jrshaul

It seems counterproductive if you're grinding something candied.

I just bought a bunch of molds from a suggested vendor for rather less than I had expected. Thanks, everyone!

A family member is ape for pistachios, and Trader Joe's now stocks raw shelled pistachios at reasonable rates. Making homemade pistachio paste is simple enough, but what do I do with it? Something stiff enough to be hand-dipped in tempered chocolates would be preferable - I lack molds (for now.) I was hoping to mix it with confectioners' sugar to get something approximating a peanut butter cup, but no dice. Maybe mix the paste with some sort of stiff fondant? a 1:1 to 1:2 ratio of pistachios to sugar seems about right.

Thanks for the link! I'm more worried about having to do one tray at a time, though 2-3 should keep me pretty busy. I'm used to dipped chocolates, but it's just too labor intensive and never looks great. Might take a look at yours, too.. I'm trying to re-learn something I haven't done in some years, so they're gonna get a bit of a workout. Not commercial by any means, but "five runs and done" just won't do.

Some of them noted the polycarbonate was unacceptably soft. Some people may have been idiots. The price premium isn't huge , though the time factor does make having a lot of molds appealing.

Some of the polycarbonate molds on Amazon have some very poor reviews. They're substantially cheaper, but I suspect the Chocolate World molds might be worth another few bucks.

I need to get some decent molds for filled truffles, but the reviews for most of the stuff on Amazon are all over the map. Can anyone recommend some for home use?

If you don't mind, I'm going to steal the idea for deep-fried battered Red Vines, get myself a trailer, and set up shop at the State Fair. I think I'll have my vintage Maserati in white, please.

What's the most cost-effective way to obtain one of these at present? And do you think it would survive occasionally being hauled out to an extended-stay hotel?

Could this be fudged with a lab-grade immersion circulator?

You'd be correct in your assertation that it burns terrifyingly, frighteningly easily - a stove that runs 25F over is gonna get pretty brown. However, the cake is a known kid-pleaser, no syrup or glaze required. It's also one of the few cakes I know that can be made without cake flour or anything particularly futzy.

I ended up horribly bastardizing a recipe I knew from my mother. (Sorry, guys - they wanted a traditional white cake, and your recipes had a lot less sugar.) It worked okay - but maybe you could help me make it work better? 1.5 cups butter 3 cups sugar 3 cups AP flour. 5 eggs. 1/2C buttermilk 1/2C whole milk 2t baking powder 1/4t salt 3t vanilla Cream butter and sugar using electric eggbeater. Beat in eggs, one by one. Beat in dry ingredients, alternating with milk; add flavoring. Divide between 3 cake pans and bake at 350F until fork comes out clean. The recipe worked pretty well - it's a cake recipe I'd used ages back with reasonable success. However, I did have a few bugaboos. The bottoms were nearly burnt before it set (possibly due to the oven,) and they weren't especially fluffy. Would this be a reasonable candidate for possibly reducing the temperature a bit and whipping the whole eggs? It's not like we're not using the eggbeater already... When you weigh seventy pounds, this can be a bit problematic...

A friend of mine would appreciate a nice cake recipe to make with her kids, and I've been using joepastry.com's recipes for so long that I'm at a loss without low-gluten flourand kitchenaid. If someone could nominate a basic "birthday cake" recipe that can be made with a wooden spoon and a whisk, I'd appreciate it - the basic 1-2-3-4 isn't really sweet enough for many peoples' tastes these days. Bonus points if it's amenable to the addition of flavorings like ginger or instant coffee.

More importantly, all of them have immense power requirements. I could use a step-up transformer for 220 volts, but the 20+ amps would blow the breaker.

Has anyone here had success with soft serve from a soft serve machine, a lá Momofuku Milk Bar? The stabilizer and emulsifier requirements appear to be very specific, but the great success of commercial products with high acidity, zero dairy content, and other unusual specifications indicate there's a lot of potential for the technology. And does anyone know where I can get one at a sane price for home use? There seems to be some overlap with margarita machines, of all things.

After a major life change (I'm not a computer science undergraduate anymore! Hooray!), I now have a job in marketing for sales for a resurgent local bakery. After the patriarch sold off the old facility to developers for enough cash to retire in Monaco, the 3rd and 4th generations made use of generous city loans to rebuild in a less affluent location. The new facility is shiny, new, and HACCP-friendly, but not quite the retail bonanza they used to own. The family has done some business with one or two local restaurants providing semi-finished desserts, and they'd like to expand further in this respect. Anything from fine dining to coffeeshops are all valid sales opportunities. Can anyone describe what the purchasing patterns, requirements, and markup on various types of dessert would be? The dudes in question can do anything from carrot cake to homemade mascarpone without batting an eyelash, though they're more oriented to volume than precision. A few examples we've discussed include tiramisu, key lime pie, carrot cake, chess pie, flourless chocolate cake, and various types of cheesecake.

I need to get some more cream and retry this. I threw the cream in an ice bath to get it cold before rewhipping, but it wasn't there very long - perhaps the duration of chilling affects the ability to whip?

Today, I tried making earl grey cream puffs by heating cream to 140F and infusing with tea for an hour. While the infusion was successful, the resulting attempt at whipping was not. How high can I go before the cream no longer whips?

Gelatin doesn't (to my knowledge) give the sort of structural material texture I'm looking for. I don't want "fluffy;" I want "earthquake building code." Does it include pate a bombe? I've seen several varieties on chocolate mousse, but none with the rigidity you describe. Most recipes for french silk pie The french silk pies my mother made were nothing like those of Hubbard; that said, given my parents' enthusiasm for "healthy recipe modifications," the pies in question were likely nothing like french silk either I was about to give a run with the french silk pie recipe I found here.

My mother freezes loads of it - no trouble. Maybe it could be pasteurized sous vide? A tiny amount of ascorbic acid could also be used to retain color and flavor.

I'm an afficionado of the custard pie at the Hubbard Avenue Diner. (If you're in south-central Wisconsin, it's worth a visit.) I am not as fond of paying $5 for a slice of it. I can do cheesecakes and key lime tarts, but the stand-outs are silk pies - stiff mousses of coffee, chocolate, and peanut butter rigid enough to hold a fork erect by the tines. They lack the taste and mouthfeel of of meringue or starch, but have far more rigidity than whipped cream can produce. Attempts to stiffen the pie with butter produce a similar texture, but post-consumption are like digesting a bowling ball. Here's a few thoughts: 1. There is very definitely a sizeable amount of butter in the filling. (A few years ago, I encountered a peanut butter silk pie that was not fully blended.) 2. I'm guessing that there's cream cheese in there, but not much. 3. The pie is likely aerated by folding in whipped cream. The ratio is unknown. 4. The texture is not dependent on adding chocolate or peanut butter for stiffening, as is evidenced by the cappucino silk. This is my best effort so far. (The powdered sugar is due to be replaced by something else, as it makes the end result faintly starchy. Granulated sugar is inadequately fine.) 3/4 cup creamy unsalted peanut butter 4oz (1/2 stick) cream cheese 1/4 cup butter 1.5 cups powdered sugar 0.5 cups whipping cream. Molasses, vanilla, salt, cinnamon to taste. In a bowl, combine 1 cup powdered sugar and cream cheese. Whip until fluffy. Gradually add peanut butter and room temperature butter, scraping sides. Add seasonings. In another bowl, whip cream and remaining powdered sugar to stiff peaks. Fold with first mixture. Chill before serving. Serve with pepto-bismol because it's too @#$! rich.

Can anyone recommend a specific brand of hazelnut extract? There's a spectacular variety in pricing and concentration, and I'd rather avoid one made mostly of propylene glycol.

And it's why I don't shop at places that pay on commission.

"Overnight" is in this case a malapropism for the slow process you suggested. I'm more concerned about retailers willing or able to perform it properly. The shrink-wrap will be left on the individual box until purchase. It's not especially complicated, but the potential for damage is worrisome. As vocal as I am vis a vis tipping, I do respect your superior experience. In lieu of the fridge stage, I will test to see if a styrofoam container delays the defrosting process. A large, heavily insulated carton full of many pounds of chocolates would defrost very gradually - potentially even slower than it might within a fridge. Styrofoam may be necessary to prevent damage in shipping, so using a larger quantity is no hardship. I'm more concerned about the shrink wrapping being suitable to prevent humidity from entering - if anyone could speak to it versus vacuum packing, I'd appreciate it. In theory, it's seamless. In reality? I don't know. If multiple boxes could be combined and vacuum-packed, it would reduce the cost. There may be disposable tupperware analogues that are within the price range. I have a data logger I can borrow from the shop to test my theories. I'll put a bare thermocouple right in a truffle before the 48-hour procedure, and should have a very accurate measure of the rate of defrosting. If the rate of warming in the styrofoam is less than that of the fridge, I will consider it an acceptable substitute.

This is very good news. My distribution plan is as follows: 1. All chocolate is to be frozen during production. During the summer, refrigeration is required in transport. May as well make 'em frozen. 2. Vacuum-packing is ideal, but for only a few weeks, I'm hoping that shrink-wrapping is adequate to prevent humidity from entering upon defrosting. 3. The individually vacuum-packed boxes may be shrink-wrapped into bundles. 4. The retailer takes the frozen bundles from the freezer and defrosts them overnight before opening the shrink-wrap on the bundle. 5. The boxes of chocolates are sold at room temperature. The only real thing I've got going for me is cost - I'm hoping to have 1/3 lb boxes for $8 each, which puts me in the price range of traditional grocery stores. I feel quite the doofus discussing this with seasoned professionals, but I have also been very fairly careful in my cost analysis and run all this past an experienced bakery owner.