Panaderia Canadiense

For me, the scariest thing isn't on any high-end menu, but instead is available at most truckstops along the sierra: Caldo de Manguera. Literally, this translates as "hose soup" but in reality it's a boiled bull's unmentionables, with potatoes. Eek. :blink:

I have primarily their Classic line - the brick-red ones. They're pretty much all that's available in my country, in the shapes I use; there's also the added benefit that I can stack them side by each in the trays for baking, but then separate them for cooling. The smaller size (ie not 40-60 up) also makes them easier for me to wash.

Thank you for the compliment. The cake itself is made with unsweetened, unleavened cocoa powder; it's only the ganache coating that involves couberture. Unfortunately, anything I have to say about sourcing couberture is going to be completely useless to you. I buy from Ecuacacao, one of the country's largest producers of fine coubertures.

Kim, couberture-type chocolate would likely solve both your broken ganache and curling problems. IIRC, coubertures have a bit more fat in them, which makes them easier to manipulate than something like baker's chocolate, which is all about the cocoa mass. They cost a bit more, but it's soooo worth it in the final result. This is a Death By Chocolate Zucchini cake glazed in a dark couberture ganache - you can really see the difference it makes. Also, too funny! I prefer the natural beige look with green zest flecks in key lime anything, for the most part - maybe it was the great big batch that made it look iffy.

For strawberry, the cooking releases water and improves flavour, resulting in a smoother-textured final product.

For me, it's peanut butter (peanuts and salt, that's it) with thick manjar de leche and chocolate sauce. A close second is PB and chocolate baked right into bread (see the Daily Sweets thread for that kind of construction, although that time I used only chocolate since I'd eaten all of my peanut butter ) Since my PB comes in convenient squeeze packs, I will normally use the same spreader for it and the manjar (the chocolate sauce is pourable) - with the proviso that the manjar is spread first (since I have to dig it out of the jar), and the PB last. Another fave is PB and Mango Chutney, and for that I do use separate knives to spread. Also, I don't do it down here very often, simply because making my own mincemeat is a time-consuming PITA for which I'd have to spend a day rendering tallow, but up in Canuckistan where you can buy it in big jars I was a very large fan of PB and Mincemeat.

Leslie, do you have a yard? Or a balcony that you can put a pot on? Tamarillos are extremely easy to grow from seed, and they're pretty nifty plants to boot.....

Yikes. My worst one was probably cutting my left ring finger nearly in half while using a bandsaw to cut steaks (about 15 years ago). I still have a faint, interesting scar in my fingerprint, although to all other intents and purposes you can't tell that I did it. My hands are a disaster, though - I have to wear gloves with formal wear because they're just not fit to be seen. Like many people on this thread, I always have an interesting assortment of knife and kitchen-related cuts and contusions. And unlike the rest of you, I'm so tall that I can easily scorch my forearms when I bend over to take things out of the oven - even now that it's elevated on a nice little tile riser.

Silikomart is my gold standard; I have a number of moulds from them, both smaller types (mini muffins, bundtlets, etc) as well as larger ones (full-size bundts, sunflowers, etc) and I love their silpats. Their stuff doesn't off-gass, transfer weird flavours, or discolour, even under heavy use.

OK, since I was using 8 oz of white in the recipe, I'll scale it back to 5.6 oz and see what happens. Thank you! The factory is very reticent to tell me how much milk solids I'm dealing with, which I actually understand given how competitive the chocolate industry is down here particularly on "specialty" products like white. They're compelled by law to label the percentage of milk solids in their milk chocolate (and they produce a truly excellent 56% cocoa 25% milk), but apparently no such regulation exists for white, which only needs to have the cocoa mass labeled. Meh. I'll keep trying! In the meantime, the cakewreck is very nice with spiced peach compote....

Fair enough - but given this information, how would you suggest that I balance for it? Please bear in mind that purchasing something like Callebeaut or Valrhona white (which is what I was used to in Canada) is well and truly out of my price range given where I live. I called the chocolate factory, and they told me that what I'm using is 35% cocoa mass, and they also noted that I must have had one of the older bags, which weren't labeled correctly (which goes to show how much white chocolate I use - as I said above I tend to regard it as zombie chocolate, and the qualification "the best I've had" is damning with faint praise since I prefer the darkest chocolate I can get my hands on for personal consumption.)

Holy cow. They're 15-20 for USD 1 down here, but I rarely even pay that, since I've got them growing in my yard.

OK, Quick question, guys! What is the percentage of cocoa butter in the white chocolate you all use? I ask because I attempted both of these cakes today, and they came out very very far away from the photos and examples shown - far from being fluffy and white and lofty, both came out leaden, yellowish, and fattily puddingesque (although fantastic flavour!). Should I be cutting back the amount of white choc / butter in the recipes? The white chocolate I have access to lists exactly three ingredients: arriba cocoa butter, cream, and vanilla. There are specific handling instructions on the package telling me that I can under no circumstances let this stuff go above 25 C unless I'm using it, and admonishing me to keep it away from all types of light. Accordingly, I store it in an opaque airtight box in a cool corner of the bakery storage room. It's hands-down the best white chocolate I've ever eaten, but I'm betting it behaves differently from what's available up in NorAm.....

OK, Leslie, now I'm super curious - NZ grows primarily the red-seed-gel types, don't they?

Supermarket Tamarillos are always going to be underripe, Chris, which is really too bad as I'd consider that one of life's great pleasures is actually eating ripe tomate de arbol (which is what we call 'em here, in their native land) fresh off the tree with a little salt. Perfectly ripe to slightly over, there's a definite tomato flavour along with hints of cucumber and tropical fruit, and a pleasant sort of tamarind-ish sourness. When under, they're heinously sour and have the weird tang you're describing. Also, you shouldn't be eating the peels - if you were, then that's also a source of ugly flavours. So, if you've got some that are a little green, I'd suggest treating them as a fruit. Poach them in simple syrup with some cinnamon, cloves, and star anise, until they're quite soft, then peel them and serve them whole, stem-on, with ice cream. This is the Ecuadorian treatment for slightly green tamarillos; it bleeds the bitter/sour off into the syrup but retains the unique bouquet of the fruit. As they ripen for you (judge this by how soft they are - ripe tamarillo should feel like perfect avocados), you can start to think of them as a cooking veggie. They're very good as part of "normal" tomato sauces (and they will really thicken any sauce you put 'em in), and I'm also fond of them as a base for curries. ETA - if you do ever chance across ripe ones in the supermarket (stranger things have happened), they're hands-down fantastic as a juice. Halve them and squeeze the flesh into your blender, then pulse with some water until the pulp has broken down. Add a bit of sugar, pulse a bit more, and strain out the seeds. Mmmm, tomate. Now I'm going to have to pick some off my trees and have that for brekkie....

My personal record is probably a five year old bottle of Ole green aji hot sauce. I bring it out for guests, because it really doesn't do anything for me.

Not nearly. My limes are that vivid green, but I have yet to figure out a way to transfer that to the cream without causing the final product to be unduly bitter. So that's good ol' food dye. The cream actually turned out to a sort of baby-sick blah-beige, so the colourant was a blessing.

What do you give the man who has everything on his 29th birthday? 29 Key Lime tarts, that's what. I have only one excuse for the colour - the customer is always right.

I'm almost reluctant to weigh in, given where I'm situated.... My favourite commercial mayo is called Alacena, and it's a lime with a hint of mustard and spices concoction, but nowhere near as strong as Duke's. After that comes Gustadina, which is lemon with no spices and is similar to the Hellman's sold in Canada. Both are tangy. ETA - I'll also say that I can't find any mayo of any sort in glass jars. They come in recyclable skuisi packs, which are infinitely conveniente and don't seem to affect flavour in any discernable manner. Miracle Whip and Kraft Mayo are wrongness in a jar. Period. Same goes for any other sweet sandwich sauce trying to pass itself off as mayo. And hands down, of course, is home-made.

OK, I go at this at about 180 degrees from you folks! Let me begin by saying that my sweet potatoes are purple, not violent orange in colour, and I'm used to calling them chamote - papa dulce is a completely different creature. What I do is a flying takeoff of the Volquetero, which is a popular salad-type dish in the neighbouring province. Now, what I do is peel the chamote, cut them into 1/16" slices on my mandoline, and shallow-fat fry them in sunflower oil with a bit of cinnamon until they're nice and crispy (deep fat would probably be easier, but I'm lazy and normally don't have that much oil on hand). These come off to drain, and then I make chifles dulces in the same oil (ripe plantain chips), frying until they're medium golden. Drain those as well. Now fire up the hot-air popper and make popcorn. As the crispy parts of the salad are draining and cooling a bit, I chop a couple of tomatoes (coarsely), a small onion (finely), some cilantro (very finely) and an aji pepper (in rings), and mix those together with the juice of 3-4 limes (or 5-6-7 limes, depending on how juicy they are - I want my encebollado to be fairly firm but still have enough juice to flavour the popcorn nicely. Other people like a very runny encebollado.) While I'm doing this, I'll also boil my chochos (lupini beans), drain, and cool them. As the chochos cool, you've got two options. If canned baby shrimp are available to you without breaking the bank, open a couple of cans. Otherwise, p&d some large shrimp and cut them into chunks. You should still have the oil from frying the chamote - use this to pink up the shrimp, and give them a pinch of aji powder at the end to spice 'em up. The salad (when I make it, at least) is built in layers in fruit-nappy type dishes (stemmed bowls), beginning with a foundation of chochos, then popcorn, then chifles dulces, then chamote crispies, and finally topped with the shrimp and encebollado, using enough of the encebollado juice that the other grains take up its flavour. Unfortunately I don't have a photo; this is something I make on special occasions and it normally disappears the minute it hits the table (and since I'm serving, by the time the camera comes out, I've got empty nappies and happy-looking guests).

Here they are: Heart-Attack Arrowroots 1 C softened sweet butter, no other 1/2 C panela or brown sugar 1 egg 1 tbsp maple syrup 1 C AP flour 1 C arrowroot flour 1/2 tsp baking soda a pinch of salt (say, about 1/8 tsp, but I never measure this - I use however much I can pinch between my thumb and first two fingers.) *optional* 1/2 C chopped walnuts -- Heat your oven to 350 F / 180 C Cream the butter with the sugar until well mixed Add egg, maple syrup Sift in flours with soda. Blend well. Turn out onto a floured counter (use arrowroot flour for rolling) Roll out to 1/4" thick and cut as desired. Bake 8-10 minutes or until just starting to turn colour at the edges. These don't spread too badly (although if the oven isn't perfectly hot, they can warp); I have another recipe that must be baked in the traditional clay moulds which is a bit richer, but these ones taste worlds better than the others. They're adapted from one of my gran's recipes that calls for "butter the size of my fist, a dollop of syrup," and "a bone-china cup of flour" and so they're a product of a bit of trial and error....

I can, of course, only speak for myself; when I require legal representation, I go out and find it, often relying on friends for recommendations. However, I certainly wouldn't be adverse to being visited by a lawyer specializing in food service and given a card or whatnot and having a friendly chat, so long as there is no hard-sell involved (I find it incredibly offputting to be hard-sold at a cold meeting). Then again, I live in Ecuador and the legal issues I deal with as a catering baker are minimal to nonexistent so long as I continue to adhere to the country's laws and normas governing what I do.

Lemon zest is almost a must with zucchini, Kim. Have you ever tried Death By Chocolate Zucchini Cake/Muffins? They're truly faboo.... Yours also look extremely tasty - I've never tried vanilla/zucch as a combo.

I'm with Jenni and Jaymes. There are hundreds of types of mangoes, including the little Ambajadores which are not at all fibrous and are clearly nature's drink-boxes and not for cutting at all. They're for squishing 'till they're nice and smoodgy, biting a hole in, and slurping. Look ma, no hands! However, presented with a Julie, Reina, Keitt, Kent, or Tommy mango (which are firm and varying degrees of fibrous), I do as Jaymes describes - stand it up on its stem end, cut off the cheeks, score, and scoop. The oblique part left on the pit is easy to slice off in a continuous ribbon then cube. This is also a hands off the meat proposition, and uses exactly one knife. Unfortunately for me, mango season here is in the summer (so October-February) and I can't do a video for you until then. This technique is what I use when making mango chutney (which I do, by caseloads of mango, each summer), such that it satisfies the canned goods safety authority that the meat isn't being contaminated. Like Jaymes, I slurp the pit, which is the first time my hands touch the flesh, and since it's me consuming it, there's no issue with that whatsoever. I know exactly where I've been. However, if you're concerned about hands touching your food, why not go the simplest direction and wear a pair of Nitrile gloves? Then you can go fast and dirty without the contamination problem. ETA - this only holds true for ripe mangoes. For green mango, there's a rather ingenious tool that peels and then spiral-cuts the flesh; it's similar to those old cast-iron apple peelers that one sees occasionally in antique shoppes. I'll see if I can get a picture on the street in September or so when the green mangoes start to come in.

Hello Cthulhu?