Darienne
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Posts posted by Darienne
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Here in Portland, OR, I find both at most grocery stores though I haven't been to Safeway or TJ's in a while...
Thanks. I am not very familiar with most US grocery stores. We will look along the way for a Safeway or TJs. In Moab there is only a Kroger and and a Village Market and they don't carry these items. Heck, they don't even carry parsnips at Kroger's.
Anyone else suggest any other stores to look in?
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I have made a lot of children's lollipops over the last few months, and used LorAnn extracts to flavor them. I have never measured the amount used, but just a few drops will be enough to flavor 1 cup of sugar plus 1/2 cup of corn syrup. And never stand over the container when you put the flavoring in!!!
LorAnn provides a very simple microwave hard candy recipe which I have used a lot of the time. Like falling off a log easy.
I also purchased some wonderful sucker molds from a place in Utah, Sweet Creations.
My next project is to decorate the lollipops using Royal icing.
Good luck.
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Question: where is a place to buy a Meyer's lemon and/or a Buddha's hand?
We are off to Utah again soon and will be going through a few cities: Buffalo (a trip to Tomric's), Indianapolis, St Louis, Joplin, OKC, Amarillo, Albuquerque...? What about Trader Joe's? Mail or online order????
Thanks.
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**Just to finish up yesterday's post:
Made the ganache again
1/2 cream:1 milk chocolate Gianduja; big handful of roasted chopped hazelnuts.
The chocolate was not tempered. The resulting ganache sat overnight and is still very soft. Just stiff enough that I can cut it into squares of a sort and I can dip it in dark chocolate using a flat dipper. Or perhaps I should behave myself and bottom it first. Now that I know enough not to let it set up too firmly. Another learning experience.
End of story.
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I want to do a hazelnut ganache for a molded chocolate - very smooth and soft - using hazelnut praline. Wybauw has recipes for both butter based and cream based hazelnut ganache. Has anyone tried either type of recipe? Comments? Thanks!
I don't have the Wybauw book and since almost no books supply recipes for gianduja, I just barged ahead and made my own using twice as much gianduja as cream, and then added chopped roasted hazelnuts (skinning the hazelnuts using those terrific directions supplied by you
).It's a fairly soft ganache even with that much cream and then I dip it in 70% dark.
Not what you asked for, but what I have done. I am waiting to get back to Moab to get the Wybauw again through ILL and try his gianduja ganaches.
And THIS time, I am going to make some from scratch.
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Unless I missed a post along the way...no one except Kerry Beal tried the method of blanching hazelnuts posted by Mostlyalana a few posts back.
I just tried it and was absolutely blown away by how easy it was and how well it worked!!!
Thank you Mostlyalana.
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Hi Elle Bee,
Hello from one newbie to another
, although I think I am more of a marshmallow (homemade ONLY) junkie at present. Hmmm...it's a close call between marshmallows and nougat. As for caramel, you must try Kerry Beal's special caramel recipe. It's the very best.
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While it's been over a month since anyone posted here, I just saw this and (ashamedly) will add my own.
I was making a large batch of Almond Toffee by myself without my helpers (1st mistake). I dumped the batch out onto the oiled marble slab, put my kettle back on my stove and began to spread this wonderful conglomeration of butter and sugar to it's proper thickness.
Using my offset spatula I carefully began to move the liquid sugar into the corners and was momentarily distracted while my right hand was moving left to right and I ended up dragging three of my fingers through the 300+ degree of liquid sugar.
The batch never got finished, and I ended up wearing gauze badages for the better part of a month or so while my hand healed.
Luckily no scarring...
But - that's my sad tale of woe for the day...
Nothing is worse than a sugar burn. So glad you are healed.
I dropped a tiny bit of hot syrup on my hand...a tiny bit...and raced for the cold water tap like a comet in full flight. -
Just arrived home and have now counted the rest of my cookbooks. Add 126 to the total.
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I have 2 Chocovision Rev 2. The first one I bought has now developed a problem of no heat. I'd like to get it repaired. I've read on this forum how helpful Chocovision is regarding service. Can anyone give me a contact information for someone they dealt with? It seems it's always best to go directly to someone who is willing to help.
Hi Sue,
I called their 1-800-324-6252 number in Poughkeepsie, NY. M-F 9:00-5:00 EST. (Of course, if you go to their website, there are others ways to contact them.) Then you get the usual menu to choose from.
I would suggest that you go to #2 Technical Support or #3 Customer Support. On these two lines you are likely to get Matthew Demoto, the gentleman who was so incredibly helpful to me. I left a message and he called me back very soon.
(When I return to Moab in the spring, I am going to order a second baffle and bowl as suggested by Lebowitz...a brilliant idea.)
Good luck.
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No, no, don't misunderstand me. I am all for trying stuff that has not been done before. That is how I reached a unexpected pinnacle in my 'other' life with gourds.
However, I have never been a 'cook' of any kind. And while we have been in Moab, I have made so many things which I had never made before: candying peels and fruits of different kinds, hard tack lollipops, divinity, bark, orange sticks, chocolate coated nuts and coffee beans, etc, etc. And you can see that these are not sophisticated items to make. And I have had a great number of 'learning experiences' aka disasters, including emergency dental surgery for a tooth broken on one of my candying disasters...
And I still have never made marzipan or fondant or a myriad of other confections that some of you made...at your Mother's knee.
This is still all so new to me. I'll make Gianduja from scratch some year in the future. Right now, I'll settle for buying the hazelnut paste and mixing it with chocolate. This time around, I simply bought premade Gianduja from a Utah chocolate supplier.
It is interesting to embark on a new and unknown passion quite well on into life after 'retiring' in one sense or other from former lives. One goes from level of 'expert' or some such thing, to complete novice, learning, learning, learning.... I wouldn't have it any other way. Keeps one young(ish).
(Sorry, writing is another passion...)
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You can use gianduja like a soft chocolate ie it will mold, it can be tempered (2ºC less than white chocolate at each step) - but I'm not sure how well it will behave for enrobing. Technically I'm sure it can be done, but I'm not sure if the product will melt too easily when touched with your fingers and whether it will flavour other things in the box.
Why don't you give it a try and see?
Thanks for the information re tempering Gianduja. I had no idea.
And no, I don't think I'll give it a try at enrobing. If you don't do it...then I'm not doing it either, seeing as you know a lot and I know very little yet.
Besides, we are heading home in a very few days and I am going to use up all the rest of my 63% Guittard making nut and chocolate tiny muffin shapes to snack on on the way home.
Thanks for all the information you have given me!
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DH and I don't give each other gifts but he is always more than generous in urging me to get what I need. And since we have set up temporarily in Moab, I have had to buy a lot of kitchen bits and bobs that I either forgot to bring or didn't realize I would need. And Ed did buy me a set of stainless steel bowls with rubber bottoms last month. Good because my manual dexterity is almost gone and the bowls stay still on their own, but bad for cooling things quickly because the rubber bottoms hold heat. Learn, learn, learn.
I guess my best present this year is being able to cook in a kitchen in Moab, the red rock center of my heart.
Oh, and he did buy me a stand mixer, the honking big Cuisinart, just before we left Canada. (Bigger than I wanted...
)It's been a quiet, but very good, Christmas.
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I thought maybe I could just tack this question onto this thread. I did buy some Gianduja and used it in a ganache. Fine.
Question is: can you use Gianduja as a couverture to enrobe other bits or to dip things into? It seems so very soft to begin with and I just thought I'd ask before trying it perhaps in vain.
Searched eGullet without finding any references to using Gianduja to enrobe anything and also looked at Google and found nothing. That usually would signify that there is nothing to fine and that Gianduja is not suitable for coating other things.
Thanks.
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WOWW!! I still can't believe those are cakes. At first, I just passed over them thinking they were some random pictures of trees and stuff.
:PIt wasn't until Lisa replied that I realised :$
Great job dystopiandreamgirl! One of the best creations I have seen, by far.
Makes me feel so embarrassed to upload mine.
Ditto for me. I actually dragged my husband to see them and he was impressed too. They are incredible!!!!!
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That Cranberry Gallette is too beautiful for words!!!!
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I will eat dark chocolate every day.
I will make bread. I've never made it from scratch.
I will find my Mother's recipe for Beaver Pudding somewhere on this earth.
I will learn how to make proper pastry.
I will teach my neighbour up the road how to work with chocolate although I really don't want to.
I will read Peter Greweling's excellent chocolate book every page out loud to my DH who loves to be read to.
I will grow my own ginger to candy
I will not well, I don't know what I will not do or be or think.
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Macaroni and cheese. My Mother-in-Law's recipe. Made by my DH. What could be better?
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I haven't made Christmas cookies since forever, but last week my next-door neighbor/landlady/friend brought me some Viennese Crescents. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.
So now I have made them twice and to add a further decadent touch, decorated them liberally with 63% chocolate swirls, stripey things and such.
I feel like the cat who ate the canary.
This new life of baking and make confections is sure a lot more fun than my former research career. -
Thanks for your post. I've had a Rev 2 for about 2 years and have enjoyed using it. I have 2 sets of bowls/baffles etc. and haven't had the problems you've reported. What I typically have to do is to watch the prongs on the baffle cross-member which plugs the baffle into the machine. If you're not careful, these prongs can be bent and require a bit of minor adjustment.
Good luck with your machine!
Brilliant idea.
I wish that I had had it. When we get back here in March, I'll order a second bowl and baffle.I do know about the prongs! Little devils.
They were a tad bent, but still working fine. It was that fat little metal nubbin down at the bottom of the baffle which transmits the temperature. It had become loose-ish and was no longer making proper contact. As noted, the new baffle has a Mother of all glued temperature gauges now and you'd have to take a hammer to it to dislodge it. Well, I do exaggerate a bit... -
The way I cook brussel sprouts that made them good for me is to first trim the end, do the x thing to the bottom and then steam them for about 12 minutes. Then I slice them in half and sautee them in butter, with pecans and then a bit of bourbon and finish them with maple syrup. The French have mirepoix, Louisiana has the trinity, but to me butter, bourbon, and maple syrup is the triumvirate that works for brussel sprouts and much more.
Now it is off to find some brussel sprouts to have with our Xmas dinner.
That is too funny.
My husband gets through Brussels Sprouts by drowning them in a curried peanut sauce. Could be little soft golf balls underneath for all he knows.... -
Very unsophisticated here. Named after our farm.
Road's End Farm Coffee (affectionately called a Frothy Coffee)
hot decaf coffee, cocoa mix (the supermarket kind with sugar in it), and a jigger mixed of vodka and a liqueuer, or a jigger of just liqueur. Might include Panama Jack, Grand Marnier, Chambord...whatever you like.
Dump into the blender and froth to the max.
Into a huge blue glass mug. Yumm.
(We make the same coffee with cold decaf coffee in the summer, with the addition of some ice cubes.
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Follow-up on the apricots. They went into the trash and the lovely syrup was a disaster as lollipops (noted in another topic).
I am now candying lemon peels. I did the prelim water changing cooking four times and then started the candying process. They are still very bitter. I should have read this entire topic through before starting, because there is a lot of information in it about thick, bitter, etc peels. (And I now know that a Meyer's lemon is not a 'lemon' per se. Not to mention what a Buddha's hand is. Fascinating. I wonder where I would get them in Canada...probably Toronto?)
Has anyone had success in candying regular lemon peels and what extra steps were necessary, please.
Thanks.
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It sounds like you didn't get enough water out of the mixture, re-cooking might do the trick.
Thanks Lisa, you could be correct...but then it hit 300 dgrees F with no problem.
I suspect it has something to do with the nature of the apricot itself. But then I don't know and that's why I am asking.
As for recooking it...I think not. It's in the round file. It was a major task ungluing it from the marble slab.
Chocolates for Valentine's Day
in Pastry & Baking
Posted
Should I even reply?
First of all I made a few dozen red heart decorated lollipops for our local small library to sell in February to make a bit of money. The staff has been so good to me getting me all the best chocolate books through ILL.
By Valentines Day, we'll be back in Moab and I'll make chocolate heart lollipops for the children in the Multi-cultural Centre. You can't find a more appreciative crew than young kids.
No, I am not a constant doer of good deeds...I just happen to like making lollipops right now and am learning to decorate them with Royal icing.
Friends in Moab will be invited to one of our weekly dessert dinners. Dinner once a week is only dessert. I love it!