sugarseattle

I have forgotten sugar in my baked goods more times than I can count on two hands. This is so ironic, because the name of my bakery is "sugar.". There's this one lemon tart recipe in particular, that I forget sugar in almost every time. The result is a dry, cracked, coagulated yellow mess that tastes like sour patch kids. And then there was the blueberry muffins that ended up in a glutenous mess (I thought they looked dry so tried to add more sour cream). It's gotten to the point that people who share kitchen space with me put up little signs around my workspace to "don't forget the sugar". Pretty funny.

I agree. Like June Cleaver said to Beaver, "if you don't have anything nice to say about somebody don't say anything at all." People who are interested in luxury goods (and most all products for that matter) are not going to want to spend money with someone with an attitude. Let them fall in love with you, with the high level of standards you hold your product to. Sell that quality. Exude only positive energy. State the good things about your product. Samples sometimes backfire; every time I've offered samples, I've sold LESS...something about why by the cow if you can get the milk for free. (Boy I'm using cliches) Anyway, know that the high quality of your products is going to reduce your target market, but also know how to get in front of your target market. And when you get a chocolate connoisseur, don't be afraid to sell them everything you've got! You're right, that marketplace might not be a good match if your competition, who has an economically priced alternative, has cornered the market. Think about what the consumer is seeing when they see the whole place. Why would they buy your products?

The way I usually do it is break the recipe down into the different components... You've got your tenderizers... sugar-start by reducing by 1/3 egg(which also acts as a leavener) - you can add more egg in place of oil to increase protein (although not sure about fat ratio because of the yolk) oil-you can usually swap half with water or milk, or all the oil with applesauce or mashed banana. mmmm banana choco muffins! butter or shortening-well shortening is bad so don't use it. butter can usually be reduced, but then sugar might need to be increased to help with texture. You've got your body makers Flours - when you switch to whole wheat or any fiberous grain, you're going to need a bit more tenderizing and possibly leavening Oats - I use thick oats in an excellent oat muffin. I don't pre-soak them or cook them, and they bake up just perfectly adding the right amount of body and dimension to the muffin. Cocoa - is going to pull moisture, but adds very little calories so it's about balancing the sugar/cocoa ratio. That's usually a good starting point; however, you could just find a healthy muffin recipe and swap out a little of the flour for cocoa and oats...that actually sounds really good. Good luck.

I prefer heavy cream. I find evaporated milk to often taste a little "canny". For example, when I'm making tres leches, I usually increase the heavy cream and add some milk (thus making it four leches to balance away the "canny" flavor. A bit of citrus zest works too. but back to your original inquiry... The last time I made german choco filling, it tasted like over-rich pastry cream. I couldn't imagine eating more than a tablespoon of the stuff. Does anybody else find this to be true, or is that just how it's supposed to taste, perhaps as a sweet foil to the bittersweetness of the choco cake?

Sounds a lot like caramel coloring, very easy to make, but you can also just buy it.

you could wait until the ganache is pipeable, then pipe a nice design on it like maybe even a simple rosette, perhaps accented with a white chocolate garnish.

Glad you identified the problem. I've done a number of doozies, namely omitting sugar on a regular basis, which is absolutely hilarious, given the name of my bakery is "sugar". Anyhow, we have a store in seattle area called Cash & Carry, also sometimes called United Grocers. They are sort of like Costco, but without membership. Whereas Costco caters to mainstream and might not have high gluten flour, some of the other restaurant supply stores might have it. Bagel bakeries would likely use a bakery supplier, and whether or not you qualify for wholesale would determine whether you could buy from then. My point being is that a 50lb sack is likely going to only run you about 13bucks, and even though you might not go thru it in 6 months, it will still probably be cheaper than getting it from the King, and you won't have to wait when you get a hankering for fresh bagels.

I agree that if the white choco you've got to start with is not going to get too much sweeter by "truffelizing" it. If I remember correctly, you're probably going to be something like 75% white choco to 25% cream to get the right consistency. There shouldn't be sugar in your truffle recipe, but if there is I would omit it. Also, you mention wanting to add candied lemon zest...you might consider beefing up the lemon flavor with fresh zest or even a teensy weensy bit of lemon essential oil. Are you going to enrobe the truffle? I'm thinking a nice super dark choco would be an awesome contrast. But not to ignore your original inquiry, I think 10% cocoa butter seems like a nice start. B utter might do well also, and would help save exhorbitant ingredient costs!

I apologize if there is already a post on this topic...Found 5 other bloggers that did a huge cross post on this croissants. Theirs came out fabulous. Mine, not so much. Anyhow... I have been working with the Tartine recipe. I love the flavor the best. Probably from the preferment. My ideal croissant should be bubbly looking and extremely flaky, dark on the outside, tender and delicate on the inside. Flavor should be not too sweet, but nice and robust with a yeasty aroma. Instead, I've been getting greasy, sometimes too shiny flat but well flavored puckeys. Here's the recipe: Preferment: 6 oz nonfat milk 1T active dry yeast 6.25 oz apf Dissolve yeast into milk. blend with flour. Let sit overnite. Dough: 1T+1tsp active dry yeast 14 oz whole milk 28 oz apf 2.5 oz sugar 1T+1tsp salt 1T melted butter Sprinkle yeast over preferment until blended. Add 1/2 of milk and blend until incorporated. Add dry ingredients and mix with dough hook until mass comes together into loose dough, about 3 minutes. Let rest for 20 mins. Resume mixing for 4 mins until dough is smooth and elastic. Add milk if dough gets too firm. let dough rest in cool place until rises by 1/2. punch down and roll into rectangle 2" thick. Let rest in refrigerator for 4-6 hours. Roll-in Butter: 22 oz, cool, but pliable Remove butter from fridge 1 hour before laminating and beat with paddle until smooth and pliable (do not whip). Chill for 1 hour before laminating. Laminate Roll dough to 28x12. Spread butter over 2/3 of dough. Fold into thirds. (first single fold) Rotate dough and roll out again 28x12, Fold into thirds (second single fold). Let rest 2 hours. Roll out again 28x12 and do the third single fold. Let rest in freezer 1 hour. Transfer dough to fridge in evening and form croissants in the am. To form croissants, roll to 32x12. cut into triangles 4x12. Starting from wide end, roll base to tip, tucking in pointed end so the croissant will stand tall. Proof for 2-3 hours in area with high humidity (75degrees). For example, home oven, turned off with a pan of steaming water at the bottom. Refresh the water half way. Now for my notes... 1. preferment is pretty easy to master. I'm thinking though...wonder if it's possible to try the preferment technique with another recipe? 2. dough. seems like my dough is too shaggy after only 4 minutes, so I've tried both stopping early (resulting in the dough tearing during rollout) and stopping later (resulting in the dough being too elastic and tough). 3. beurrage. seems difficult to smear the butter over the dough. perhaps it got too cold? last time I incorporated the butter using the butter envelope method, but then I think it got too soft when I did the folds. My most recent attempt, again with the envelope, I think the butter was too cold again. Also in this last attempt, I incorporated 2T flour into the butter...hopefully that will hold back some of the greasiness. 4. laminating madness. Should I expect the dough to feel smooth in the end, or should there be little lumps of butter in the dough? Even though it's lumpy, I'm seeing layers in the raw dough, but not so much when the croissants are baked off. I think I have to be careful when laminating that the dough and the butter are at the same temp. Also, it seems weird that the resting times are more than 1 hour, so perhaps the dough is getting too cold and the butter breaks up during the folds. Should I let it sit out for 30 mins before rollout, or maybe I should only let chill in the fridge 30mins? I know temperature is important, so when I move this into mini-mass production, I'll have to have a system for temperature control in place. 5. proofing. The 2 hour proofing time seems really long. First time, the proofing area was too hot so the croissants melted on the bottom. Thereafter, I got the temperature right, but the croissants seemed over-proofed after only 1 hour. Maybe this will get better if I get a proofer? 6. baking. is it normal for a bunch of butter to leak out when baking. I mean like pools of butter make the croissants seem like they're almost being fried. Recipe calls for 425, but I'm using convection so I do 400. Thanks in advance for any help and advice. steph

I usually glaze them with a cold-set glaze on the cut end, then you can dust with "snow sugar", aka non-melting sugar, aka donut sugar. You could use a hot glaze or even apricot jelly on the cut end, because you're basically trying to prevent any leakage, which happens when cut strawberry flesh meets sugar. Or you could use whole strawberries (thus doubling the cost of your garnishes).

Hi, i just found this on wikipedia... "The terms zeppoli and sfingi also are sometimes used refer to baked cream puffs made from choux pastry." Choux are suprisingly easy to make. You can fill with a good pastry cream. Yummy!

I have a huge favor. I've been looking for a sheeter for about 6 months, and i just found this one on ebay. if anybody lives in rhode island, would anybody be interested in running down to the shop and checking out this piece of equipment. The auction ends on mar 15. here's the info: http://cgi.ebay.com/RONDO-REVERSIBLE-DOUGH...1QQcmdZViewItem I'd be happy to pay you for your time. Just send me an email if you're available to run down there. Thanks! stephanie

We sell our shortbread to coffee shops in two ways: pre-packaged, and bulk. The bulk shortbread outsells the pre-packaged individual pieces by 400%. There's something to be said about freshness. However, unless the coffee shop is specifically marketing desserts, it only represents a small margin of their sales, so as a business owner, they are likely to try to spend less time and energy trying to sell something that doesn't move. However, that does seem counter-intuitive since if they put more effort (through nice displays, etc.) they might actually sell more. Except in their minds, the increased pastry sales still don't hold a candle to their coffee and drink sales. I agree that putting together some marketing materials that can help inform their clients about your products would be helpful. Perhaps some stickers they can attach to the plastic containers. Talk to them about whether you want to put your logo, or even their logo on the stickers or little cards for the display. Some shops like to give their customers the perception that THEY make the pastries. Also, if you're using wholesome or natural ingredients, be sure to supply those for people. People are becoming increasingly conscious of ingredients, so that can help. I know it's so hard to put the selling of your pastries in someone elses hands. Clearly, you can do a better job selling your own pastries, but for now, try to bridge the gap between you and the end consumer by increasing your communication efforts. Good luck!

Thank you everybody for your advice. We have actually decided not to pursue this opportunity. The numbers weren't adding up for the lease term, and we just felt there was too big of a risk. We feel that we only get one shot to do this (if we fail, we would be in big trouble financially), and we'd rather wait until we feel very comfortable with every aspect of the risk before we make the big jump. We've decided to pursue another opportunity at an industrial park, where we'd be taking over a catering kitchen for much less money and a much cheaper and more flexible lease. We can re-build our wholesale (we've been closed for 2-1/2 months while my husband recovers from cancer treatment), we can focus on the farmer's markets again, we can have cooking classes, and when we want to open a retail shop, we won't have to worry about setting up a huge production kitchen to handle our wholesale and retail. I'm excited to be baking again...that's what it's really about.

Even though 4 months seems like a lot of time, you're essentially being asked to develop and research a band new product and all the particulars start to finish. All this while going through a very intensive pastry program, in which you should dedicate all your energy towards. Even though you can probably just perfect a really good chocolate cake and use ganache frosting, both of which are fairly easy to master, there are SO many other things that go into wedding cakes. For example, the stand. The millions of meeting with the bride and comments and such. You will have plenty of opportunities to make wedding cakes as you continue your pastry career. I would actually classify wedding cakes as SEPARATE from baking, as there are so many other things that go into them besides how the cake actually tastes. For that reason, I personally try to avoid them. We served ice cream at my wedding

Hey, I'm bumping this because the clock's ticking and I really need to present an offer to the seller. We can only screen our calls for so long!

I've bought a few scales here and most have lasted under very heavy use about 1 year. http://saveonscales.com

I think you DO have passion for the kitchen. You DID make the right choice to trust your gut and get out of that bad situation. I think you DO have the balls to work hard and reap the rewards of a job well done. I think you feed off of that and if you do want to re-pursue your passion, you will be able to put it in perspective. I think this time off has helped you realize what you want, and next time, you won't let it go so far as to walk out ceremoniously. Trust your gut and find a kitchen that fits.

The location takes advantage of foot traffic and is in a part of Seattle known for difficulty in parking. But I think because it's "city" people expect that and plan accordingly. (we'll probably do some sort of curb-side pickup) We could probably use a few more months to plan this out (despite all the planning we've done), but the location is available now and we don't know when the next really good location will come up. We really feel the location would serve our needs well, but like anything, there's always a certain amount of risk. It's sort of like do we "waste" a little money on the risk, or do we take the other risk of waiting. The first risk takes balls and might fail miserably, the second risk will mean living in anxiety wondering "when" we can begin. If background info would be helpful, feel free to peruse our site, http://www.sugardelights.com

I've been making caramel for 4 years, and still seem to have the occasional problem with crystallization occurring a day after making the caramel, so as a precaution, I always let the caramel rest for a day or so just to be sure it's ok before remelting it and using it. Using a small squeeze of corn syrup helps, as well as being extremely careful that all crystals are melted before the syrup comes to a boil. It just takes practice. I still am very cautious and only make small batches to minimize waste. PS. crystallized caramel can still be used to bake with, say for example in some brownies or to make a caramel apple cake java script:emoticon(':biggrin:') smilie

We started our wholesale dessert business 3 years ago and knew eventually we'd want to expand to a retail location. We have been looking for a location for almost 1 year and nothing has really fit. We've spent the past year planning our startup costs, creating cash flow sheets, and overall just thinking a lot of it through. We know you can never be fully ready and at some time you just have to jump on. So... There's a grocery store for sale in a pretty prime location. The sale price is about 25k higher than the assets that are useable for us. We'd have to sell some of their refrigerators, etc which is work. It's a 2-1/2 year lease with a 4 year option, and the first term is substantially less than the going market rate of leases in that area, representing 1k/mo in savings. However, if you string out that savings over the short course of the lease, then throw in the likelyhood of a substantial rent increase, it's not really a steal, and maybe a little bit over the market rate. But it is a good location; however that's not a guarantee that we will make substantially more in that location vs. another. The question is, do we do it or wait? Even though baking is my passion and I've waited so long for the perfect space to come along, I'm trying to look at this purely from a business standpoint.