RWood

Thanks, I'm glad it's over. Hectic week, got sick. But, it all came together.

Stack of books wedding cake from today. I think the couple are teachers.

Thank you Kim

I just go by appearance. I open the door where the ice cream extrudes, and check the texture.

I made a large batch of butterscotch ice cream a couple of weeks ago. I don't have the book with me, but in looking up the recipe online (if that one is accurate), I made mine a little differently. I made the butterscotch sauce first, cooking the butter and brown sugar, then adding cream, salt and some Jack Daniels. Then I made the ice cream base and added the sauce to it. The texture came out great. I will say thought that I have had problems with ice cream made with butter in them. I have a commercial machine at work that spins a batch in about 5-7 mins, so I had to learn to watch it or it can over churn. Ice cream with butter I tend to under churn, just so I don't have the butter blobs form. That has helped quiet a bit.

Thank you so much . I've worked in pastry for a long time, but have just started getting serious with gum paste flowers. That's my third peony. I like the way it came out.

I get them occasionally. If the yolks are good size, I count them as two. If they seem small, I don't worry about it. If I'm using it as a whole egg, I just count it as one egg. I've never noticed any issue with doing that.

You have very good taste

Another birthday making my own cake . Chocolate chiffon with pecan cinnamon dacquoise, caramel butter cream and chocolate ganache. I covered it with chocolate fondant and the lace is made with Sugar Dress. It gave me an opportunity to try out the Sugar Dress. I haven't had anything to use it on yet. The peony is made from gum paste, and dusted with several shades of orange petal dust and edged with super gold luster dust.

It's been a while since I made it, but I think the flavor they claimed it had wasn't there. And I wasn't happy with the texture. I think CI has some good recipes, and some not as good as they claim. For a while I thought that the butterscotch chips would give the flavor I was looking for, but after trying a couple with them, it's too fake. I like brown sugar with bourbon as the base for it. The recipe I linked above says to caramelized dark brown sugar, which can be iffy since it's already dark. But, I like that flavor.

I went on a butterscotch pudding jag when I was thinking of putting it on my dessert menu last year. I tried several, CI wasn't quiet what I was looking for. I tweaked this recipe http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Butterscotch-Budino-with-Whipped-Creme-Fraiche-239847, and was able to get one that I liked. I felt the rum didn't really give it the right flavor, I always like Jack Daniels in mine. I tried the one from Lark Creek, but it uses butterscotch chips, and that wasn't what I wanted either. If I decide to make it again, while I like the one I ended up with, I still feel it needs a darker, richer flavor that I need to work on.

I just add whatever I want to flavor. I have never worried about ratios too much. I add lemon curd to taste, chocolate to taste or to the color I want, zest, ground praline, extracts, liqueurs, whatever. I've never had a problem with it. It's actually pretty forgiving, and I don't know why it scares people the way it does. I used SMBC instead of IMBC only because it's a simpler process. I have the type of mixer at work that has one of those safety cages (which I hate) and it makes a mess trying to add hot sugar syrup to the whites. I use a 1:1:1 recipe making it. 1# butter, I cup sugar, 1 cups whites. Just increase as needed. The method I use for getting it ready to use is what I was taught in pastry school. If it's cold, just add chunks of the cold buttercream to the mixer bowl. Place over a bain marie and melt about halfway down, breaking up the chunks. Put it on the mixer, and mix on low with the paddle. If need be, I use a torch on the bowl if it's still too cold, or put it back over the hot water. I will increase the speed a little to get it to come together, but I was told not to whip it too high to prevent too many air bubbles.

I warm the cocoa butter in the microwave on low until it starts to melt, shaking the bottle well. It's not overheated, I make sure of that. I've done both, sprayed one day, molded the next, or sprayed, waited till set, mold. It's only these two molds and with dark chocolate. I polish them well, and do not wash them. They work fine if I decorate any other way. I may just leave the heart leaf plain, or lustre dust it. I have no problems with that.

OK, these two chocolates are my problem children . Ever since I started doing chocolates 5 years ago, these two molds have caused much cursing. Maybe someone has some insight on what is going on. Here is what I've done: I chose to airbrush these two, and it's hit or miss if they come out. Mostly miss on the red one. I've only used dark chocolate for both of them, except once on the heart leaf when I first got it, and I molded in white, and it was fine. This last time, I used Callebaut 811. I have a Rev Delta from Chocovision. I set the temps for melt to 115F, temper at 90F. All four molds looked like this. I wondered if I possibly sprayed the cocoa butter too thick, but the thing is, I don't have this problem on white or milk chocolate at all. I posted a picture in the Confections thread of the other chocolates I did, and the heart is just splattered with both of these colors. The green one in the picture is airbrushed, and is white chocolate. No problem there. When I did the ones that came out in that picture, I set the temp to melt to 120F, since I had read that Callebaut may need to be melted higher to knock out all the crystals. I've changed the design for these two flavors to save my sanity, but it just irks me that this always happens. Any ideas?

Thanks Kerry. I'd like to do them more, but my job is more wedding cakes and a busy restaurant pastry kitchen. Just can't work it in.

So, it's probably been two years since I've done any chocolates. I decided that's what would be Christmas gifts this year. On top of baking all day at my job, I've been coming home and firing up the delta rev and working another 4-5 hours. I think I've just about done myself in over the past few days, but they are done. From top left: Raspberry, Tiramisu, Peanut Butter, Maple Walnut, 64% with lots of vanilla bean, Peppermint, Eggnog, Caramel Apple, Pumpkin Caramel, Passion Fruit, Honey Vanilla Caramels with Fleur de Sel, Caramelized Pear, Absinthe. I had a few other ideas, but said uncle .

Exactly. I usually just run my heat gun over the whole mold and wipe the outside with a paper towel. Then use cotton batting to clean the cavities. I gave up on the whole soap and water thing about the second time I molded. If the "seasoning" thing is true (cocoa butter residue building up), then washing them just defeats the purpose. I have really bad water (I live next to the ocean) and there are spots left on everything when air drying, I know it would screw up the molds.

Ugh, such a crazy weekend. Summer is here. Here are two of the three wedding cakes from this past weekend. Still waiting to get the last photo.

I'm generally spinning a couple of batches of ice cream a day. I have to maintain between 6-8 flavors, and we go through a lot of it. I try to make at least 2 gallons of each flavor just to stay ahead. I've found any ice cream recipe can be scaled up without any issues.

Awesome cake! That topper is a miniature of Steve Vai's heart-shaped Ibanez triple neck that he used when playing with David Lee Roth and Whitesnake in the late 80's. Apologies if I sound like an excited fan... it's just because I am. Thanks! Oh, I know . One of my best friends informed me of that. She is a huge Vai fan. I'm more of a George Lynch girl myself

This has got to be one of my most favorite cakes I have done. The couple wanted old style tattoo images on the cake that a friend of theirs had drawn for them. I used edible paper/ink to print out the images. And the topper is so freakin' cool! They had mini guitars on every table as well and decorated the room with the groom's vintage guitar collection.

I've planned on doing this, but I'm not making chocolates as much right now, and have put if off. I was thinking of replacing half of the cream with reduced stout. I wondered if all of the cream could be replaced, or trying it with a butter ganache. I've made a red wine filling that way, and figured beer would work. One of my favorites that I want to try is Laguanitas Cappuccino Stout. It's chocolate-y and coffee-y at the same time. I've made a milk chocolate stout ice cream at work, and I like how the flavor of the stout comes through better than with dark chocolate.

RWood, from what I understand, the concentrate is twice the strength of regular puree. Therefore, do you use half as much as you would use puree? I used the Perfect Puree product for a RLB cake, and I think I had to dilute it to use. For a ganache however, it makes no sense to add water. So how do you work with the concentrate? I don't dilute it in any way. I replaced half of the cream with the concentrate. Heat them together and pour over white chocolate. It's never been too strong of a flavor, and it's always been one, if not the, most popular flavor I've made.

Where are you located? Nebraska. I have looked at L'Epicerie, but last time I checked shipping was close to $30, which isn't really worth it for me. I have ordered passion fruit concentrate online, which works well (I've only used it for drinks so far), but I am not sure how it compares to the puree, especially for things like ganache or sorbets. I use Perfect Puree's Passion Fruit Concentrate in my ganache filling. It works great and is probably my most popular flavor. I've had no problem with the flavor disappearing. Perfect Puree's shipping is out of control, and I think it's the same if ordered through Amazon. They only ship overnight and slap on big surcharges for orders under 4 containers. Whole Foods used to have the smaller home containers, but I think Perfect Puree stopped making them.

Just from my experience, I have better luck with silpats. This picture was from today at work (where I don't have any problems). They tops are a little bumpy, but it's from the almond meal. The robo-coups at work are past their prime, so they can't get it as fine as I would like. As long as I get good feet and decent shapes, I can deal wit bumpy . I think my problems at home are mainly my oven. I do everything exactly the same, but they just don't like my home oven. I made 3 full size sheet pans today, and not one flop in the convection oven at work.