pastryani

What is the difference in taste, texture, mouthfeel, & appearance for the following types of liquidy sugar that are suitable for dipping for things like petit fours, donuts, etc.? 1. Pouring fondant - cook on stove but keep temp under 100F 2. Pouring fondant - cook on stove but take temp to 238F, cool to 150F, and whip 3. Powdered sugar icing - no cooking just powd sugar and liquid to desired consistency 4. Thinned-out ganache - just cream and chocolate A friend made the 2nd one as a dip for chocolate eclairs, but that got me wondering why… couldn’t the others have yielded pretty much the same results? Definitely seems like that one is the most laborious…

Thanks. I’m guessing you mean parchment just along the sides?

I have some perforated pastry rings that I’d really like to use for mini cakes (like financiers). Will they work, or will the cake batter leak through the bottom and get stuck in the little holes? Any workarounds besides lining with aluminum foil?

Thanks! Are there any places in the east end (Markham) that would carry the Goya? While I’m asking, is there a good place to buy dark rye flour in the east end too?

Hi - does anyone know where to find passion fruit purée in the GTA? It doesn’t have to be Boiron, it could be Goya too. Thanks.

So I’m thoroughly confused (not uncommon for me 😄) I thought adding fruit at the beginning and therefore cooking it longer would reduce that “fresh” fruit flavor? Also - is it better to have a slow and steady heat or a quick and high heat if cooking all the ingredients (including the fruit) together?

Agree. It must be blast chilled to withstand the heat of what looks like a hard caramel candy coating. When I was a kid there was a Mexican restaurant that made deep fried ice cream (ice cream ball coated with crushed cornflakes and fried) - so hot on top of cold is possible.

I might suggest a machine called Yonanas, made for processing frozen bananas and other fruit but I see no reason that it wouldn’t also process frozen (sweetened and flavored) yogurt cubes. http://yonanas.com

My favorite brownies are also crazy, crazy chewy. They’ve gotta have some bite to ‘em. Texture-wise, I really like the chew of boxed brownies, which I haven’t been able to recreate. I know sugar lends to a chewy brownie, but the problem is that I don’t like very sweet brownies (which boxed brownies usually are). So how do you get that fabulous, toothsome chew without a ton of sugar? Any recipes out there with less sugar and more chew?

Fyi - even for orders from D&R that say free shipping to the US, they’re not really free (or at least they didn’t used to be). I’d ordered from there once during a free shipping event, only to be hit with a hefty customs fee that had to be paid to the carrier. I prefer Choc-choc - shipping can seem like a lot but they cover all the “extra” expenses and there are no surprises later. 😉

Update #1: I tried slicing a frozen log of cookie dough that had been out for maybe 5-10 mins at room temp in a food processor and this is what I got: Kind of a mess, and tough to separate the slices from each other. I wouldn’t try this again. Update #2: I tried the deli slicer on frozen cookie dough that had been at room temp for ~15 mins (I wanted to try straight-from-freezer, but got distracted 😄). Results: the deli slicer made a single slice pretty decently, but any subsequent slices (ie - pulling the tray back and pushing again) was not happening. I got a lot of partial slices and build-up of dough. There was far too much friction and I had to turn the machine off and reposition the log of dough every time. Here’s a pic: I suspect it would’ve been MUCH better had it not thawed. I’ll try it again. Given the friction problem, I wonder how cheese gets sliced so thinly. Any tips to getting something like fontina or havarti sliced thinly and cleanly?? I know it’s possible... but how?!

Note to self... don’t try frozen solid with the FP. 😬

I have one of these too. Great for a quick grate of things without the cleanup of the FP.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. By the sound of it, I think I officially “need” to get a deli slicer. 😁. I’ll keep you posted when I experiment with it.

Do you rotate the log with every cut?