teonzo

For someone at the beginning, those croissants are beyond spectacular! Kudos! Teo

Pollution, the over-consumption of dried beans will cause even more global warming. There will be another global crisis in December 2020 - January 2021: maternity centres will be overflowing and there will be a huge lack of midwives. P.S. I googled for the correct spelling of Thunberg, I found that her second name is Tintin. Now I know why we she is always so angry. Teo

I wonder what Greta Thunberg thinks about dried beans. Teo

If you have a precision induction unit, like the Paragon or the Control Freak, then you can do this: - put the carrot bag in a pot; - lay a lid (a bit smaller than the pot, so it fits in) over the carrot bag, to weight it down; - pour some water in the pot, just to cover the bag and the lid; - put the proper lid on the pot, to prevent evaporation; - set the induction unit to the desired temperature and let it do its job. If you want to get even more bored than what we are in these days of lockdown, you can countdown the seconds instead of using a timer. This will end up with overcooked carrots. Teo

If you have a pasta cooker (like this one), then you can put the carrot bag in the pot of the pasta cooker, put the basket of the pasta cooker over the carrot bag, fill with hot water, put your sous-vide machine and launch it. If the basket is not heavy enough, then add a weight over it. Teo

Wybauw invented the transfer technique by painting a piece of cellophan, then applying it on an easter egg (after demolding it). You can try that. Teo

I got scarlet fever when I was a child, so that's out of range. I can become ginger with speckles and risk Cartman's hate. If it stands for Young Venetian Really Ubergreedy of Citrus of Sicily, then you nailed it. Teo

See? The Chocolate God does not forgive. Neither the Chocolate Doctor. Teo

You need to consider that: - I'm spoiled, about 1 km from my home there is a store run by a Sicilian family, they sell the oranges cultivated by their relatives in Sicily, so I have access to much better fruit than what supermarkets sell (and luckily they continue to be open in these days); - I'm maniac, when in season I eat 4-5 oranges per day, don't know anyone else that eats so many oranges. Teo

You had to write "Just saw an ad for EZtemper in a Swedish magazine AND I BOUGHT IT". After Quetzacoatl, now you angered Kali Beal too. Your next chocolate domes are doomed. Teo

Hahahaha I felt stupid too when I heard about it. Beware to use only organic oranges for candied peels. It's obvious, but better repeating it one time more than one time less. For the candying syrup, use invert sugar (or pure dextrose) and avoid glucose syrup / corn syrup, you want monosaccharides and avoid dextrines. The smaller the molecule, the easier it will penetrate in whatever you are candying (osmotic pressure and blabla). Invert sugar is sweeter than dextrose, so the choice depends on the final result you are aiming for. If you don't have invert sugar or dextrose and want to avoid the hassle of buying them, then you just need to put 1 kg water, 1 kg sucrose, 20 g lemon juice in a pot, cover it with a lid, bring it to the boil, keep it boiling gently (lowest stove possible) for 1 hour, always with the lid to limit evaporation. This way you end up with enough invert sugar to get good results and avoid the crystallization of the final product (which is the problem if you only use sucrose). After completing the candying, don't waste the syrup, it's full packed of flavor. So when you need a syrup for something you can use the candying syrup, always adjusting for the density. For example you can make a pound cake with candied orange peels, then soak it with the candying syrup (after diluting it), this way you get an orange bomb. You can use it to soak a sponge layer in an entremet. Or you can use it when making orange sorbet, to add more punch. Or to make marshmallows with gelatin. Or pate de fruit. Wasting it is a crime. Teo

I use blood oranges, so you are totally fine. They have a thinner peel than navels and others, so it's easier to candy them thoroughly. If you freeze the peels before candying them, then you get better results. I mean freezing, not blast freezing, in this case you are hoping for the formation of big ice crystals, so they break the cell walls and the syrup penetrates more easily. Usually when I eat an orange I put the peels in the freezer in a bag. When I have enough of them and I'm in the mood / have time, I make a big batch. I amassed quite a lot of peels from this winter, so I made a first batch of 3 kg, then now I'm making a second batch of 2.5 kg. No ricotta and no ginger in the supermarket today. But yes butter and yes mascarpone. So it will be pound cake with (lots of) candied orange peels and something else I will improvise just for the sake of improvising. Most probably it will involve cardamom: mascarpone + orange + cardamom sounds quite appealing. Teo

This article is missing the most crucial data: the amount of money invested in the restaurant. Not much sense in knowing all the costs and the final profit if you can't calculate the return over investment. Teo

Thanks and don't worry, everything is going to be fine. I forgot how boring it is to hand dip stuff in chocolate, god bless enrobers. I have a pot with another 2.5 kg batch of candied orange peel in the process, so next time at the supermarket I'll look for a boatload of ricotta, I see some pastiera and cannoli in my future because I don't want to hand dip again all those peels. And hopefully ginger, candied ginger is the best. Teo

I would have bought the 666 oz tank, seems more fitting. Teo

As the others said, pastry cream made with whipping cream is cloying. If you want it richer then use more yolks instead of switching milk with cream. Teo

More surface area in contact with water ----> more flavorful stock. You should keep them with the beans and eat them... Teo

If you temper your ganache then it means it's already at working temperature (below 32°C), so it' better to use it immediately, otherwise it will get thicker and thicker with time. Teo

You can find many hints in this thread. Teo

We stink, so you made him more angry and next time your de-molding ratio will be 0. Today I'm going to dip 1 kg of candied orange peels in dark chocolate. I will be forced to eat them all by myself. Life could be much worse. Teo

You need to pray Quetzalcoatl and offer him the proper sacrifices. Teo

I live in one of the "red zones" here in Italy. We are forced to remain in the red zone and not go outside. Restaurants can be open from 6 am to 6 pm, no dinners out. Cinemas, theatres, libraries, gyms, discos, all public gathering places are closed. But everything is fine about food, no troubles in finding what I want to eat / drink. I still wonder why they did not make all this fuss with the local flu epidemic 2 years ago, there were MANY MORE deaths and contagions. Maybe because it was not from China. Teo

Everything impressive! These are my favourites. Teo

Moving towards take-away brings many cons for sure, but also many plus sides. You don't work with a front of house department, which saves lots of costs and unexpected troubles. You can base your kitchen in the outskirts and not in prime estate areas, saving quite some money. Ok, not much for cities like New York, if you want to serve Manhattan then your kitchen needs to be in Manhattan. You are not going mad about timing different dishes for tables of 6 or 8 customers, your dishes are going to sit in a van for quite some time so if a dish is ready 4 minutes before the others then it's perfectly ok. You are not facing the hassle of explaining to a customer that a dish in the menu is gone. This if you are good managing your software and kitchen. You don't need a liquor license and tons of money invested in bottles and glassware. You don't have customer toilets to clean (probably the worst nightmare). You don't deal with drunk/stoned/worse customers. Teo

You can try piping marshmallows in demi-sphere molds, trying to get a sphere. But this won't solve the problems about sticking and flattening (they are soft, so while rotating they hit each other and flatten). Teo