pastryani

Here's a review by Kenji Lopez-Alt: http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2012/09/the-pizza-lab-the-baking-steel-delivers.html He brings up a good point (as others have here) that the weight of the 1/2" is 30 lbs, so it's not very portable and you'd have to make sure your oven could support that. I have the 1/4" and it does a great job. I think the 1/2" would retain more heat but that alone would not motivate me to get it. I do back-to-back pizzas with the 1/4" without issue (without having to wait for the steel to heat back up) and the portability of the 1/4" 15-pounder is important to me. I know I've read another article that does a direct comparison between the two but I can't find it right now. The gist of it was that if you have an oven that can support the 30 lbs AND can be solely dedicated to pizza making (so that you could leave the steel in the oven at all times and not have to move it) AND you don't mind paying more for it, then the 1/2" will yield slightly better results. Otherwise, the 1/4" does a darn good job with nominal differences.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions (and sorry for the delayed reply). I found veg food but didn't really have any authentic Japanese food, but then again the trip was also not primarily a foodie adventure and more of a sight-seeing thing. Hopefully another time. :-)

Hi all - I've heard it's tough to be a vegetarian in Japan. And even more so if you're not "flexible" enough to eat ANY fish products. I'm ovo-lacto veg, so I can eat eggs and dairy, but cannot eat fish and am allergic to shellfish. I may be going to Tokyo soon and I was wondering if you kind folks wouldn't mind giving me some tips and ideas to find some strictly vegetarian places to eat. Otherwise I'm afraid I'll be on a diet of instant ramen noodles, and that would stink. ;-) (Also, good recommendations for mochi places would be appreciated. Thanks!)

Thanks @paulraphael and @Tri2Cook. Is the freezer the recommended place for storage? I would think that there'd be far too much moisture in there. In any case it sounds like you should get only as much as you need because they don't keep well. If anyone here has used the Texturas products, I'd be interested to know what you think about them: https://www.amazon.com/Texturas-Ferran-Effervescent-Molecular-Gastronomy/dp/B00KA0V0PY/ref=pd_sim_325_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00KA0V0PY&pd_rd_r=TT1ZMVBNR4EBX51PRWGX&pd_rd_w=m2P7p&pd_rd_wg=DzG3l&psc=1&refRID=TT1ZMVBNR4EBX51PRWGX https://www.amazon.com/Texturas-Sparkys-Popping-Molecular-Gastronomy/dp/B00KDJU1XE/ref=pd_sim_325_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00KDJU1XE&pd_rd_r=AREE7B9PX4XPMD0AKN1R&pd_rd_w=9cLuM&pd_rd_wg=bFbS5&psc=1&refRID=AREE7B9PX4XPMD0AKN1R

Reviving this thread because I've got to make bonbons with a fizzy/popping component to them. I was thinking about adding pop rocks, and after reading here it seems that mixing them with ganache is definitely not the way to go since there's too much free water in ganache. The workaround seems to be coating them with fat (cocoa butter). What is the best way to do this - spraying with an air brush or panning? If it's the latter, would the coating of cocoa butter be too thick? Alternatively, if I didn't spray with cocoa butter, would it work if I filled a dome mold 1/2 way with pop rocks and then followed that with a thin layer of chocolate as a barrier before adding the ganache? Someone also mentioned something called "texturas fizzy", and there's also a "texturas sparkey". I haven't used either of these these before - does anyone have any experience using them? If so, which is better? Would the fizzy be weird with chocolate and feel like you're eating your chocolate with a tablet of "eno" fruit salt?

Couldn't you bypass the egg white step (fresh or powdered) and just stick with gelatin, or was there a reason to use egg whites?

Here's a pic of the Grapefruit-Campari PDF made today with @Beets3. These were coated in sugar a few hours after they were made. The rest of the slab is curing for a day to see if there's a difference in stability/weeping. Thanks @Kerry Beal for the info on the pectin. I checked the label of the Apple Pectin I had and there was no mention of sugar anywhere. I also tasted it and it didn't taste sweet, so maybe they've changed their formulation? It looks like it worked for this formula that was high in acid, but I'd like to see if it'll work with a lower acidity formula.

Here's a link to the Apple pectin I have: cuisine-tech Pure Apple Pectin Nope I don't have a refractometer, just a thermometer. Is there a workaround if you don't have one?

So is apple pectin the same as yellow pectin, and will it work to set a PDF? I feel like I've read conflicting info on the interwebs and I just wanted to make sure that my apple pectin will work. Second question is about how to not have weeping cubes of PDF (I know, I know - stop being so mean to them ). I've never had success with this and they're always a wet mess by day 2.

Thanks both. It kind of does look like the sheet moved, but I'm not sure how that would've happened (I cut the sheet so that it was laying flat when I attached the magnetic bottom to it). Also I should've specified that all the chocolates in the picture above were from a single casting in that mold, so if the transfer moved then wouldn't all the images be fuzzy?

@Daniel D do I need all 3 of those pieces to swap out the nozzle?

Left vs right, mostly non-smudged vs mostly smudged. Sigh. Why does this happen? Was my chocolate too warm? I painted the corners with a chocolatey brush to prevent air bubbles, but that was only in the corners and I certainly didn't linger with the paintbrush. Ideas?

Thanks for the info @Daniel D! Can I ask where you got the larger tip?

@Jim D. - my guess for the wires would be to oil them. I've tried cutting marshmallows both with an oiled and unoiled knife, and oiled is definitely the way to go (cleaner cuts, less stickiness).

@Kerry Beal - It's the Iwata HP-CS. It looks like there are other sizes of nozzles as @Daniel D just ordered one. I look forward to his review, because yes it does take a very long time to get full coverage of even one mold. @Daniel D - what compressor are you using?