teonzo

I don't know how they are called in English language, but here in Italy you can buy a plastic sheet (the same size of an acetate sheet) with parallel cuts. In this way you spread your chocolate on the acetate sheet, when it's starting to set you lay the plastic sheet over the chocolate, then run a knife in each cut, turn the plastic sheet 90°, repeat the cuts and done. It's pretty quick. Teo

Received it yesterday. I must say I'm disappointed after a first quick look. As you said the print quality is low: the cardboard cover is too cheap, the pages look like they are going to fall apart in a couple of years if you don't manage this book with silk gloves. I didn't like the photos neither the graphics. Now I need to read it, hoping the contents will be on par with the restaurant. If it can be of any help this book is sold also by: Grupo Vilbo (where I bought mine) Montagud Don't know about their shipping costs outside Europe, but hopefully they will be lower than Librooks. Teo

Another couple not available on Amazon: El Celler de Can Roca This was released some weeks ago, hopefully I will receive it the next week Fluidità This is the new book by the Alajmo family (owners of Le Calandre), after their first "In.Gredienti". The particularity is that it has been put on pre-order today. The price will increase each day, starting from 90 euro to the final 150 euro at the release day. If you are interested to buy it then it's better to pre-order it as soon as possible. Teo

More books to be released in 2013: RESTAURANTS Daniel Patterson - "Coi: Stories and Recipes" Anne-Sophie Pic - "Le Livre Blanc" this is the English edition, the French one was released last year Alex Atala - "D.O.M. Rediscovering Brazilian Ingredients" Michael Anthony - "The Gramercy Tavern Cookbook" Heston Blumenthal - "Historic Heston" Carlo Mirarchi - "Roberta's Cookbook" Daniel Boulud - "Daniel: My French Cuisine" David Kinch - "Manresa: An Edible Reflection" Ivan Orkin - "Ivan Ramen" Suzanne Goin - "The A.O.C. Cookbook" Björn Frantzén, Daniel Lindeberg - "World-Class Swedish Cooking" Paul Liebrandt - "To the Bone" Phil Howard - "The Square: Sweet" PASTRY AND BAKING Jacquy Pfeiffer - "The Art of French Pastry" I'm curious to know what will be the differences with "The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts" Hubert Delorme - "Fine French Desserts" Wayne Gisslen - "The Professional Bakeshop" don't know if this will be totally new material Chad Robertson - "Tartine Book No. 3" Carole Bloom - "Caramel" Francois Payard - "Payard Desserts" Stéphane Leroux - "The Praliné" I'm curious to know what will be included here Emily Elsen - "The Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book" Karen Mitchell - "The Model Bakery Cookbook" Joanne Chang - "Flour, Too" never heard about these shops Teo

Please send it to me too, thanks. Teo

It's in meters, I'm sure. Just look at the image above and try to count the coils: you need a really long strip to get the correct spiral. The sfogliatelle dough is really different from the strudel one, it's much tougher. The strudel dough can be stretched with bare hands (tradition says to use just the knuckles under the cloth). To stretch the sfogliatelle dough you need a pasta machine or a rolling pin and a lot of strength and patience. Just for comparison, the sfogliatelle dough is tougher than standard pasta dough. There are some shortcuts that suggest to use phyllo dough, you get a decent result but quite far from the original. The great taste of the original sfogliatelle is due to the great flakiness of the dough, with all the coils that are separated from each other but still attached together with almost no air in between. To reach this you need to use the less water possible in the dough, so you need a really tough dough. And you need to roll it extremely thin. If you try to replicate the original then the problem is to roll the dough extremely thin, if you don't get that thinness then the result is more like a rock than a paper, you totally loose the pleasant qualities of this pastry. The problem with this pastry is that there aren't middles: you get the correct (great) result or you get a disaster, there are no in-betweens. And the only way to achieve the qualities that make this a great pastry is to follow the original recipe. I'm happy you liked sfogliatelle (I love them too) and being Italian it's nice to see you want to make them on your own. But, at the risk of sounding harsh, I have to warn you that it's one of the most difficult things to do in traditional Italian pastry, it's almost impossible to get it right before at least a dozen tries. If you want to make sfogliatelle and get an appreciable result then prepare yourself to a sort of odissey. Most artisans stopped making them and started to buy the factory made dough not just to save money, but mostly because it's a total PITA to make. Teo

Can you suggest an online vendor where to buy it? Thanks! Teo

Migoya posted something similar time ago: http://www.thequenelle.com/2011/11/transfer-sheets-onto-meringue.html Teo

The results you get with shortcuts are really far from the original. Avoid at all cost puff pastry, they are two different beasts. Phyllo could give you something a bit similar, but nothing more. To get the real stuff you need to use lard, both in the dough and to brush it between each coil. Different fats from lard give you a far from optimal result. The base dough must be really tough, so you need a strong mixer machine to get it, or to use a lot of strength (and time) to get it mixing with bare hands. Then you need to roll the dough extremely thin and without breaking it, you need to obtain a strip long from 8 to 10 metres (and you need a table as long where to put it). To roll it the best thing is a solid pasta machine, using a rolling pin would be a total nightmare. After rolling it you need to brush it with a lot of lard, this is mandatory for the final result (to get a crispy result and all the layers to be separated). Rolling it back to get the spiral is another difficult passage, it can seem simple but you need a lot of care and experience to get a uniform spiral and to avoid breaking the dough. Then you have to cut the spiral and form the sfogliatelle, this is another critical passage. Sfogliatelle are one of the best things in Italian pastry, but they are also one of the most difficult to make. Such that nowadays there are really few pastry shops that still make their own sfogliatelle doughs, most shops use factory made dough. If you really want to make sfogliatelle on your own then prepare yourself for a long odissey: the pasta machine and the long table are mandatory. Plus you need a lot of attempts, no matter how much skilled you are this dough takes a lot of time before being mastered. My best suggestion would be to try to find the frozen ones and then cook them when you want. There are various factories that sell them to the professionals here in Italy, probably some of them have a distributor for France. Otherwise you can try to contact some of the best professionals from Campania. For example Salvatore De Riso: http://www.salderiso.it/ http://www.salderiso.it/en/le_mie_creazioni/la_pasticceria/monoporzioni/sfogliatella_santarosa he sells his products even outside Italy, so I suppose he can arrange to send some frozen sfogliatelle. Teo

If you are considering to buy the Astrance cookbook and live in Europe, then the French version is now on sale on Amazon IT for 37.37 euro, much cheaper than anywhere else: http://www.amazon.it/Astrance-Chihiro-Masui/dp/2812303263 Teo

If you are willing to get books in Italian language, then I strongly suggest this one: Anna Gosetti della Salda - "Le ricette regionali italiane" most people consider it to be the best book on Italian regional cuisine (it includes all regions, not only the north). Don't know if there is an e-book edition (or a translated one). Teo

I strongly suggest to read the Eggbeater Blog from start to finish, there are tons of valuable advises. Teo

You need to use heat resistant colors, like the powder ones used for macarons. Teo

This means that the only way to get it before May 2013 is making a direct order from this website? Uhm, I'll have to think about cancelling the order from Amazon UK. Teo

Great, thanks a lot! Teo

I would try this experiment: caramelize some white chocolate then mix it with some dark chocolate. Teo

Some interesting books coming out before the end of the year: "Chocolate to Savour" by Kirsten Tibballs "Zumbarons" by Adriano Zumbo "Origin" by Ben Shewry "L'Astrance: The Cookbook" by Pascal Barbot "Fäviken" by Magnus Nilsson "Bouchon Bakery" by Thomas Keller Teo

Kudos for realizing the V8 cake at home, nice job! Teo

I've talked about "Perfection in Imperfection" by Janice Wong in the past: Various high end restaurants self published their books. The firsts that come to mind are Alinea and Le Calandre: http://www.alinea-restaurant.com/ http://www.calandre.com/ Teo

Can you point to some books/websites/others that deal with this kind of studies? Thanks! Teo

Can't comment on brands since I live in a different country. Paste is much better than liquid. Add the food color to the tpt together with the albumen, before mixing with the meringue. It depends on the food color you are using, but usually nothing changes. The only problem you can face is if you are using really few color (for a light result) and a high oven temperature, in this way you risk to get some brownish shades. Teo

I really hope you will publish a volume (or more!) on pastry and baking. Teo

To re-balance the recipe in the correct way we should know the exact percentages of the white chocolate used in the original recipe, plus the percentage of condensed milk of the one you are using. I suppose the original recipe asked for a commercial type, so the % of cocoa butter would be around 25%. I would suggest to try to use 70% (25/35) of the original amount of white chocolate, and then see what you get. For sure the result will be less sweet since the total amount of sugar will be lower, but this should affect more the taste and less the structure of the cake. The remaining problem is to balance the amount of condensed milk, but since you say it tastes better than the other white chocolates you used, then I assume it has also a higher % of condensed milk, so using a 70% of the original amount of requested chocolate would fix this. If you try to use 70% of the white chocolate then you should be near to your goal (maybe you can try to add even some sugar, if the requested amount was 100 grams of white chocolate then try using 70 grams of chocolate and adding 15 grams of sugar). Well, I can only agree, and to be honest I still have to find a chocolate lover that prefers white to dark. Teo

Usually the cocoa butter ranges from 25% to 30%, with exceptions below (low quality industrial stuff) and above (for example I'm using a new product by Valrhona which has 33% cocoa butter). But it seems that the problem here is due to a higher amount of condensed milk. The taste of white chocolate is given mostly by condensed milk, cocoa butter gives a greasy feel in the mouth but it's almost tasteless. If you say it tastes the best white chocolate in your experience, plus this cake resulted more yellow than standard, then I can only suppose this is due to a higher amount of condensed milk.. The list of ingredients of your chocolate seems totally misleading: sugar is not named and it can't contain cream, the water content would ruin its shelf life. Teo

Sosa has a good variety about gelling agents: http://www.sosa.cat/textures.php?idfamilia=gelificantes&idgrup=texturas&idgama=ingredients-gastronomics&PHPSESSID=b3c8ca75a363d9945299949ef5c7c591 Elastic and Metilgel seem to be an help for you. I suppose Sosa has a retailer in Brazil, since some Brasilian high end restaurants use their products. If you contact them then they should be able to give you some technical support. Teo