RWood

Digging around on Amazon and found a new chocolate book. Still listed as pre-order, no release date. It has a look inside option, and shows everything from pate de fruit charts to making chocolate showpieces. Looks like another to add to the list .

My website is finally being built, so I've been making chocolates for photos. I lucked out and found someone that is a photographer and web designer. Here are a few more new ones: Red Wine, Lavender/Vanilla, Tiramisu and Ginger.

They are gorgeous! Would you be willing to share your recipe for pomegranate caramel? Thanks The pomegranate caramel is really good. I did a pomegranate ganache last year, and didn't like it all. Here is a link to a basic recipe I found. I fiddled with it until I was happy with it and didn't use the same procedure. I also added some Pama liqueur. http://www.tomric.com/content.aspx?title=recipe24

Gorgeous - I like the middle one best! Second is the orange and green and the white one on the left. Hell, I like the look of them all! Thanks, Kerry. I'm having a hard time coming up with new decorating techniques the more flavors I add.

Here are some new (mostly) holiday/fall flavors. Pomegranate Caramel, Pumpkin, Caramel Apple, Cranberry, Honey Lavender, Gingerbread, Peppermint and Spiced Pear. I've decided I have too many round molds, I need some variety.

You can make pie dough in a stand mixer. My suggestion would be to work the fats into the flour to whatever point you normally do, then dump it out into a bowl and mix the water in by hand. I do this when I make it in a food processor so it doesn't get overworked. One method that can help with flakiness is to dump the dough out onto a worktable before it is totally mixed. Pat the mixture out with your hands to form a rectangle, then fold the dough onto itself like croissant dough. Use a bench scraper to help with any dry bits. Press it together and chill. It can be a done a couple more times. The flour will continue to absorb moisture if it looks too dry when you first do this. Pies are probably my least favorite pastry to make, but this method has helped when I've had to make them.

I tried a recipe I found several months ago that used this technique, but it wasn't worth the effort and mess. I'll read the method in Greweling's book and see how he recommends doing it. The one I tried said to make a caramel, pour it out on a slab, then spread the peanut butter over it. And then roll and fold which would create the layers. It did create the flaky layers like a Butterfinger and tasted very similar, but was a mess from the peanut butter oozing out, and I had to keep rewarming it to be able to fold it. I doubt I would go to the trouble again.

This is the recipe I've used for years. It works great, hold it's shape very well. Here are some cookies I made using this recipe, and you can see they are flat and sharp edged.

I think you could use scratch cake with no problems. Just a firm cake, maybe like a pound cake. And yes you can color white chocolate. Just buy the candy colors that are oil based instead of water based. As suggested above, royal icing could be used, but depends on the flavor and texture you want. And thanks for the nice comments. One a.m. might be a little hard to do though

Since I'm more of a dessert and chocolate person, I have to remind myself that I can still do other areas of pastry. I decided to make croissant dough and then my favorite hazelnut rolls.

I'm in CA, and I see it in most grocery stores.

From my experience making pineapple upside down cake (my cake batter has pineapple juice) there haven't been any problems.

I grew up on White Lily's Self-rising Corn Meal Mix, being from the South. I wish I could find it here in CA. I just have to get family to send it to me. But, when I've made corn meal muffins from scratch, I just make the batter and refrigerate it. Bake later. Never had a problem. It also makes it easier to scoop being chilled. Not sure how a store bought mix would hold though.

Here is the lemon chiffon recipe I used. It may need more yolks or a couple of whole eggs instead as it didn't set up well. But, I did this recipe X8, so that may have affected it. And it boiled, which it wasn't supposed to do, and still didn't thicken. Lemon Chiffon In saucepan: 1/4 Cup Water Sprinkle with: 1 Each Gelatin, envelope (2 1/4 tsp) Whisk In: 1/2 Cup Water 1/2 Cup Lemon Juice 1 Tsp Lemon Zest 6+ Tbsp Sugar 4 each Egg Yolks Stirring constantly with rubber spatula, heat mixture until it steams and coats a spoon fairly heavily. DO NOT BOIL. Immediately pour into a bowl and cool until thick but not set. In Bowl: 2 Each Egg Whites 1/4 Cup Sugar Beat whites to soft peak stage. Gradually add sugar. Beat until stiff and glossy. Fold into lemon mixture. In Bowl: 1 Cup Whipping Cream, whipped soft Whip cream until soft peaks form. Fold into lemon mixture. Pipe into cups or molds, chill to set

I will dig it out, I did have a problem with it. The curd part didn't set up like curd, so I had to put it back on the heat and add some whole eggs. Still not ideal, but with the gelatin it worked out. It was a recipe the chef gave me, and I don't think it had been tested. The cookie is from Wente Vineyards cookbook, I got it when I worked there. It went well with the rest of the dessert. They bake weird, so don't think it's wrong. Will post recipe soon.

I like something to add texture. I've made a pistachio semifreddo with pistachio cake, as well as lemon with the same cake. And I've done a chocolate one with cocao nibs. It was done in a pyramid mold with a thin layer of chocolate cake on the bottom. Unfortunately, no pictures. It's been a while since I've made it.

I keep laughing about a watermelon my uncle bought while I was visiting in Tennessee. The thing weighed 60 lbs, and I asked how much did it cost and he said "Six dollars, but the guy threw in a cantaloupe too." I couldn't believe that thing, but it was very good.

Lemon Chiffon w/ berries and lemon butter wafers. I did this as part of the dessert table for an event in Pebble Beach for Town & Country magazine. The second picture was taken after it got dark, so it didn't come out very well, but it's of the dessert table with assorted logo chocolates, tiramisu and lemon chiffon.

I've made strawberry ice cream where I cooked the berries with sugar, vanilla bean and a little lemon. Then add to the base. I found that with the berries cooked, they don't get the icy-ness like fresh berries. So Robin, I took your advice and cooked the strawberries first. Wonderful ice cream. DH and young worker loved it. Big time. Thanks. Great, glad that it worked for you!

I've made strawberry ice cream where I cooked the berries with sugar, vanilla bean and a little lemon. Then add to the base. I found that with the berries cooked, they don't get the icy-ness like fresh berries.

So, a few more tries with the software. One is a better version of the Aqua Terra logo (the white background is what it really looks like), the second is the logo of my favorite band, Queensryche, and the photo one is my cat Ginger. It actually came out pretty well using a photo. Gotta get my airbrush to spray a little better so the backgrounds are more solid, but it's getting there.

My mom and one of my best friends have very prolific meyer lemon trees. When they come in, we are overloaded. Like that's a bad thing . It may be unoriginal, but I make big pitchers of lemonade with them. Load it up with mint leaves and fruit, and it's great. Everyone loves it. Good with a little vodka or tequila as well

So, for the first time I've ever tried this, they came out pretty good (pics aren't that great). The small round is my logo, and the rectangle is for my friends new catering company I will be working for. I followed some of the previous advice and added a small amount of cocoa butter to the white chocolate, tempered it (in my Rev Delta) and then raised the temp two degrees. All the chocolates I use are really fluid, so I was worried about it being too thin, but I just let them sit longer before dumping the chocolate out. I just received these sheets from Tomric, and they were back ordered for a couple of weeks. I may have gotten a good batch. My only gripe so far is the software, it could really be a lot better. It needs more options on editing and printing. The small mold does not print right for 28 cavities, it only printed 15. Kind of annoying to fit them in the right places. The rectangle could be edited better if the thing would let me. All in all though, I am happy with how it worked.

When I visited my mom in Brentwood a few weeks ago, they had gone out to pick bing's and brought back the biggest, sweetest cherries I've had in a while. And for only $2.50 a pound. They ended up picking 22 pounds . I know some of the stands in that area and the u-picks have some other varieties, but none were as good as the bing's.

The only time I do a separate bowl is when I have nuts involved. I know several people with nut allergies, so I try to keep the risk of contamination down. I don't think you would have to worry much about flavor transfer. I've never noticed anything happen like that.