Tri2Cook

Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad the recipient (she's 19 and very girly, thus the color choice) liked it but I'm realistic about my (lack of) cake decorating skills and, for the most part, ok with it. I'm going to have to develop a lot more patience if I ever try this again, the air around me was pretty blue while I was doing this one.

Thanksgiving today here in Canada. Pumpkin cake with chocolate-chestnut buttercream and cubes of chestnut flan and pumpkin flan.

Ok, done and delivered. Next time I'll raffle off an eight course dinner or something easy like that... this cake decorating stuff is frustrating! I'm going to post the pic and accept all the laughs (and tips) anybody wants to throw my way because this was my first serious attempt at decorating a cake with icing. I've never had the interest or patience to decorate them in the past but the people of egullet have a way of inspiring me to try things. My idea of decorating has always been covering 'em in buttercream. If "fancy" was required I'd roll some fondant, toss it over and make a couple easy pastillage or chocolate clay roses for the top. It didn't turn out all that great but the recipient was happy and I learned a few things in the process (like: I'm never doing that sh#t again ). The smudgy area to the left of my ugly attempt at drawing a bow was an area I should have left alone but tried to smooth anyway (after everything was done) and made worse. The top is angled intentionally but I didn't angle it enough so it looks more like a lopsided cake than an intentional feature.

Yeah, I was concerned about that possibility as well but I decided to risk it. The recipient knows her cake is the test model for an idea (but doesn't know what) and is excited about that. Worst case, they'll be the same texture as the softer batch. Both the crispy and softer versions got the thumbs-up from my trusty taste-test volunteers (two of them said if I'd dip it in chocolate they'd buy them from me) so I'm ok with that disaster if it happens.

Thanks! I'm happy with the result I got but I'm always interested in knowing how someone else went about doing what I'm trying to do. I made a second batch and cooked it to a lower temp so I have two discs that are crunchy and two that taste the same but are softer (can be sliced with the cake). I sandwiched the softer discs in chocolate buttercream mixed with pieces of the crunchy discs between the layers of chocolate cake, crumb coated it with white buttercream, wrapped it and stuck it in the fridge. I'll do my attempt at making it look good (keeping in mind that cake and art don't usually appear in the same sentence with me) tomorrow morning.

So I do have something to look forward to! Cool! The end result really wasn't that much trouble. A syrup of sugar, glucose and butter with vanilla, milk powder and confectioner's sugar kneaded in until smooth. I broke that up in a pan with an equal weight of peanut butter over low heat and stirred until it was smooth and thickened. Once the peanut butter is picked up completely it becomes fairly stiff and no longer sticky. Then I pressed it into buttered pans and let it cool. Like I said, no flakiness but pretty similar to (taste testers said better than) Butterfinger filling otherwise.

What is it that makes us say "it would be really simple if I just did this... so I'll do that instead"? I ran in the CIBC Run for the Cure last weekend and, in an attempt to gather more sponsors, each $10 of donation got the person one entry in a draw for a cake. I asked the winner what kind of cake she wanted and she said "chocolate". I asked if she wanted to elaborate and she said it didn't matter as long as chocolate was involved. After doing a little sniffing around and casual questioning I discovered that her favorite candy bar is Butterfinger so I decided to go with that idea for the cake. Sooo... obvious simple solution: crush up some Butterfingers to layer in the cake. But nooooo. Much too easy. It would be quick, easy and perfectly acceptable... and we can't have that, can we? So I decided to make my own Butterfinger filling. There has to be a recipe, every idea I think of has already been done when I research it. Nope, couldn't find one. Lots of references to using crushed Butterfingers but nothing on making it myself. So I went to work and finally got a result I was happy with. It doesn't have the flaky layers of a Butterfinger bar but it has a very similar flavor and chew texture so I'm going to go with it. I cooled it in the same cake pans I baked the cake layers in thinking I'd just sandwich one between each layer but I don't think it's going to cut nicely so I may end up having to crumble it anyway... so why didn't I just crumble Butterfingers in the first place?

I usually order my bulk chocolate from HERE. Even after shipping, currency conversion and all the other related costs it's still cheaper than I've been able to find it from within Canada. Now that the U.S. and Canadian dollar are almost equal, it's even cheaper for me because there's no exchange. The place does a lot of turnover (based on watching the "sold out" tags come and go on the web sales pages) so I don't worry too much about quality from them and so far I haven't been disappointed.

I've done tea smoking before (with salmon) as part of a catering job back during the summer. They requested smoked salmon and I decided to tea smoke it just to give them something different. They enjoyed it (and so did I) so I'd love to see your duck recipe. I'll shoot you a PM.

In a sudden fit of greed I ordered a box of vacuum-packed iqf skin-on duck breasts through one of our vendors at work. Now I've got 32 of those buggers sitting in the freezer. I guess I'll be playing with duck this month. Any ideas outside of the usual suspects that I might want to give a try?

That's pretty cool Rob. Thanks for the info. Unfortunately, standard grocery store chicken eggs are my only option here (other than getting myself some chickens which isn't happening). I got to play around with turkey eggs a long time ago when I had a neighbor with turkeys but it never occured to me to do a comparison test. I've never had access to duck or guinea eggs before. There must be an egg vibe in the air because I did a little egg experiment this weekend as well. Nothing as interesting as what you did and it belongs in a different thread. It wasn't a comparison test, it was a weirdness test.

It won't care what shape pan you bake it in. Same temp, same test for doneness as the recipe calls for with the round pan, time may vary depending if the pan is bigger or smaller (because it will be thicker or thinner) but not because of the shape.

What kind of peanut butter did you use? May be irrelevant in this case but I used an all natural Valencia peanut butter (ingredient list: Valencia peanuts) to make a ganache that I topped with strawberry pate de fruit and they wouldn't stick together. The natural oil from the peanut butter seemed to "squeeze" out of the ganache as it set and float the pate de fruit so you could lift it right off. I tried it again with a standard off-the-shelf peanut butter and it worked fine.

I'll let the chocolate experts help you, the only times I've had grainy ganache is from stirring it as it cooled (which I do intentionally sometimes if I'm going to use it as a base layer for something so it gives the illusion of pastry at first then melts into smooth chocolate). I'm just chiming in to say don't get discouraged/give up on doing things like this if you enjoy it. Mistakes and difficulties happen to the best and I'm far from anything resembling the best so I get lots of mistakes and difficulties but I just laugh and try again (ok, sometimes I say less-than-polite words and try again). A grainy ganache that goes smooth right away probably wouldn't be noticed as a problem by anybody but you if you don't tell them ("Sorry the ganache turned out grainy." "Oh yeah! It kinda is now that you mention it... I hadn't noticed.") but that advice is easier to give than receive. If I'm not happy with a result it goes to the garbage or the birds (depending what it is) so I understand where you're coming from.

Yeah, I was thinking it didn't seem all that bad in a dorm-munchie kind of way until she said the bright yellow stuff that I assumed was some form of processed cheese was actually mustard. Not that I don't like mustard, probably my favorite of the usual fridge condiments other than maybe hot sauce, but it really doesn't sound good on frito pie.

I use a normal coffee filter for smaller amounts, layers of cheesecloth in a colander for larger amounts. I think some things are going to be tinted (but still crystal clear) no matter what you do. My strawberry consomme was very clear, you could read text through it, but still had a pink/red color to it. Kinda like putting a drop of red color in a glass of water. Some fruits gave this "tinted" result, some actually turned out literally "clear as water". I'm fairly new to this technique but I think it may depend in part on what you're using and how you extract the liquid. Some things just seem to "stain" (for lack of knowing a better description) the liquid. I don't think you can always end up with something that looks like water but tastes like something else but you can always end up with something that's completely free of cloudiness. Of course this is all just from my personal observation and not an educated reply so take it for what it's worth.

I decided not to bother melting and dividing it after all. I built a contraption by fitting a large colander on top of a plastic bucket, lining it with cheesecloth and fitting a matching colander into the other one so the cheesecloth is sandwiched in between. I then inverted the container with the ~3 gallons of frozen, gelatinized stock into the colander and wrapped the whole thing in plastic wrap. I'll let it do it's thing for a couple days and see what I get. The stock was strong going in. I roasted off the chicken for a bit and simmered it in water, strained it and put it in the fridge. Did the same thing the next day with new chicken and just a little more water added. On the third day I did the same yet again with new chicken again but this time I also added the mirepoix and reduced it a bit after straining. I don't usually do all of that for stock of course but this particular consomme has a specific purpose and I wanted a serious "liquid chicken" thing going on, which I got, so I hope it's still there after the filtering.

Actually I've been using sheet gelatin, not powdered, for all of my playing with this technique, was that wrong? It's too late to not add gelatin to this batch but your right, it probably didn't need it, I just wanted to play it safe.

Ordered mine... looks like the U.S. monopoly has ended.

I'll second those... and while we're dreaming, a paco jet for the same budget.

As I mentioned above, I did a lot of playing around with this through the summer with fruit juices but don't have much experience with it otherwise. I decided to give it a shot with stock and have a question for the experts. I made a fairly large batch of chicken stock (about 3 gallons), added the gelatin, chilled it and threw it in a freezer in one big lump. I was planning to filter it all at once then divide it into smaller portions and I still can if necessary but my question is: could I let it melt, divide it into smaller containers, re-chill it and refreeze it or is that a bad thing to do at this point? Tracey: That's awesome! You didn't comment on the flavor but I'm guessing since you used it for your aspic it must have been tasty.

My favorite way is cooked pretty much the same as K8memphis posted with a little brown sugar (or sometimes molasses) and a splash of cream. On rare occasions I cook it as mentioned, mix in a little butter, maple syrup and some cooked breakfast sausage, chill it, cut it into rounds, fry it in a bit of butter and top it with a fried egg and salt and pepper. It's not as bad as it probably sounds.

I looked up making queso blanco and you're right, it does appear to be really easy so I'm going to make a batch tomorrow. Problem solved, thanks again!

After talking to her about it some more, I'm pretty sure it is mangu. It was my mistake about the "fried" part. Apparently it was just the cheese and meat that were fried. I can't find the suggested cheese, Queso Freir, where I live (can't get Queso Blanco, which is listed as a sub, either... sourcing ingredients is the main disadvantage of living in a small, remote Canadian town). I have no idea if there is some particular kind of ham (if it was actually ham, that's just what she called it) they use. Anyway, finding out what I was actually trying to recreate was the main task. I'll figure out how to get what I need or what to sub, so thanks very much to both of you for the help.

Awesome Rob!