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Saccottini Hinaqu Don't know how this shape is called in English, in Italian it's called "saccottino" which means "little pocket". It's a sort of turnover made with leavened dough and jam inside. Flavors here are sweet potato (here in Italy we have this kind, grey flesh) in the dough and pomegranate in the filling. I tried a new technique for the dough: when eating a sweet potato I thought "this has the texture of soft butter... I can use it instead of soft butter somewhere". So I tried it for a viennoiserie piece. I picked up a recipe for croissant dough and used the cooked sweet potato pulp for the lamination instead of the usual butter. Since I was substituting a dairy product with a vegetable I decided to make it a vegan recipe. Laminating the cooked sweet potato pulp inside the dough has the advantage that the potato is not aborbing flour as if you were adding it to the main dough. In this way you get a lighter result, not as heavy as the usual sweet potato doughs. After cooking you loose the lamination effect, you don't see the different layers and don't get the crispy flaky crust of croissants. This because croissaint lamination works thanks to the butter fat (the fat of all the mini butter layers works as a shield for vapor, keeping divided the layers), sweet potatoes are mainly starch and not fat, so that effect is null. No problem, I'm happy the same since I got a light, soft and tender dough. Filling is a sort of pomegranate custard: pomegranate juice, sugar and cornstarch, cooked together. I used the cornstarch method to avoid the risk of the filling spilling outside the dough. I'm really pleased with the result. Texture and taste are quite different from all the usual viennoiserie, but it's really a pleasure to eat. Plus it's vegan, good thing because making vegan viennoiserie is always a challenge. Teo

Simply I don't like it, hehhehe. I'm a bit of a pistachio "purist", I'm not a fan of the pairing with caramel. Using top quality pistachios in a praline is just a waste of good ingredients in my opinion, you loose the nuances that make good pistachios good. Giving how much pistachios cost, I don't see much sense in buying something where pistachio qualities are covered. As I wrote, it seems like a way to use non-top pistachios and ask premium prices for them. Good for their wallets, not for mine. Same as above: I don't think they use their top cocoa beans for caramelized products, but they ask premium prices for them. Ok, caramel flavored things will always appeal to the masses and be a good sell, but there are cheaper ways to get those flavors. Teo

Just a way to utilize the byproduct of hazelnut oil production? I've been puzzled when I saw about their pistachio praline: I said to myself "a bad way to ruin good pistachios, or a good way to recycle bad pistachios". Call me old, blind or whatever, but they lost me with all that stuff like Dulcey, Caramelia and so on. Teo

These kinds of troubles with pâte à choux are usual when you make small quantities (5 eggs or less) and add one egg per time. It's better to pour the eggs in a jug, whisk them briefly to mix yolks and whites, then add the lightly beaten eggs from the jug, few quantities each time. This way you won't be adding a whole egg (about 50 g) but much less (say about 10 g), so it's much easier to control the final texture of the mixture. If you need to rescue a liquid pâte à choux, then you can prepare some more of the cooked mixture, add it to the liquid pâte à choux, then add other egg if necessary. It can be a problem due to bigger eggs. But it's not a given, the required amount of eggs depends on how much liquid evaporated during cooking (can't control it) and how much starch gelification happened during cooking (can't control it). So the required amount of eggs will always vary from time to time, unless you are a cyborg or are using machines. Teo

I would suggest you to go to a health store and give a look to their selection of essential oils, dried flowers and so on. Teo

Snack Narin Layers are hazelnut "cremino" (don't know how to translate it in English, it's equal parts of milk chocolate and hazelnut paste) on the bottom and bergamot white chocolate butter ganache on top (simple butter ganache with added bergamot essential oil, can't find the real fruit where I live), enrobed in milk chocolate. Visually they are simple (more a triple bon bon than a snack) and full of defects, it's just a try at home made completely by hand (I'm not willing to buy guitar and molds to make experiments at home, no sense). The idea is to make something similar to Ferrero's Duplo (don't know if they are sold outside Italy, probably with a different name): a mold with 3 demispheres cavities, each one filled with a half hazelnut (not whole like Duplo) plus hazelnut "cremino" and bergamot ganache. Taste is pretty familiar and catchy (nothing new or weird), all people who tasted them were happy. Teo

If you don't have experience with quince then it's quite easy. Wash the quinces. Prepare 2 bowls with water and add some lemon juice to both to retard oxidation. Pick a quince, peel it and put the peel in the first bowl; cut the peeled quince in quarters, core it, cut the cores in small pieces (the ideal thing is to cut the more seeds possible, they are full of pectin and the cut ones release more pectin) and put them in the first bowl (with the peels); cut the remaining pulp in pieces (2-3 cm wide) and put them in the second bowl. When you finished with all the quinces then drain the second bowl and weigh the pulp pieces. Then calculate the amounts of sugar and lemon juice: for 1000 g of quince pulp you need 500 g of sugar and about 15 g of lemon juice (this is up to taste). Transfer the content of the first bowl (peels, cores and acidulated water) in a first pot, put on a lid and let it boil for a good amount of time, the ideal is 6-8 hours, the more it boils the more pectin will be released in the water. Transfer the quince pulp pieces in a second pot, cover them with water, add some lemon juice (usual oxidation reasons), put on a lid and boil for about 2 hours, until the pulp is tender. Before boiling the pulp it most probably started to oxidize and brown, not a big problem because during boiling it will come back light yellow and then reddish. Check the pulp consistency every 15-20 minutes, if only just to remove the lid and breath that wonderful floral scent. After boiling the 2 pots for the required time proceed this way. Drain the cooked quince pulp and put it back in the pot, discarding the cooking water. Drain the peels and cores, keeping the cooking water (just the opposite, you are keeping the water and discarding the peels and cores). Add the pectin water to the cooked pulp, mix with a stick blender till having a fine puree. Add the sugar and lemon juice, mix again. Put it back on the stove and cook to desired texture. At the beginning you don't need to stir, it's pretty fluid. The more it cooks the more you need stirring, since it becomes denser and denser and you risk scorching. You can cook it to gelification and get quince cheese / pâte de coing. If you stop before gelification you get a spreadable paste, so you can put it in cans like jam. When making most jams the key for best flavor is to cook them the less time possible. With quinces it's almost the contrary, they "open up" with long cooking, if you go quick you don't get the best result. About flavorings, quince pair well with citrusy tones: citrus zests, melissa, lemongrass, lemon verbena, coriander seeds, juniper berries... Plus all the spices that pair well with apples: cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves... About persimmons, don't know which method you used. I put the persimmon pulp (no skin, no stem, no seeds of course) in a big bowl, mix it with a stick blender, add 50% sugar (500 g sugar for 1000g persimmon pulp) and lemon juice (to taste as usual), mix again, put on the stove and cook as quick as possible. My favourite pairings with persimmons are licorice and mace. Other choices: bay leaf, cinnamon, cloves, amaretto, nutmeg, long pepper, allspice, thyme, ginger... It's miakawa season here in Italy, they are a kind of green/yellow mandarins, pretty tart and bitter, so they work great for marmalade. It's chestnut season too, so you can prepare crème de marrons. Of course it's a PITA, but here on eGullet there was a great suggestion to speed peeling, you just need to cut the chestnuts almost in half, cook them a bit until the peel start detaching, then with pliers you go totally quick (can't find the thread, sorry). It's a good task to assign to the girls, of course with heat gloves. For flavorings you can use: bay leaf, cinnamon, cloves, amaretto, nutmeg, armagnac / brandy, rum, all kind of peppers, rosemary, fennel seeds, thyme, ginger... Sweet potatoes can give a similar result to crème de marrons. Cook the sweet potatoes, peel them and weigh the pulp. Calculate 50% water and 70% sugar, make a syrup, add the cooked sweet potato pulp, mix with stick blender, then proceed like crème de marrons. Flavorings: same as chestnuts, or whatever you use with sweet potatoes. Not only fruits are suitable for jams, vegetables too. My favourites are radicchio and red onions, these jams are a good alternative to pair with cheese (blasphemy for a French, I know). For radicchio: cut it in thin strips (almost julienne), calculate 80% sugar and 80% water, make a syrup, add the radicchio then cook to jam consistency. For red onions it's almost the same. Better using 60% sugar and 20% corn syrup, since it tends to cristallize. I like to add nuts pieces to these 2 jams, they pair well and give a desirable crunch. Or you can flavor them with whatever herb/spice you use in savory dishes. You can make beet jam too. Cut beets in small dices, weigh them and calculate 50% water and 50% sugar. Cook the beet dices, divide them in half. Put half in the syrup, mix with stick blender. Add the remaining dices and cook the jam. Remember one thing: you are selling things to other people, each person has different tastes from the others, so if you don't like something then this does not mean all the customers will hate it too (quite the opposite). The more diversity the better, this way it will be easier for everyone to find something to their taste. So I would try to make more than 1 flavoring for each fruit. Worst case scenario: you won't sell everything, so you will have cans to give as gifts or to consume at home. Teo

Some more books from France: Valrhona - Aux Sources du Grand Chocolat: Recettes d'experts Frédéric Bau - "Envies chocolat" Christophe Felder - "Le dessert: Bistrot / Palace" Pascal Caffet - "Praliné: 100 recettes 100% praliné" Eric Frechon - "Eric Frechon" Arnaud Lallement - "Emotions en Champagne" Jean-paul Jouary - "Akrame, instincts de cuisine" Alexandre Couillon - "Marine et végétale" Jean-Yves Schillinger - "JY'S" Teo

I'm not an expert on caramels (far from it, I much prefer ganaches in my pralines), but I would reason this way. Butter is composed by about 82% fats and 18% liquids (mostly water). So when you add butter to the caramel (cooked sugar, not the final product) you add fats and water (plus few % points of other stuff). Then you need to cook the mixture to a desired temperature, this is to reach a fixed % of water (different boiling temperatures, different water %, they are pre-determined in the sense that the same mixture boiling at X temperature always have Y% water). So you can "deconstruct" butter in oil + water. I would use a neutral oil to not add flavours, like rice oil, corn oil, peanut oil (they are pretty easy to find in Italy, don't know elsewhere). And I would add a bit of lecithin to help the emulsion. But I would proceed differently than with the butter caramels. With butter caramels you add the butter to the boiling caramel. In this case I would add boiling water, then when the temperature dropped I would add the vegetable oil (the less you heat vegetable oils the better) and lecithin. Then I would proceed as always: cook to the desired temperature, let it cool, then deposit in moulds. Since you add only water to the cooked sugar, it means lower mass, which means more evaporated water. So I would raise the amount of water. This does not change the recipe balance, since when you cook the caramel to the desired temperature you will evaporate all the extra water. My hypothetic next attempt would be: - pick-up my go-to caramel recipe (dairy version), keep all the amounts except butter, then substitute butter with 0.8x vegetable oil, 0.5x water, 0.005x lecithin, example if your recipe calls for 160 g butter then I would use 160 x 0.8 = 128 g vegetable oil, 160 x 0.5 = 80 g water, 160 x 0.005 = 0.8 g lecithin; - cook the sugar as usual to get the caramel, in the meantime heat the water to boiling point; - deglaze the caramel with boiling water (being careful as usual, of course); - add vegetable oil and lecithin, mix with stick blender; - cook to desired temperature; - cool to working temperature; - deposit in moulds. I don't know how much far off the water amount is. It can be too few (which means when you cook the mixture to desired temperature then it will start boiling at a higher temperature), or too much (it will take a lot of time to evaporate excess water and reach desired temperature). You can only know this after your first attempt, write down the results and change accordingly. Another problem can be texture. Since butter fats cristallize at room temperature and vegetable oils not, then this vegan caramel most probably will be more fluid than the dairy version. You can counterbalance this by raising the desired temperature, or lowering the amount of vegetable oil. I suppose that your "glue" problem is given by the fact that coconut milk has starches in it. Teo

Torta Eheca Layers from bottom to top: - chocolate biscuit - carrot mousse (with candied carrot cubes) - chocolate biscuit - corn mousse - cocoa glaze Decorations are simple corn grains on top, candied carrot on the side. I made this cake for a child who loves chocolate, hates all vegetables except carrots and corn. I wanted to show her that vegetables can be good in cakes, so they are much less fearful than what they seem. I've been satisfied with the result: the pairings work well together, plus it's not so sweet (the less sweet a cake is the happier I am). It's a bit weird of course, since the sweet part is given by carrots and corn, while the chocolate parts are bitter. But this is the intended effect to send the message to her: if the sweet part is given by the hated vegetables and the bitter part by the beloved chocolate, then bitter vegetables are not those frightful monsters they seem to be. Teo

Great stuff! Love this kind of happenings, kudos to you! Teo

My favourite pumpkin filling is made this way. Cut the pumpkin in quarters, discard the seeds and filaments (well, better using the seeds for something else), keeping the pulp attached to the skin. Cover each quarter with aluminum foil, then bake in the oven at 180 C (350 F) for 60-90 minutes, until the pulp is tender. Take out from the oven and let it cool. With a spoon collect all the pumpkin pulp (beware of skin pieces), put it in a food processor and blitz until you get a smooth paste. Transfer the pumpkin paste on a baking sheet with parchment paper, then gently bake at 80 C (175 F) to loose moisture (without drying it totally). Temper 1 part milk chocolate, add 1 part pumpkin paste, a pinch of salt then mix (for example 500 g of milk chocolate, 500 g pumpkin paste, 1 g salt). Since it's partially dehidrated you have a good shelf life and a strong pumpkin flavor. I prefer to pair it with a bitter ingredient, like rhubarb root, marigold flowers, gentian root... Teo

Torta Kopi Layers from bottom to top: - eucalyptus cake (a vegan recipe based on eucalyptus leaves' infusion in water) - pineapple ganache (milk chocolate + pineapple juice) - chocolate mousse (dark chocolate + cream + semiwhipped cream) - eucalyptus cake - pineapple mousse - pineapple glaze Decorations are dark chocolate chunks on the side, green colored white chocolate leaves on top (I used the wrong green, I needed a darker one). Taste is a bit weird. I love chocolate + eucalyptus. I really like pineapple + chocolate (as I like other yellow acidic fruits with chocolate, like passion fruit or lemon). I tried pineapple + eucalyptus and liked it, it's like a cross between pineapple + mint and pineapple + thyme (both works well for me). The combination of the 3 ingredients give a result a bit different than what I imagined. It works, but being weird you need to be more explorative than conservative to appreciate it. Teo

Crostata Metla A pie made with: - sorghum shortbread - coriander seed cake (thin layer between the other 2) - quince cheese (it's quince season so I'm abusing them) I'm happy with the result. Taste is really good and balanced, there's the fruity/honeylike of the quince cheese, citrusy spiciness of the coriander seeds, hearthiness of the sorghum flour, all 3 complement and work fine together. It's a vegan recipe that uses forgotten ingredients (at least here in Italy quinces and sorghum have disappeared from the kitchens), so I think it has a good marketing appeal. Teo

Good question! Same as mine everytime I see their advertisings, they always show cut entremets, almost all entremets have a sponge layer, which will absorb moisture even if frozen. I've never seen one of those machines live in action in a pastry environment (I used industrial waterjets to cut metals, plastics and marbles, never food), so I don't know how they affect the food they cut. Honestly speaking I think the bigger question is their economical viability. Considering how much they cost and the limited use, you need TONS of production before covering the investment. Plus there is the waste issue: the part under the waterjet just go wasted. If you cut square mignons 30x30 mm, with a 2 mm waterjet you get 14% waste, a bit much. Knives and guitars work as fine for straight cuts. I can understand that this machine would be the best way to get weird and fancy shapes. But you would need TONS of requests (plus considering that the weirder the shapes, the bigger the side wastes). I fail to see how this can be a viable investment for a pastry shop, but since their business is growing then there must be the buyers. The only thing I would say is sure is that it's the only hope to cut honeycomb with precision. What result you get, I just don't know. Teo

You can always spend a huge amount of money and buy a waterjet cutting machine. Teo

My latest creation, Torta Almaba. I don't have a photo of a slice and it's been already eaten. Layers were (from bottom to top): - pistachio crunchy base - quince cheese flavoured with calvados - pistachio bavarois - quince mousse - calvados glaze Side decoration is quince cheese, top decoration is chopped pistachios. Teo

That's the way to go!!! Teo

Maple is quite subtle, especially if you pair it with something with similar flavour profile, like candied pecans. For bon bons my favourite is pairing it with something contrasting, this way its taste gets more pronounced instead than partially covered. Years ago I made a bon bon with 2 layers, one was a milk chocolate ganache with maple syrup, the other a dark chocolate one with jalapeno. For the maple ganache I used 200 g milk chocolate and 120 g maple syrup (just 2 ingredients, no cream, invert sugar or anything else, this way you maximize the maple flavour). Teo

You can use the hollow balls by Valrhona: http://www.valrhonaprofessionals.com/ready-to-fill.html You can fill them with your preferred spirit using a syringue. Closing them needs a bit of practice. Take a disposable plastic pastry bag, fill it with tempered chocolate in the low working temperature zone (about 28°C for dark chocolate, if not a bit lower, it must be pretty viscous), cut a small hole at the tip of the pastry bag, then start piping a spiral from the outside of the hole of the hollow ball. The chocolate you are piping must attach to the border of the hole, then you make a circle to follow all the border, when you reach the point where you started you continue to pipe following the previous circle you made, so on until you reach the center of the hole and close it. It takes a bit of practice at the beginning, you need to be quick because you need viscous chocolate and the thin hole in the bag tends to get obstructed if you wait some seconds and the chocolate in it starts to cristallize. Of course you need to advise your customers to put the whole piece in their mouth and not cut it in half with their teeth, otherwise they get pretty messy and ruin their clothes. Here in Italy various chocolatiers use this method to fill those hollow balls with grappa. Teo

If you have 225 g of sugars (sucrose + glucose), 250 g of apricot puree and need to reach 107°C, then it means the apricot puree will be reduced to about 150 g, this will give a stronger apricot flavor than the usual % used in pate de fruits recipes. 3 g pectin for 225 g sugars is way lower than the amount used for standard pate de fruits, this means the final result will be thick but spreadable, it won't be set like standard pate de fruits. So if you blend it with a hand-held mixer then you should not face much troubles (like trying to blend a full set pate de fruits). Shelf life will be great if you cook it to 107°C. The water/sugar ratio is constant at a given temperature, reaching 107°C gives you a shelf stable product at the contact with air, so you won't have any problems regarding shelf life in an enrobed chocolate. The key in this recipe is the low amount of pectin, the result (before blending) will be more similar to jam/marmalade than to pate de fruits. Teo

Lavender! Teo

I have bookmarked these ones (mostly professional stuff): Mark Ladner - The Del Posto Cookbook Marcus Samuelsson - The Red Rooster Cookbook Virgilio Martínez - Central Jiro Ono - Sushi: Jiro Gastronomy Pierre Hermé - Chocolate William Curley - Nostalgic Delights: A Sophisticated Trip Down Memory Lane Jamie Boudreau - The Canon Cocktail Book: Recipes from the Award-Winning Bar Sasha Petraske - Regarding Cocktails Teo

It's up for preorder on Amazon, estimated release May 30, 2017. Now it has 5% discount on the .com, 33% on the .ca. Teo

Last year I made a 2-layered one with gorgonzola and mace (here is the page of my blog if interested, it's in Italian). For gorgonzola I used a white chocolate ganache (Valrhona Ivoire), for mace I used a dark chocolate ganache (Valrhona Guanaya 70%). The recipe for the gorgonzola ganache is: 30 g milk 50 g gorgonzola (traditional type, not the "sweet" one) 10 g honey 180 g white chocolate Melt white chocolate. Boil milk with gorgonzola and honey. Add to the white chocolate. Mix, then temper the ganache. I thought it was good and was expecting mixed feedback since it's a weird combination, but I've been surprised, all comments ranged from "good" to "great". I would have been less surprised if everyone said they didn't like it. About shelf life, the last one was eaten after 3 weeks and was fine. Can't say how much more time they can last. Teo