Mary Elizabeth

Kerry--Obviously the Grewling book is encyclopedic and a must-have. But it has a formality that precludes advice such as hitting the used utensils with a heat gun. I would buy your book. Then I could get rid of all these print-outs I made of your egullet advice.

Kerry--you should put your chocolate tips into a book. The big glossy books don't go into the nitty gritty of chocolate work, just the glamour.

I can add to the egg question. When I do a recipe, I look through all my books and list their ratios to see what overall patterns turn up. For "sable breton" I have 9 recipes--San Francisco Baking Institute, S. Glazier, Herme, Galloyer, LaRousse Des Desserts, LaRousse, Professional French Pastry Series (2), Healy--6 call for yolk, 3 call for egg, all using eggs. Unfortunately, I didn't note methods. Just now taking a quick look, the Professional French Pastry Series recognizes 1. pate a foncer, always with sablage method; 2. pate sucree, either the sablage or the creaming method; and 3. pate sablee, usually the sablage method. The PFPS describes sablage as coating the flour with fat before adding the liquids; creaming as mixing liquids with fat, then adding the flour. The LaRousse des Desserts, Herme, recognizes 1. pate brisee aka pate a foncer, with yolk, with a creaming method; 2. pate brisee, without egg, with a creaming method; 3. pate sablee with a sablage method; 4. pate sucree with a creaming method. Beyond methods of the order in which you add the ingredients, the pate brisee is mixed using the heel of the hand to smear the dough until homogenized. The pate sablee is worked with the fingertips until mixed but not too well mixed.The pate a foncer and pate sucree are just mixed with a wooden spoon or spatula to well incorporated. Lebowits--I enjoyed responding to your question--it got me thinking more clearly about these doughs.

Chocolate pains au chocolat

I made this soft almond ice cream from Paco Torrreblanca. The recipe called for cremodan stabilizer. I used cobasan (E420 glucose, E450b emulgator). Can someone tell me what cremodan is?

Judiu--Thanks for noticing! I worked on that. I use dried blueberries, hydrate them with a little cassis and apple juice, then thicken any juice left over with cornstarch. Here is an apple turnover where the filling was too wet. Some of the already eaten apple turnovers look like what you described, that big gap. I think that gap comes from wet filling turning to steam and simultaneously raising the puff while depleting the filling, creating the gap.

Liddell and Weir chestnut ice cream with Ducasse "milk jam" same with Liddell and Weir fudge sauce blueberry turnover

I went to the AA Bakery in San Francisco and took these photos. Tepee inspired me to get some small molds: And here's where I got the molds:

sheetz--I moved to SF in '78 and lived on Filbert 2 blocks from Grant, and I thought the red bean cakes at Eastern Bakery then were delicious. They are the "remembered ideal" cakes I tried to recreate above. hzrt8w--I will definately try AA Bakery next time.

I love red bean moon cakes and have enjoyed this thread. Tepee, your mooncakes are beautiful. I have lived in SF for 30 years, and I started getting moon cakes at Eastern Bakery, but I got some there this past year and they were inedible. Anyone know why the change? I'm glad someone helped me figure out how to make my own, disaster preparedness. This mold came from the Wok Shop in SF.

torakris--Thank you! I loved cold brewed coffee in the jelly. I wouldn't use anything else in the future. The ratios I gave at the top of the thread are good, except you can reduce the sugar by half with the milder cold brew.

sanrensho--Those were great links! Thanks.

jumanggy--I greased my parchment liner, which led to the very collapsed castella at the top of the thread. sanrenso--You mention that the foam is 40-50% -- (is that a volume to weight ratio?) -- and that that is a thick foam, not a weak foam as I had suggested. That is a very important point. The cakes are light, with alot of air incorporated; it is just that the air bubbles are small and even, so that it looks like a tight crumb. The thread "Tiger skin roulade" has a picture of another type of sponge with small, regular bubbles. I wonder how they get bubbles like that? I skimmed through Mcgee's "egg foam" section, but I couldn't find anything that addressed that issue. I have seen cookbooks say to beat slow-medium to get a small bubble/stable foam. I wonder if they use some emulsifier to get that fine grain, or if it is beating technique.

jumanggy--You did a nice job. That cake looks great. Mine sunk more in the middle when I tried half the recipe in an 8" round cake pan. My technique, without doubt. Did you put a parchment collar around the sides of the pan? Nice photos, as usual.

sanrensho--zarame is beautiful. That's a great technique. shinju--OK, I am really impressed. That top crust especially is right on the mark. It has a smoothe surface and is distinct from the cake. When you're done tweaking, will you tell us how you did it? You really did a terrific job! And no, that cake from Nijiya was not very good, due to storage problems probably.

I bought this cake at the Nijiya Market in San Francisco--shinju, you are in the bay area, so you must know this market. The ingredients are eggs, sugar, flour, black sugar (brown sugar?), cornsyrup, honey, malt, OSE corn syrup. sanrensho--Thank you for pointing out that the cake was inverted to cool in the cakechef pictures, I missed that. Re: sugar at bottom of cake, one internet recipe said to sprinkle sugar on the pan bottom before you poured the batter in. jumanggy--I agree that the Ong cake is especially delicious. I'm just going to keep that cake recipe as it is, do separate, stiff white/yolk foams and bake like a chiffon. I think his high sugar, extra yolks, and oil makes a really tender sponge that is its own hybrid. I'll keep watching this site for a good kasutera recipe and technique. Although it annoys me that the picture in Ong's book seems to be of a kasutera, but not the one from his recipe. I agree with your observation that a part of the kasutera technique we see in the pictures and videos is beating the eggs to thin foam, not ribbon-forming thickness.

Hello jumanggy! Thank you for the link to that great site. I loved the overhead, step by step photos. Can anyone tell me what those 7 ingredients are that are listed at the top of the page? sanrensho--very cute videos! Thanks!

One more question--Does everyone turn your cake upside down when you take it out of the oven, as it cools, to keep it from falling in the center? Or is that not a problem for you all?

New improved castella: I used Ong's recipe, but substituted 24% milk for the 12%oil. I beat the eggs and sugar on low speed for 15 minutes to keep the bubbles small and the batter runny. After I poured the batter into the pan, I tapped the pan on the counter, which burst some top bubbles, then ran a spatula through the batter like on the video, then tapped the pan again to burst the new bubbles that rose up. Then covered when the top was brown. I inverted the cake pan after I took it out of the oven, because I feared collapse. This is what I got. Definately tighter crumb. A little rubbery--I bet that is why Ong used the oil.

Thank you, artisanbaker!

C T Philips--The Ong recipe has a nice eggy taste--it has extra yolks and a 1:1 ratio of weight of whites to yolks. Yes--"dense in crumb but light in texture" --that's the elusive part. sanrensho--RE: oil --I compared 7 recipes, Ong's and internet. Two recipes contained only the egg/sugar/honey/flour, 2 added milk, 2 added oil and milk, and Ong's was the only one with only oil added. shinju--WOW! That video was great! And the photo of Bunmeido's fine crumb and thin layer of dark crust was just what I have been picturing in my mind. You completely cleared up the covering of the baking cake. The cake went into the oven without the cover, when they pulled it out, it had the cover on. One of the internet recipes said that when the top was brown, you cover it with a sheet pan. I thought that was to press down on the cake to make it dense. But your quote says it is done to steam the interior, and the video shows that the cover is not touching the top of the cake. The other mystery solved was the occasional instructions to somehow pop the bubbles in the finished batter. The guy in the video stirred the batter in a zig-zag, scraping the bottom, right before it went in the oven. I have been beating my eggs and sugar to a thick foam, but I noticed the video eggs didn't hold a ribbon and the final batter was very runny. Only the recipe from recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe says that the batter will be thin, and it is similar to suzysushi's above, only with 4 eggs and 1/4 c milk. I have seen a web site mention the special wooden castella form, like the one used in the video. The cake seemed only about 2" high, right? I hope you all post your experiments and successes. I'll try again with all the new info. Shinju, thank you again for all that great information. Shinju--Your website "Back to Square One" is very well done. Beautiful pictures and well written recipes of home-style japanese food. When I clicked "my webpage" I got the Recipezaar site, then from there to your Square One. Maybe we can see a castella recipe on your site?

gfron--I've experienced various clear glazes beading up like that. I wonder what the trick is to get the glaze to evenly cover the tart. panettone from a recipe from Emporio Rulli in San Francisco chestnut squares from Healy/Bugat French Cookie Book sables from Healy/Bugat

Peter--Cold brewed coffee is very simple. Like sun tea. You put a ratio of water 100% and coffee, coarse ground, at 33-20% into a glass container, let it sit at room temperature 12-24 hours, strain through a filter into another container, refridgerate. You can google "cold brewed coffee" or "Toddy method", and several sites give directions. Egullet has several threads in the coffee and tea forum that discuss cold brewed coffee: "iced coffee" is a good one. The internet sites and the egullet posters all mention the mildness of the brew, the reason given is that cold water doesn't extract the acids. The consensus seems to be that the caffeine stays the same.

I'm very glad to be able to read all your comments. emmalish--this is the first time I have used the mol d'art. I dipped things in chocolate without worrying about the temper before, with unpredictable results. I have been reading egullet and seventypercent and some other sites and bought the mol d'art. I was hoping to use a method described by some posters as "controlled melt", which is that the chocolate is in temper when you start, so you melt it gently enough to keep it within its temper range and it stays in temper. But it sounds like everyone using mol d'art does a melt and seed method, so I'll work on that next.

jumanggy--You do a beautiful job plateing. The photos of the cheese torte from overhead and the pear belle helene are as good as it gets.