sugarseattle

i bet using the "coin" method will allow you to control the flavor rather than grating. you might try to just make a nice ginger syrup that you like the concentration of and then use that to flavor your desserts. as you're steeping your ginger in your syrup, be sure to taste as you go and pull out the ginger when it reaches the flavor you like. store in fridge.

i bet using the "coin" method will allow you to control the flavor. you might try to just make a nice ginger syrup that you like the concentration of and then use that to flavor your desserts. as you're steeping your ginger in your syrup, be sure to taste as you go and pull out the ginger when it reaches the flavor you like. store in fridge.

in my opinion, it doesn't take that much goat cheese to get the flavor. I do a goat cheese scone, and just swap out about 30% of the butter for goat cheese. my recipe calls for blending the butter into the dry ingredients so I just do the butter at that time, then add the goat cheese, then the liquid. I'm trying not to "puree" the goat cheese in that way; rather keep it in chunks so there will be pockets of goat cheese flavor. does that make sense? So anyhow, you could just take a cracker recipe you like and do a similar swapping out. You might also try a cheese cracker recipe and then just use your goat cheese. Green onion or chives pair really nicely with goat cheese. have fun!

I think the swiss meringue buttercream is surely your answer, and you could even add a little less butter to it. be sure the buttercream whips to almost WHITE and it will have less greasy mouth feel. if you overwhip and it get's too soft, plop the mixer bowl in the fridge for 10-15 mins and then re-whip. If the buttercream gets too cold you might warm the bowl with a torch or warm towel until the proper consistency is reached. my husband likes cold buttercream. i only like it at room temperature. depending on what flavor of cake you're frosting, a little lemon zest might cut the butter/greasy flavor. vanilla is very important too. Here's a wild idea...has anybody ever subbed a little cream cheese for part of the butter...that could be interesting...

it was crazy last week with the record breaking heat, and our poor chocolate suffered greatly. our coating chocolate was actually almost liquid in the bucket, and our semi sweet bloomed like crazy. needless to say we're getting air conditioning next week. but in the heat of the moment, I wasn't sure if there was anything I could do to save the poor chocolate. our freezer also failed during the heat, barely able to hold 45degrees making it warmer than our fridge!

yeah, the pre-baking is intended for quicker baking fillings like custard and curds. perhaps you're rolling too thick? i roll them to about 1/8" thick...just about too thin to be able to transfer them. does your recipe have any sugar? that will help with the browning. also if it's all shortening, sometimes that takes longer to brown.

i like to make them individually with rounds and scoop each one. the main thing is to work FAST since once scooped, the ice cream tends to melt fast so scoop 6, wrap 6 and freeze them, then repeat. i also find chilling the cookies beforehand helps because you want a cookie that is going to be a little bit softer so it won't freeze solid. i would eat one for breakfast right now if I had it!

I haven't worked with soy flour so I don't know it's properties but... my brownie recipe is just semi sweet chocolate, cocoa, egg, sugar, flour, a touch of baking powder, vanilla and salt reg flour will pull moisture (making crumbly) so perhaps reduce overall flour amount by 10-15% maybe more fat...that is a lot of coffee, which is essentially just adding water. perhaps take that out and replace with two eggs. I don't know about oil...butter will give you better texture. a lot of the texture of brownies depends on how long you bake them. to get more denseness, remove from oven when toothpick inserted has a few gooey crumbs on it. hope that helps.

what kind of chocolate sauce will it be? simple ganache?

peppermint oil is MUCH stronger than extract...I think maybe 50 times stronger...we once accidentally used 1 Tablespoon of oil (the recipe called for extract) and our eyes were watering when the shortbread was baking!the aroma was so strong we could taste it in the back of our mouths. so I would say more like 2 drops of oil=1tsp in our experience.

i would ask for an ingredients list. the shelf stable product most likely has tons of preservatives, which will likely affect the flavor quite a bit. i agree with rickster about the shelf stable products likely being cooked, which will affect the flavor of the fruit substantially. I prefer frozen fruit purees, but have not been able to find a good source other than Napa Valley Fruit purees, which are quite nice, but quite expensive. a lot of times i just end up making my own for simple fruits like straw/ras/blueberries. i was at a smoothie place the other day, and they seemed to have these cool exotic fruit purees.

It is safer to use pasteurized egg whites. however, now don't quote me as i'm not a health inspector, but i believe whites have less risk than yolks so using unpasteurized is fairly safe. however, you are not actually "cooking" the whites, you are just drying them out. think about how the french actually leave a bucket of whites with the lid off by the back door so that they make better meringues. However, you may want to just ask your inspector as they are usually happy to help especially if you're trying to make sure your food is safe. powdered whites are safer if you don't have access to pasteurized. the deal with the process is the whites are drying out and the sugar acts as a preservative/mold inhibitor. you want to avoid adding water or flavorings...just keep it natural and it will be safer. use superfine sugar and let them air dry on a metal rack overnite. they are very labor intensive, but if you make a bunch of them when the flowers are in season, it will go fairly quickly once you get all set up. like everybody else said, be sure to use edible flowers, and also try to source them where they are not sprayed, as the sprays used on flowers are probably not as safe to eat as sprays used on foods. well, neither is actually safe, but i'm opening a can of worms that will change the topic. i like the idea of you making your own, as that keeps it local. Roses are absolutely delicious, especially pink ones...i love to snack on them!

you could bake the cake and meringue separately. I use alice medrich's super stable meringue...it lasts at least 3 days in the refrigerator. So just top it on your cake and torch it. if you don't have a torch, you can put the cake with meringue under the broiler and watch it like a hawk! the combo of almonds and lemon is really good. I did a bar once with a frangipane cake base, then lemon curd, and topped with slivered almonds. it was delicious, both light and rich at the same time.

I am curious all you wedding cake providors how you handle your tastings with brides and such. I am considering revamping how we do our tastings to make them closer to our vision of flavor being the most important component.

It would be quite interesting if people sent in shots of the different styles of lettering they used on their cakes...anybody have any pictures they'd like to share?

Buddhism is not just a sign or symbol, it's a state of being so I believe your cake should simply reflect Buddhist philosophy, with a simple and harmonious design that is clean, elegant, and delicious.

ascorbic acid is just vitamin c, so it's not a scarry chemical, but it is "processed". lemon juice also prevents fading and it comes from trees I bet if you used complementary syrups like raspberry for the strawberries, you'd be able to augment the color without using something like beets which would make your berries taste like dirt! (believe me, I tried it on rhubarb)

yes, i think adding a smoked salmon puree in place of a fruit puree during the bloom would do you right. i don't think the fat will interfere, as long as you don't use an egg white marshmallow recipe. ha ha, imagine saying that same first sentence on the subway to see how folks around you react!

we used to freeze our cupcakes and found the quality was not as good as freshly baked. we do freeze our layers, but find that the quality is not so ill affected since we brush them with syrup when constructing the cakes, and this is not possible with cupcakes.

We've switched to scooping our cupcakes daily and don't have time to make our batters daily. We also want the flexibility to be able to scoop any number so not just 12/24/etc. and make cupcakes quickly on the fly (not having to start from scratch if we run out). Our oil based cupcakes are living well in the fridge for 3-5 days, but we're having trouble with our butter ones. I don't like oil based vanilla cakes. The other thing that is cool is that if we have a surplus of batter say if cupcakes were slow, we can just bake off layers and store them in the freezer. What's happening with the vanilla cake is it gets these little funnels like a very open sponge and is very hard like rubber, literally) Our current vanilla cake is made with the high ratio method (dry ingreds+sugar+ butter to wet crumb, then liquid) The batter is a little wet, but I think that's why it makes good cupcakes. I am thinking a cream butter sugar method might yield better success? Our coffee cake batter uses this method and it stays at least 5 days in the fridge. What do you guys think?

a little powdered sugar often brings buttercream back from breaking

I make it easy on my customers and tell them that my price per slice is roughly $5.50 for a simple cake and offer them three different sizes as well as sheet cakes if the wedding is huge. So a small serves up to 50, medium 50-100, and large 100-150. That way, I avoid having to change up my pan sizes with every new cake and can keep my ingredient costs stable. I steer people away from fancy decorations as it's not where I want to spend my time or energy. Most of my customers like the pricing and find it easy to work it into their budget. Also, this means if a few less people come to the party, I don't have to re-price on the cake.

I totally agree that if a pastry looks too perfect, I might be inclined to think it might not taste that good. Often the things that make pastries taste good don't often make them look good. Consider the amount of butter in a pate sucre...my recipe has a lot of butter which translates into slightly slumpy shells (even with all the freezing, resting, etc. precautions), but I would rather them taste good then look perfect. When I see a perfect shell, I know it's probably going to taste like a crumbly dry cookie, not a buttery rich crust, so I avoid them. Another thing that comes to mind is if something looks overly complicated, then I know there's a lot of steps and engineering to construct it, so it may not have that "fresh baked" taste. But this is only a general rule of thumb I use. Not every bakery I've tried with perfect looking pastries has tasted over processed, and not every bakery with rustic looking pastries has tasted fresh and delicious. With your croissants, that is an interesting comment you get. Maybe change your sign to read "freshly baked croissants", and use it as a selling point by responding (or having your staff respond), that "yes, those ARE real, we take a great amount of pride in making our croissants and we think the best looking croissants actually taste the best." I think this is a very interesting thread.

We give our cupcakes only 24 hours to live, but we see dryness occuring in about 12 hours. Storing them at room temperature has helped; however we haven't yet figured out a plan for the summer when our kitchen is steamy hot.

Despite the fact that they were supposed to make life easier for housewives in the 1950's, I think chiffon cakes are one of the most difficult to make as there are a lot of variables. I think your cake looks delicious and just as it should, nice and crusty on the top, and a nice open crumb. Perhaps it may be a tad overbaked, but it is very difficult to tell when a chiffon cake is done. Regarding being able to cut it into 4 tiers, I often find recipe yields are much smaller than in reality...think about all those recipes that say they'll make 5 dozen cookies and you only end up with 2 dozen. So I think just cut into 3 layers and perhaps brush with simple syrup to remoisten the cake. Congratulations on entering the world of cakes. I am thinking that maybe if you want to perfect a cake, perhaps you should invite a few friends over and do a scientific study comparing a butter cake, chiffon cake, and maybe a couple of sponge cakes. At the end of the evening, you could compare notes and see which cake recipe you like the best.