teonzo

Usually I'm against all kinds of actions that milk on a person's death (I call it "the Freddy Mercury effect"). After reading my first thought was: "one of the few cases that seems legit". Then my cynical part thought: "can we be sure this wasn't a marketing stunt from the beginning?". Teo

I bow to the Jedi master!!! Teo

If your daughter-in-law is complaining about a possible meat-grinder ugliness in such a situation, then she will keep complaining no matter what you do. Best thing in my opinion is sending them money and say "with this money you can buy what grinder you like, your choice". Time to grow up. Teo

There's no clear story about its origin, only legends. It appears in various cookbooks from the XIX century, each one giving a different story for its origin. Searching for the origins of such old dishes is almost pointless in my opinion. Few people documented what they were doing, even at the noble courts. It's relatively easy to find papers with the lists of the foods that were bought by those noble courts, but finding menus is not common, finding recipes is rare. So how can we be sure that the ancient reference we know of is really the first one? It's just impossible, existing documents are way too few. We need to consider other problems too. Calling something "English" could mean many different things: it could be inspired by an English dish; it could have been served at a banquet where the guest of honor was English; it could be just a way to try to elevate it, with a fake story behind ("here's the English soup, a famous dessert from England that was transmitted blablablabla", just to cover it was a way to re-use stale genoise). The most accepted story for the origin of praliné (almonds mixed with caramel) tells that it was an error made by one of the apprentices of the cook of Marshal du Plessis-Praslin, who accidentally threw to the kitchen floor some almonds and some caramel, the cook didn't want to waste them, collected them and served them to his employer. If this is true, I doubt he served them saying "we are in the weeds, these fell to the ground, taste good, so here you are"... more probably "this is the new delicacy we invented", followed by a huge made-up fable. Plus there is the word of mouth effect: person A tells person B a story, person B tells this story to person C, C to D, when we arrive to L we have a totally different story. So much that there are dishes that are called "Russian" in a country and "Italian" in another. Looking at what happened with tiramisu is peculiar. We spent some decades thinking it was a delicacy with a really old story behind, while it was created in the 1960's. Not in the XIX century, in the 1960's, and we took decades to demonstrate it and accept it. Teo

Sorry, my English is not perfect. I mean boiled pasta with no condiments, just drained out of the boiler. Raw in the sense "nothing added", not in the sense "not cooked". Definetely. Teo

Building such an operation takes a good amount of money (in the millions I would say). Knowing how to re-heat your frozen food is simply one of the most crucial aspects in such an operation, all of your business is based on that. You are spending big money, yet you are trying to ask for free suggestions here to save spending on a consultant. With this attitude, I doubt you will find someone willing to help, sorry. Teo

Crappy ones for sure, which are the majority here in Italy. Almost all bars ("bar" as is used in Italy) that offer quick lunches use frozen pasta. A high percentage of trattorie and cheap restaurants follow the same route. Some of them are in the middle: they produce their own condiments, but use frozen raw pasta (blast freezed after it's been boiled, zero condiments). This way customers are served after 5 minutes instead of 15. And they are really happy for this. There are many industrial producers for frozen primi piatti. You are right to think that re-heated pasta sucks, but there is risotto too, which is much worse if possible. Those crappy eateries just need to sign a contract with those industries, so they get all the needed equipment to do this food abomination. It's a plague here in the land of pasta, so go figure. Teo

Please report back, thanks! Teo

I was forgetting an important thing: shelf life. If you succeed in making the filled bundt cake, then beware for how much time you store it and where you store it. That pomegranate curd does not have long shelf life at room temperature, I doubt it can reach the 2 days mark. So be careful about this, since we are talking about a whole cake and it's possible you are planning to eat it in multiple days. If so, store it in the fridge. It's a problem for the cake part, since it becomes tough due to the butter hardening. You can warm the slices in a microwave, but there is another problem related to this: the curd will heat much more than the cake part, due to the much higher water content. Teo

If that's the case and (s)he does not know how to deal with this Frozen Food, well, then good luck! Teo

Ask to your supplier of frozen foods, they are required to give you these infos. Usually they have an agreement with an oven producer, so you can get a nice discount / lease / whatever. Teo

There is a way to minimize risks: - prepare the pomegranate curd, then the pistachio cake batter; - prepare one single cupcake, made with pistachio cake batter and inside a dollop of the pomegranate curd; - cook the single cupcake and see what happens, if it's ok then you go on with your initial plan (pistachio cake with the pomegranate curd filling), if it's not ok then you prepare a standard pistachio cake, then fill it with the pomegranate curd after it's cooked and cooled. This way you waste a single cupcake at most. Teo

Ah, I thought that recipe was new to you, so things are different. Possible problems with your recipe are these ones: 1- curd's egg proteins coagulate during the cake cooking process, so the curd becomes grainy; 2- cake cooking process breaks the curd's emulsion (lots of butter there), so the curd becomes grainy; 3- curd becomes too runny during the cake cooking process, so it ends up being (partially) absorbed by the underlying cake batter. Case 1 should not apply here: you already cooked the egg yolks while making the curd, so there should be no risk. Case 2 could happen, most custards that are baked in the oven don't have troubles but some do, it depends on the single recipe and the cooking process. I would say this is possible but chances are small. Case 3 is more probable. You have the cornstarch that binds water, but there is that lot of butter that liquefies before the cake batter starts setting (egg proteins are still uncooked, starches are not gelatinized). This is the more worrysome risk, especially if it's combined with case 2. Only way to know is trying. Teo

Personally I would avoid egg yolks and butter, they would mask the pomegranate taste. I would avoid lemon juice too. I made something similar years ago, here is the photo: They were "saccottini" made with sweet potato dough (Italian sweet potato, which is grey) and a pomegranate filling. It's different from a bundt cake in the sense that in my case the dough was a laminated yeasted dough, so during the cooking process it's "harder" than a bundt cake batter, but I don't think there are risks for the filling to run out of the cake batter. I used this recipe: 50 g cornstarch 450 g pomegranate juice 120 g sugar (I used cane sugar to make it vegan) Put cornstarch in a pot, add about 50 g pomegranate juice, whisk to dissolve the cornstarch and break all the lumps (if you add all the pomegranate juice then it's harder to break all the lumps). Add the remaining pomegranate juice and the sugar, whisk to dissolve. Cook whisking constantly, when it starts making the first bubbles then lower the flame to the minimum, keep cooking for other 2 minutes (always whisking). Let it cool, then use. Result had a soft "creamy" texture, should be what you are looking for. Teo

Yup, that's the correct attitude. I was not criticizing you, mine was a generic complaint towards the hundreds of professionals that say that those balancing formulas are the perfect bible. A useful guideline more than certainly, a perfect bible not. We are still way behind, as you confirmed saying that you are still making corrections. We can predict a range of sweetness. We can predict a range of everything, not the exact final result. We artisans are still required to fine tune the recipe with trial and error. I haven't read the full study, I just skipped to the point where it talks about fructan decrease. It refers to storage at -22°C. I was asking about the possible maturation at +4°C. This depends on the production method, of course, some people totally skip it, the others use different amount of hours. If someone prepares the sorbet base and lets it rest for some hours at +4°C (maturation phase), then he should consider this phase too. Enzyme activity varies with temperature, most of the times the higher the temperature the higher the activity. I think it's pretty safe to say that inulin hydrolysis (enzymatic or acidic or both) is quicker at +4°C than at -22°C, probably by a couple orders of magnitude. Vast majority of enzymes are deactivated by heat. That's why I made the distinction between fresh fruit and pasteurized fruit purees. Commercial sorbets are made with pasteurized purees for safety reasons. The guy I know who paid big money for the Carpigiani consulting received recipes to be made with commercial frozen fruit purees (if a consultant gives me a recipe for banana sorbet that asks for frozen banana puree then I say him goodbye at that exact moment). If an artisan is aiming for quality, then he should go for fresh seasonal fruit and avoid frozen purees. The few research available for inulin was made in industrial settings, aka pasteurized fruit purees. The same study you linked says "particularly important in our study, because the production of sorbets involved pasteurization of the raw materials (to provide microbiological safety of the product)". This means that when using fresh fruits those values could be much much higher. Only way to know is making lots of research: artisans don't have the equipment nor the money to do that, industries have equipment and money but are not interested in this kind of research because they use pasteurized purees and not fresh fruit. Personally I'm not going to use pasteurized fruit purees for sorbets, that goes against taste quality. To motivate the use of inulin I would like to have some serious data on hydrolysis, otherwise I just risk to get higher productions costs (both as ingredients and labor) and end up with a sorbet with a small fraction of the starting inulin and a sensible addition of fructose. Teo

Relative sweetness is one of the many things that puzzle me when talking about balancing ice-creams and sorbets. The usual table for the SE values is made at a given concentration and a given temperature. If we change these 2 variables then we get different results. Besides that, we need to consider all the other components in a recipe: amount and type of fats change flavor perception; acid, salt, bitter, peppery components alter sweetness perception. All the balancing formulas I've seen are based on a system of linear equations, in reality things are not linear, they are much more complicated. Each class of molecules affects the features of all the other classes. This to say that recipes with the same POD can give a very different sweetness perception in the mouth; I've always seen POD, PAC and all the other parameters as generic guidelines, not as perfect rules. Another thing to consider about inulin is the possible problem caused by hydrolysis. If we use inulin in a fruit sorbet, are we sure that the fruit we are using does not contain an enzyme that affects inulin? Unwanted enzymes are behind the corner with a lot of fruits, so if we are using a fresh fruit containing inulinase (haven't found infos about natural sources containing it) or similar enzymes, then we risk that during the maturation phase of the sorbet that enzyme is going to transform inulin in fructose, giving us the exact opposite effect than the original one that lead us to choose inulin. There is another thing about stabilizers: how does inulin affect them? Most probably some of the stabilizers will create bonds with some inulin, this can lead to dramatic changes in texture (maybe good, maybe not), and these changes will depend on the molecular weight (how many fructose molecules are contained in the chain) of the inulin we are using. Things are much more complicated than a system of linear equations here. We could get different results just using a fresh fruit or a pasteurized fruit puree. I'm happy you found some good stuff in Italian. I suggest you to use "sorbetto inulina" to maximize the results. I spent some time reading various pages, but there are no clear infos: most pages give vague descriptions, plus there are lots of contradictions. The only sure thing is that there are a good amount of professionals that are trying to sell their classes or their consulting jobs. Problem is that all the ones I saw are pastry chefs with no formal scientific education. This is a subject where I would never pay anyone who is less than a university professor. Teo

I've read some pages, there are many people stating different things, lots of contradictions out there. I tend to be skeptical when pastry chefs talk about scientific stuff, the vast majority of them lack the science basics, so they repeat what they are told, most times changing something critical without noticing they are doing so. To be called inulin it must be a certain kind of fructose chain, with certain kind of bonds, the human body has no enzymes that can break these bonds. This means inulin is not digestible, so it has no calories for human consumption, I can't see any way to contradict this fact. So the lots of people stating that inulin has calories are just uninformed, when someone makes just a basic error then I'm skeptical about all the other things he/she states. Seems like Bordas was referring to short chain inulin (less than 10 fructose molecules) and long chain inulin (more than 10 fructose molecules). Short chain inulin seems to have 35% the sweetness of sucrose, while long chain inulin seems to have 0% sweetness. That 35% seems like an average data, I doubt that inulin with 3 fructose molecules has the exact sweetness of inulin with 9 fructose molecules, then suddenly inulin with 11 fructose molecules drops to 0 sweetness. I suppose that the shorter the chain, the higher the sweetness. So that 35% should just be an average value for short chain inulin, which can vary quite a bit depending on the distribution of the % of the various units of fructose. From the few infos I gathered, the generic inulin used in ice-cream is the high-performance inulin (chain with more than 10 fructose molecules), that is what is sold commercially as inulin. Short chain inulin should have quite different properties, especially about solubility and viscosity, but it seems like the research on this is strongly limited. Totally agree about what you write on "professional secrets". Best example is Pierre Hermé: he published all his real recipes for macarons, the result is that everywhere in the world people are copying them. Did his business get affected by this? Does not seem so, exact contrary I would say. We are not talking about multinational businesses like Coca-Cola, we are talking about small scale artisans: pretty hard that competitors will affect your local business. Besides that, the sad thing is that people who are more adamant about "professional secrets" are just copying stuff from another source, so they are not protecting something they invented themselves, they are just jealous of what they learned. Teo

I need to say I'm more on the Alice Waters side for these things, if I can avoid stabilizers, glucose and so on then I'm happy. Not in the sense that I think those ingredients must be avoided (locust bean gum is more natural than sucrose and so on, so it has no ethical sense to avoid it), just for ease of production. I try to keep informed on technical developments, but if I don't try them first hand then I don't feel competent enough. You can see it clearly, since I wrote inulin does not impact sweetness, while you said it does, so I already started with the wrong foot hahahah. A person I know paid for a consulting from the guys of Carpigiani Gelato University. They suggested the use of inulin and gave some recipes. I don't have those recipes, since that consulting was expensive and the guy self protecting. He told me they taught him to use inulin to add body and that it does not impact sweetness or calories. Seems like I did not receive the correct information. There are various pastry chefs with ice-cream shops in Italy that cooperate with Carpigiani, I've heard that many of them are using inulin. But people here are really tight, there is still a strong "professional secret" way of thinking (which I personally can't stand). If you search "inulin carpigiani university" on google, then you can find many pages with some recipes and some talk. Most of them are in Italian, usually google translate make a fine job. If you have some questions, feel free to pm me. Don't take those recipes for perfect, a good amount of people here hate to give away their recipes, so they modify them. Jordi Bordas is one of the Spanish professionals making research, there was an article on the So Good Magazine website. There he stated that inulin contributes calories, so I'm not sure how much useful things he has to say. As far as I know inulin is not digestible, after reading that article I asked to a couple of friends with a university degree in medicine and they confirmed it's not digestible. Teo

Good to know, thanks. I've always been skeptical on these kind of programs for ganaches, can't see much value in them. Since it's possible to create a new recipe from an existing and working one, and it does not take much effort, then I always preferred that way. Teo

Have you considered inulin? Around here many professionals are starting to use it. It adds body without impacting sweetness or calories, being a non digestible fiber. Teo

As far as I know the first program for balancing ganache recipes was/is Pro-Choc. I thought it was included in the book "Ganache – l'art et l'expertise" by Jean-Pierre Richard, just checked and Librairie Gourmande says I was mistaken: the book explains how to use the program, but the CD-ROM does not contain it, it has only advertising pdfs. The real Pro-Choc is still updated constantly and for sale, but for much higher price. Can't comment on the qualities of any of these programs, never tried. Seems like what happened with the program for balancing ice-cream recipes by Angelo Corvitto: his one was the first and the most expensive, then others followed and took "inspiration". One important thing to remember is that the method used for realizing a ganache has a sensible impact on its qualities (Aw, smoothness, so on), this was clearly pointed out by Frédéric Bau with his method of voluntarily breaking the emulsion. So programs like this one will just give an overall view for the recipe, not the perfect final numbers. Teo

Wow, never seen such a big mulberry! Here the biggest ones reach 4 cm top, most trees give fruits that are less than 3 cm long. I know only one tree here that gives the white ones, they are my favourite, such sweetness and fragrance! Mulberries are totally forgotten and overlooked here, there are plenty of trees in the fields, but nobody harvest mulberries anymore. There's a long bicycle path that is surrounded by mulberry trees, when in season the asphalt becomes purple, yet people keep their eyes on their smartphones, really sad. Teo

Mulberry season starts next week here, I'm happy, one of my favourites! Do you have the white ones where you live? Teo

Panna cotta?

That's the perfect plan! When their mamas come to bring them home, just at the last second when they are closing the car's door you say "hey kids, I have a nice gift for you" and voilà the gummy legos (closed in a box). So they leave and you observe a huge hurricane forming and going away. If the next time their mamas bring you something to eat/drink, then be careful. Teo