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RWood

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    ISO Peanut Butter Pie recipe

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    The peanut butter pie I grew up with in North Georgia was a little different, but it’s still my favorite. There’s a restaurant in Chatsworth GA called Edna’s where it’s very popular.

    its just a baked pie crust, spread peanut butter on the crust, then filled with vanilla custard. They top it with meringue (I don’t like meringue, so I scrape it off) and sprinkle it with a mixture of peanut butter mixed with powdered sugar until it is crumbly. Then torch the meringue. 

    I made it years ago, and subbed whipped cream for meringue. 

    cake construction question

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    Double barrel cakes are easier to serve if they have a cardboard layer between two cakes. The slices are normal size, not really long.

    I usually do two three layer cakes, use support straws in the bottom, place a cardboard round on top (cut it just a little smaller than the cake so it doesn't stick out) then add the next cake.  You can put a dowel through the whole thing to keep it in place.  Then, crumbcoat and chill to set. 

    • Like 2

    White Chocolate: Favorites, Sourcing, Using

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    I'm not a fan of white chocolate, only eat it if it's added to something.  I use Opalys a lot at work, but there it's only for additions to buttercream, ice cream or a white chocolate layer cake.  I would use it more outside of work if not for the price. I prefer it over the Ivoire. 

    I personally do like to use El Rey's Icoa, I used it quite a bit in the past for my molded chocolates and fillings. Was always easy to work with.  I order it directly from them in Texas.  It's best to order in the colder months from them, they will only ship overnight or 1 day in the summer. So, there's the added shipping cost. I know the flavor either has you loving it or hating it.

     

     

    • Like 2

    Your Daily Sweets: What Are You Making and Baking? (2017 – )

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    So, time for my birthday cake. I loved the Wonder Woman movie and decided to go with that this time. 

    I didn't need a lot of cake, so the bottom and top tiers are dummies. Middle is marble cake. I never know what I'm gonna do untiI I start, and some ideas didn't make it, but I'm happy with it. I gotta learn to not wear myself out trying to get it all done after working all day. Took about three afternoons (after trying things that got scrapped.)

     

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    • Like 19

    Do You Have a Preferred Baking Method for Cheesecakes?

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    You kinda have to think of cheesecake as a custard. It's set with eggs, so it needs to be baked low and slow. And not overbaked, which I think some people have issues with since it may not look set and keep baking it.

    For Christmas, I made a goat cheese cheesecake, and I baked it at 350 for 15 mins, turned it down to 275 and baked about 45 mins more (this was a small 7"). It still had a soft jiggle in the middle. I left it in the oven with the door ajar until it cooled. Then ran a knife around the edge. The texture was perfect. 

     

    Christmas Cookies Redux

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    I don't usually make cookies for Christmas anymore, but my mother begs for decorated cookies. Just vanilla cut out cookie with royal icing. I generally don't have the patience to color lots of icing and wait on stages of drying, so not my favorite thing to make. 

    So, I bought these Prettier Plaques by Julia Usher. Love them! Still takes a little while, but all I had to do was one color of icing for a base, then put color in my airbrush. 

     

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    • Like 9

    Your Daily Sweets: What Are You Making and Baking? (2017 – )

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    1 hour ago, blbst36 said:

     

    I FINALLY downloaded the pictures.  I want to make them again, but I also want to make other things after watching the Great British Baking Show!!  Also, is parchment necessary?  Can't I just butter and flour the loaf pans??

     

    Both loaves

    20171022_181734.thumb.jpg.ab5865b7a5271598c7a6339be19c2f28.jpg

     

    Close up of the one on the left and my terrible parchment skills.

    20171022_181747.thumb.jpg.02535ae4c8f8484386717f13972bce5b.jpg

     

     

    I would just cut a piece to fit the bottom of your pan.  I never lined loaf pans at all, but a chef I worked with insisted on it (because his mama did it) and it did make a difference. 

    Confections! What did we make? (2017 – )

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Jim D. said:

    @dhardy123, Thanks for the compliment. The assortment shows some successes and one "failure"--I use quotes because even that one turned out good enough to use (IMHO). First, the failure: I speak of the red and yellow piece near the bottom of the photo. For that one, using a gloved finger, I swirled red cocoa butter around the circumference of the cavity, and then, before the red was fully set, did the same with gold c.b. In a mold with steep sides (like the geodesic dome I used), it is difficult to do the swirling and impossible to keep the two colors from mixing. Thus the pseudo-marbling effect on that one.

    Thanks to @RWood, I learned that waiting for the first color to dry is crucial. Then the colors stay separate.

     

    This is all much easier to do in a more "spread-out" dome, like the demisphere I used for the others (the dark green + copper piece in the 1:00 position in the photo and the purple + gold in the 9:00 position). For those two, I used a somewhat easier technique of swirling one color (green and purple respectively), letting that dry, and then spraying the whole mold with copper or gold c.b. The end effect is marbling. I think in any marbling, it is necessary to spray a color behind the rest (that is, on top of the swirled colors); otherwise the chocolate shell shows through, which may fit the color scheme you have in mind, but likely won't.

     

    I have used a technique similar to the one you describe, as in the case of having several different chocolates (white, dark) tempered in separate bowls and pouring them together into a mold, then mixing them a little in the cavities to achieve marbling. I found that very difficult--keeping two chocolates in temper, pouring them just right, and not over-mixing them. I'm just not coordinated enough to make that work in a consistent way. In that method you are not decorating the shell; you are creating it with a marbled effect, and the result is a beautiful bonbon. There is a thread discussing this technique as developed at Savour School in Australia.

     

    They all look really nice, Jim. I'm glad it worked better for you.  But, seeing all that that you've gotten done just reminds me that is till haven't made anything for holidays :S

    Napoleon/Mille Feuille/Vanilla Slice

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted · Edited by RWood (log)

    18 hours ago, jmacnaughtan said:

     

    I disagree - there's something wrong with your pastry and/or pastry cream if it can't stand upright on its own.

     

    The traditional way is just puff pasty and pastry cream.  I like to incorporate 1% gelatin and 3% cocoa butter into the pastry cream while it's still hot, then when it cools to body temperature blitz in about 20% butter (as a % of the milk).  Let it set overnight, then whip for 15 minutes before using - it makes it firmer and lighter.

     

    I think you would have problems with a bavarois (unless you really pack it with gelatin), especially when you cut the cake.  They're delicate, so I'd be worried about the cake collapsing and mousse squirting out all over yourself and guests.  Then panic, depression, etc.

    Doweling has nothing to do with the pastry cream. The dowels are for support when stacking multiple cake tiers on top of each other.  You wanna take the chance of it collasping, that's fine. I just choose to not ruin someone's wedding with their cake in a pile on the floor. 

    • Like 1

    Napoleon/Mille Feuille/Vanilla Slice

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    On 10/9/2017 at 10:14 AM, pastrygirl said:

    Old topic but the classics never die ...

     

    A friend is getting married this weekend, and she has a vague recollection of some fabulous flaky, creamy cake she had in Italy once that we decided was probably mille foglie or mille feuille. 

     

    I haven't eaten one in forever, much less made one so I thought I'd run this by you here. 

     

    I'm thinking caramelized puff pastry with layers of chiboust or panna cotta - make the filling the day ahead and mold it in round cake pans lined with plastic wrap then stack that morning.  I want to have 2 or 3 tiers - is it better to try to shove supports through the puff pastry, or just try to make the filling solid enough to support it all?  Or really thin layers of filling so there's not much to squish out anyway?  I got a box of Trader Joe's all-butter puff which is tasty but pretty thin, maybe 4 layers of puff and 3 filling per tier?

     

    I guess I could make regular pastry cream.  I used to have an aversion to it but I forget why - the gloppiness and my tendency to scorch it, IIRC.  Or how about white chocolate ganache?

     

    And what about icing -  I could do naked with just powdered sugar.  Would butter cream be too much?  Too much is not necessarily bad, and icing adds another flavor  ...

     

    What do you think?  Thanks!

     

     

    You would definitely need support as with any tiered cake. So, dowels for sure. 

    I think that something with gelatin would be your best option for stability with the filling, like a Bavarian maybe. 

    But, with that being said, I’ve added a photo of a recipe that I’ve made before that just had a stiff pastry cream. Not sure if you want to go to the trouble of making the dough rounds, but there’s the option. It seemed pretty sturdy, and the layers of pastry cream aren’t very thick. This makes one 10” cake. 

    As far as the look, I would stay with the naked cake idea. Floral decoration, fruit or whatever she likes with powdered sugar would look nice. I think frosting would be too much. 

     

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    Your Daily Sweets: What Are You Making and Baking? (2017 – )

    in Pastry & Baking

    Posted

    On 10/3/2017 at 7:15 AM, Katie Meadow said:

    I had forgotten about this! JAZ is a genius. This is definitely the best raisin rant ever, covering every possible way that raisins ruin otherwise perfectly good food. I'm so glad she mentions Raisinets. Never has there been a more heinous candy. The quality of that milk chocolate coating is so bad that it is hard to even realize just how awful the raisin is. I say its a mitten crab gonad and I say the hell with it.

    I get griped at all the time about how much I despise raisins. I'm so glad I'm not alone :D

    • Like 1
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