make sure you don't overbake the cookies and they stay nice and light so you can see the chocolate printing.

The instructors demoed everything before we made it in class, though for the showpiece and wedding cake work they demoed the basic components and we had some freedom to put together what we liked. All of the cakes were done following their recipes and construction diagrams, but we got a free hand with garnishing. I just got back from Vegas last night! I had an interview with Jean Philippe Maury at the Bellagio pastry kitchen. He's an MOF who has been in the Pasry Art and Design top 10 list the past two years. They have 65 people working three shifts in the kitchen and produce everything in-house from scratch. They do all of the pastry (but not bread) for the hotel and most of the restaurants (except for Picasso and Le Cirque who have their own pastry chefs), and chef Maury is opening Jean Philippe Patisserie, a retail pastry shop, late this year. Having spent the last four days wandering the Strip searching out all the pastry I could, I have to say the Bellagio is definitely the class act in Las Vegas. Easily some of the best pastry I've had anywhere. The style is mostly classic French, but lighter, less sweet with interesting flavors and textures. I was really amazed at the level of quality and consistency they are producing at such high volume. So, am I moving to Vegas? Mmmmmmmaaaaaybeeee.... I have some hard thinking to do.

Sorry I can't post the recipe, but I can tell you the secrets I learned: - Use old egg whites. Leave egg whites in UNCOVERED container for about 24 hours at room temperature. Seriously. They will lose some moisture and make a more stable meringue. You can also add some powdered egg white for more stability - The powdered sugar and almond flour must be dry, dry, dry. Try spreading it out on sheet pans and putting in a very low oven for a couple hours. - Knowing how much to deflate the meringue when folding in the dry ingredients is crucial and hard to explain without seeing it in person. You want the mixture to be just fluid enough so the piped "kisses" flow and lose their points, but thick enough so they don't spread flat. That said, try the recipe in Flo Braker's "Sweet Miniatures" for chocolate macarons. It's very easy to follow and gives very good results.

When we made nougat (the French version of Torrone) in school, we also boiled the honey separately to maintain its flavor. The honey was cooked to 120 C, beat into egg whites to form a meringue, then kept on low speed while the sugar syrup boiled to 152 C, which was also beat into the whites. We let the whole thing whip for about 5 minutes without heating the bowl, then slowly added melted cocoa butter to give it a more unctious texture and a richer flavor. Finally, warm nuts were quickly mixed in with the paddle attachment and the mixture was poured into shallow aluminum pans lined with parchment brushed with melted cocoa butter. We also put cocoa butter coated parchement on top to keep it from drying out and forming a crust.

The truth about that cake is it we kind of screwed it up - my partner forgot to add the gelatine to the coffee mousse, so it didn't hold up when it defrosted. That's why I didn't bother with glazing and garnishing, and also why that's the only one I got a shot of cut open. Since it wasn't going to survive the trip home, we just ate it in class. That's exactly what I want to do next - even though we did a lot in school, I know there is huge amount I still have yet to learn. I am not a pastry chef yet by any means.

El Diablo and the bacon-wrapped dates at Tango.

There was a huge range of experience, age (from early 20s to late 60s) and seriousness from all of the students. Just like any other school, I guess. That said, I was one of three students out of 32 who graduated "with honors" - meaning our average score on all the tests was higher than 90%. OK, I have to brag just a little bit... they told me in private after graduation that I got the highest score.

What, more tests?! Dacquoise is a type of meringue made with ground nuts. It's usually baked in a sheet pan and the texture is usually soft like a cake, though it can be baked crisp like a cookie. The cookie part of French macarons is a type of dacquoise. Sherbet usually contains some dairy and/or fat, unlike sorbet with does not. The dairy gives it a slightly richer, smoother flavor while keeping the freshness of a sorbet. Monkey bread is just leftover scraps of croissant dough mixed with some sugar and cinnamon - and raisins or chopped dried fruit if you like - and baked in a loaf pan. Several of the students went nuts over this stuff and always made sure to screw up a good chunk of croissant dough so they could make monkey bread. Someone even made a savory version with cheddar cheese and chilis that was really good. Pate a choux is the dough you make cream puffs and eclairs out of. I've read it is called that because the baked buns look like little cabbages. Ganache is basically chocolate melted with cream, though for our dipped candies they also contained butter and trimoline (an invert sugar). Nougatine is crispy caramel with almonds, sort of like english toffee but with more almonds than caramel.

Thanks everyone! I've done a couple stages and trials at restaurants here in Chicago, and next week I'm going for an interview at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. The folks at school have been very helpful making contacts. I want to make sure I find the right place for my first job - one that will let me continue to learn and grow as a pastry cook and eventually a chef. I loved doing everything in school, so it's hard to decide how to narrow my focus. I want to do it all!

Each class period was about 5-1/2 hours not counting clean-up (we had to wash all of our own dishes and clean the whole kitchen every day). I got a 92.8 out of 100 on the final, but I think all the students agreed that the first test on breads, breakfast pastries, and petits fours was actually the hardest. We had only two class periods to take the written exam then make and turn in: - 1 brioche loaf - 6 small streusel brioches - 6 croissants - 2 lemon pound cakes - 12 madeleines - 9 coffee eclairs - 9 blueberry streusel tartlets - 9 mini Paris Brests I felt like I was going to have a heart attack the whole time until I finished with 10 minutes to spare.

As some of you may know, I graduated last month from the 6-month program at The French Pastry School in Chicago. I took photos of all of my work (well, most - wish I had more shots of my chocolate stuff) as I went along, and I've finally gotten around to posting them on-line. Check it out here: Neil's Adventures in Pastry School In case you're wondering - none of the recipes we used in class were from published sources. We worked from two large notebooks developed by the instructors and updated after every session. The only other textbooks we used were the "French Professional Pastry Series" (which we used for reference only) and "On Food and Cooking" by McGee. Bon Appetit!

If I had to guess, I'd bet they are using smoked salt. Salt is an old condiment for watermelon in some parts of the country, and they could take it a bit farther with the smoke flavor. But like I said, I'm just guessing.

I believe the pastry chef at NoMI is Kriss Harvey, who used to be at 727 Pine in the Seattle Hyatt. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to meet him, but he always seems to do interesting work.

I had a lovely dessert yesterday for lunch at NoMI here in Chicago. It was a warm chocolate soup infused with cinnamon and vanilla topped with a bit of melting coconut "curd" (basically coconut milk cooked with sugar, egg yolks and butter like a lemon curd). It was served with a deconstructed linzer "tart" which consisted of halved fresh raspberries, a sprinkling of crunchy, spicy struesel powder and a quenelle of chocolate cream. The soup was rich, but not very sweet, with a very complex and subtle flavor which brought out some floral notes from the coconut. The "tart" was refreshing and a nice complement to the soup, though the chocolate cream was a bit on the too rich side.

Ha! That's hillarious!

That's really funny - I've been playing around with making an adult version of the Hostess Snowball. You know, the chocolate cake covered in marshmallow and coconut. I tried making marshmallow with coconut milk, but the fat inhibited the foam a bit so it came out chewier than I wanted, so I'm going for a rich, moist chocolate cake with a raspberry marshmallow outside (no coconut). I went through several cake recipes, including a detour into brownies, but I think Rose's chocolate fudge cake from the Cake Bible has the richness I'm looking for. By the way, mklynch - what did you come up with for the filling? Is it whipped cream or something more substantial?

Little teeny tiny donut cutters. And elves. Lot's of elves.

I have to ask - is this the Voice of Experience?

I suggested adding whipped cream to the pastry cream because if he doesn't soak the genoise, it will act like the sponge it is and suck quite a bit of moisture out of the cream. Folding in whipped cream might keep the pastry cream from becoming too thick and pasty. Also - just my personal preference - I'm not really a fan of eating straight pastry cream. I agree that a biscuit would be the way to go if you don't want to soak. Or you could try making their 2 meter tall christmas tree decorated with 1200 gold foil covered chocolate macarons...

professional deck ovens often have a mechanism to introduce steam in the early stages of baking. This will gelatinize some of the outside layer of dough and help produce a thicker crust. However, they also usually have a vent that you can open to let the moisture out to produce a crisp and dry crust. I would think that if the oven is moist throughout the baking process you would get something closer to steaming and the crust would be more chewy?