RWood

Check Home Goods & TJ Max. I’ve found them on clearance for under $10 ea. Regular price is $12-16 depending on which pan. I have several of them.

I suppose this is Happy Mother’s Day brunch 🤷‍♀️. ”John’s” Special, roasted breakfast potatoes, sourdough toast, Prosecco and berries. John’s special is my mom’s husband’s take on Joe’s Special in SF. He used Italian sausage instead of hamburger. And it’s more frittata like instead of a scramble.

Fish tacos for Cinco de Mayo. Crispy cod, cabbage & pickled onions.

Maybe 1/2 hour this morning for the piping. Just a single layer, smooth iced it last night.

Happy Birthday to my Aunt Sibbie. White almond cake and vanilla buttercream.

I kinda followed @Rajala’s crunchy bottom he had with it. I used Callebaut gold chocolate, brown butter, spices and the nuts and coconut.

Thanks! I like cardamom too, but yeah, people are iffy here with that. I didn’t like the carrot bits in the bottom layer, seemed tough when you would find one. But the coconut and walnut comes through enough in it. I think the caramel has plenty of flavor, so didn’t need to add to it.

I layered mine with cream cheese ganache, and I tried a similar bottom, using dried multicolored carrots (which I think I’ll omit next time), but added coconut and toasted walnuts since that’s what I use in my cake. I changed up the spices a little and it really tasted like carrot cake. I still need to tweak the spices, but I really liked it.

Yeah I’m a caramel person, that’s my picks. Props to @Rajala for the carrot caramel inspiration. I tweaked to make it more like my carrot cake, but it’s tasty!

Finished Easter chocolates. Strawberry Rhubarb, leftover chocolate nougat (purple bunny egg), Pineapple Coconut Cashew, Milky Way-ish, Turtle, Carrot Cake, Strawberry, Peanut Caramel, leftover caramel (transfer sheet)

I make a buttercream that has the same texture as Swiss buttercream, but doesn’t use eggs. You could give it a try. I haven’t added a lot of liquid to it though. You could try reducing the juice some before maybe. AMERICAN BUTTERCREAM INGREDIENTS X1 X2 X3 UNSALTED BUTTER, ROOM TEMP 904 G WHOLE MILK 250 ML VANILLA BEAN PASTE 4 TSP SALT 1/2 TSP ICING SUGAR, SIFTED 660 G MERINGUE POWDER (OPTIONAL) 2 TBS BEAT BUTTER WITH PADDLE ON MED-HI SPEED FOR 5 MINS TILL LIGHT AND FLUFFY, SCRAPING BOWL. COMBINE MILK, VBP AND SALT IN A MEASURING CUP. MICROWAVE UNTIL HOT. SIFT ICING SUGAR INTO A BOWL. POUR HOT MILK OVER SUGAR AND MIX UNTIL SUGAR IS DISSOLVED. LET COOL TO ROOM TEMP. ONCE COOLED, ADD SLOWLY TO BUTTER WHILE MIXING ON MED SPEED. ONCE ADDED, SCRAPE BOWL, THEN BEAT ON MED FOR ABOUT 10 MINS. PADDLE ON LOWEST SPEED ABOUT 5 MINS TO REMOVE AIR BUBBLES.

Seared scallops with capers, lemon and browned butter, pilaf and roasted asparagus and more focaccia. And one of my favorite Chardonnay’s.

Homemade focaccia, mortadella, burrata, pesto and arugula.

Very simple, but so tasty. Made Chris Bianco’s Rosa pizza. We all loved it.

My sister sent me this for my birthday. Can’t decide which one to pop first 😋.

Just an all dark chocolate cake I made for my birthday.

I've only done a small amount of vegan pastry, so I don't know if I'll be much help. Mine have been mostly cakes, buttercreams and mousse type things. So for egg, there is the flax mixed with water as a sub, in cakes it's not much of an issue, because usually a plant milk is mixed with vinegar to react with the baking soda to help with lift. I personally haven't tried the Bob's Red Mill egg replacer or the Just egg liquid egg yet. Another egg replacer is aquafaba (chick pea liquid from the can). Those might be something to experiment with. I've heard that the Miyoko's European style butter is nice for baking, but haven't tried it yet. I made vegan butter before and it had a nice flavor. I used it for a vegan wedding cake. You could look into some of the vegan yogurts, sour creams or cream cheese that might have more of a tang like buttermilk, could be thinned with plant milk to get the liquid consistency. Keep in mind too that you should look for vegan sugars, no bone char for processing.

Roasted tomato pesto pasta with Boudin sourdough rolls. New pasta bowls too! My sister sends us Boudin sourdough on special occasions. Bread in Georgia sucks, and we miss SF sourdough so much.

Yeah, I bought five bags of milk chocolate, probably should have gotten more. Not sure if they will keep having these prices, but I check every so often.

I've recently used IRCA Sinfonia that I got at Pastry Depot in Atlanta. It was much better priced than Valrhona for sure. It ranges from $86-140ish for 11lbs. And Chef Rubber has had Felchlin for really good prices. I got 4.4 lb bags for $34. I've used Callebaut as well, it's usually fairly well priced, but it has gone up quite a bit lately. I think too it basically comes down to what you like the taste of. I love Valrhona, and would use the Manjari and Opalys with no problem at all, but their prices are nuts. I can't justify the price, and there are plenty of others that are good that are more affordable.

I'm not willing to invest in the Cake Safe spray booth yet, as I'm just more a hobbyist now. I bought this cheap contraption off of AliExpress. You assemble and wrap plastic wrap around it. It actually does help contain the overspray, but I still wear a mask and turn on the fan and crack a window. I like it better than the cardboard box because it let's light in. I left a small opening to hold the mold and airbrush, so less blowback in my face. Works for now and the few times a year I use it.

White Balsamic vinegar could work. I have a recipe to make a shelf stable “cream cheese” frosting which uses white balsamic in regular buttercream. It’s supposed to mimic the flavor of cream cheese without the dairy issue.

It's just my stash. I vacuum sealed what I had. I eek it out slowly. Dulcey or the gold from Callebaut will work, but it's just not the same. I probably have two pounds or so left. The red velvet is similar to a recipe I came across a long time ago and hadn't done much with. I did two layers though. First one is just a cream cheese white ganache with vanilla. The other is a white ganache with cream cheese, cocoa powder, vanilla and a little red color from Colour Mill. It's fairly close in flavor. RV is hard to pinpoint the flavor other than cocoa and buttermilk in the cake, so this sorta gets it. I wondered about using buttermilk powder some way instead of the cream cheese? I thought about holding back on the cocoa too. I used a dutched from Cocoa Barry and it's pretty dark. Here’s a photo of inside.

Valentine boxes are done and shipped out. German Chocolate, Orelys Espresso, Bailey’s, Red Velvet, Raspberry, Salted Caramel, Peanut Butter, Dubai.

The filling did always seem like it was very runny, and for a bar, that may be fine. But, I have seen some recently that did look firmer. I kinda like that better I think. The first bar I did, there was a problem with oil migration. I think you have to be very careful when filling, and make sure you have a clean seal. If I make them again, I think adding enough chocolate to get it to set more will be the way I go. The Sinfonia pistachio chocolate I used is very good, so it added pistachio flavor without adding a lot of extra sweetness like a regular white chocolate. This new pistachio cream is very runny, along with the tahini I added, I think adding chocolate to get more of a gianduja would make it better.