bakerboy

choux: no, thats exactly what i thought. It looked completely unappetizing. Only it looked like worms in dogfood to me. As far as the dresscode goes, i think there should be one. When your in front of people your part of the package. Quality of work SHOULD be enough, but its not. Thats why we wear a uniform. Someone may be a really good pastry chef, but if you walk past a pastry shop and the PC's standing there smoking a butt in jeans and a dirty apron with a dirty appearence, THEN you look across the street and see micheal laiskonis standing in another shop, which one ya goin in? Its unfortunate at times but image is everything, maybe even more so in this profession because delicious as a dessert may be, it still has to look great. no one wants to eat the ugly pastries, cept me

My wife and i ( for a reason i can't remember now) put fresh rosemary, anise seed, and sugar in a spice grinder, pulsed it and rolled green seedless grapes in it. It has a deliciously unique taste. The taste kind of reminded me of that candy called "sweet tarts". People who didn't know what was on the grapes loved it. Most of the people we told before they ate one, declined to try them. Don't ya just hate that.

great show. i was thouroughly impressed with both. what a great job. i'll have to say i think the "new rule" of 3 savory dishes saved mr. Batali. As soon as i heard the words "new rule" i thought "uh-oh", because i always get shafted by those damn "new rules". new rule: no desserts on monday. everyone sleep in.

Well, i made this recipe to the tee. batter looked nice, fluffy. baked it for 50 min. at 350. i didn't think it would take that long but after 40 min. it still looked like it could use some time so i gave it another 10 min. It still appeared a bit underdone but a toothpick came out whistle clean and the recipe has that caveat: "don't overbake", so i yanked it and let it sit for about 20 min. I noticed the center dropping slightly on cooling. I unmolded the cake and it looked OK. The bottom, which is now the top was sunken a bit. i let this cake rest for another 15-20 min. Then i cut it directly in half to see whats doin dead center. The whole center was molten(undercooked). i could have left that cake in another 30 min. easy. i don't know what the "don't overbake" thing was all about. Now, i was surprised to see the whole center underdone but my wife had some friends over and they were VERY impressed that i baked a molten chocolate cake...and proceeded to devour it. So your results are similar to mine: cake underdone; toothpick coming clean;and everybody gobbling it up. I basically like the recipe. i don't like the recipe for the pan it calls for...cause its really not a pound cake. If i had baked this in a half sheet pan or a 9 inch round, it would have been fine. i did get some pics of the cake and i'll upload them just as soon as i'm smart enough.

i think the fact that the butter and sugar did not cream but remained crumbly is important. Creaming the butter and sugar until fluffy provides air that the protien in the eggs can coat. since this step went awry, the cake relied on the egg and the little bit of leavening to hold its structure. i have some time today and i'm going to make this recipe and see for myself if i have the same problem, because some recipes are just screwy or written unclearly and i want to see if this is the case. i noticed the recipe called for "plain" flour. i assume this means all purpose. Thats what i'll be using. did you use AP or cake flour? Hopefully this evening i'll let ya know how it went.

If i strain my pastry cream at all, i do it when its hot...soon as it comes off the heat, then add a bit of butter or whatever. Shinyboots: if you had a nice thick pastry cream, "whipping the hell out of it" or sieving it may be two steps you could omit completely. Give us a bit more info on ingredients and technique and maybe someone could better figure out what went wrong if anything. if it wasn't really lumpy or curdled, your probably fine. Did it taste O.K.? Found this in a pad mag. 1996, the one with Charlie Trotter on the cover: "If your creme anglaise happens to break, quickly funnel into a wine bottle, filling it halfway; cork the bottle and shake vigorously. The creme anglaise should come back." Has anyone ever tried this? I've tried putting the creme on ice and straining or blending and came away with a bit of "usable" product, but usually when my anglaise or pastry cream breaks, its shot, done, its over johnny. I've been able to save some if i act quickly, but i can safely say i've never been able to "bring it back".

Is this really a pastry/dessert battle? How? Batali never seemed that dessert oriented to me. I've seen his show and on the occasion that he does do a dessert, it's always some "torta rustica" that he shlopps together and overbakes. Can he be THAT much of a threat in a pastry battle? Maybe i'm wrong but i'm not thinkin' so. And while we're on the subject of ICA, who picked Flay, Batali, and Morimoto to be Americas "chosen" iron chefs?. OK, you can make the case for Morimoto...but Flay? Batali? There are so many awesome chefs in america i find the selection of Flay and Batali befuddling. If i had to pick 3 chefs to be americas iron chefs, two of them ain't gonna be Flay and Batali...with all due respect. I think pastry battles would be awesome. Having two reputable pc's deul it out? i'd never miss an episode. I just happen to think that Mr. Laiskonis is going to hand Mr. Batali his a$$.

Flourless chocolate cake always goes over so well. I use RLB"s version from the cake bible. I do not like to whip the whites separately and fold in because i've found that the cake wants to souffle, only for the top to form a crust and separate from the cake leaving a broken looking crust on top. Maybe its me but i never liked that look. I've also never added sugar. never found a reason to. Adding sugar and/or whipping the whites separately, along with baking in a dry or too hot oven seems to contribute to that crust formation on top. I've always baked mine in a water bath around 300F just until the eggs set. If mine comes out perfectly it looks like a well baked chocolate cheesecake: No cracks, no raised edges, and no crust. As far as flavor additions go, i've only ever added a bit of cognac because i think it accentuates the chocolate and thats whats on stage here. i worked at a bakery where the flourless chocolate cakes were made whipping the whites separately, adding alot of sugar, and baked in a rack oven 350F (sans bain marie). Man, were they crumpled looking, but the owner liked the broken "rustic" look...and they seem to sell well. So there ya go. Has anyone tried baking this cake sous vide? It seems like this cake would lend itself well to this method of cooking.

I ran a pizza shop for 4 years and you can see some odd stuff and get some odd requests. The "garbage" pizza would be thrown together occasionally by my coworkers which was a horrible amalgamation of god knows what. My personal favorite was a white pizza with garlic, olive oil, mozzarella, onion confit, goat cheese, and fresh thyme. this was drizzled with a bit of honey as soon as it came out of the oven. The very same people who would make and eat the "garbage" pizza would not taste my onion and goat cheese pizza. "eeewww, goat cheese" Some odd requests were: peanut butter and jelly pizza, hot dog pizza(scatter sliced dogs on the pie), and a double bacon chicken alfredo, probably the most unhealthy thing i've ever served.

I'm new to this forum but i am a big coffee press fan. i always use whole beans and grind them down to a medium grind. i use 1 oz. of coffee to 4 cups h2o, press the coffee into the h2o and wait 5 min. and i got great coffee. My only complaint is that my coffee/spice grinder doesn't grind evenly. It seems to get some of the beans to where i want it but always bashes some to a powder. My wife grabbed the french roast coffee one morning, weighed out 1 oz. and ground it to a powder. After 5 min. in the h2o we had some REALLY strong coffee. I'm looking for a grinder that will give me an even grind, like the kind in the supermarket or in good coffee shops. I wonder if these are prohibitively expensive.

In all of my cookbooks they specify unsalted butter. If it just says "butter" then its salted butter. Thats also how i write my recipes, i specify if i'm using unsalted butter. Does it REALLY matter? Well i think in some cases it does, for example like my caramel. the salt gives it a different flavor profile. I did find this on a site called "baking 911" and it answers patricks question. "Generally, you can readily interchange salted and unsalted butter in a recipe without having to adjust the salt. Salted butter contains ONLY 1/8 teaspoon per stick. However, if you substitute 2 sticks of unsalted butter with 2 sticks salted butter, take out 1/4 teaspoon of salt from the recipe, if you desire -- I never bother to." so go figure

Sorry, the restaraunt i spoke of was not outside of playa, it was off of 8th ave. called Yaxche(hope i'm spelling that right). Had a tamale in banana leaf that i thought was very good. That whole 5th ave. thing....i just couldn't get behind that. But don't get me wrong, i don't mean to sound like the whole trip was bad. We stayed at the Secrets Capri resort which was really nice, especially since they messed up our room and had to put us in the presidential suite. That was very cool. I think where we messed up was doing the excursions through the resort. We found them to be overstated. A friend said we had to do the romantic lobster dinner sunset boatride. Way too many people on the boat. Some ate standing up. It was a fiasco, especially when the operator of the boat must have emptied the septic tanks to the boat close to where we docked. People left the boat with their shirts covering their nose and mouth because of the stench. We laughed so hard on the way home...til we got sick and were up most of the night. Went on a great snorkeling trip which i would love to do again. On the tequila note, the weather was oppressively hot when we were there and the tequila we had while out and about had obviously been in the sun all day. It was hot and it seemed to affect the flavor profile....to that of gasoline. It seems the area where we stayed was being developed for tourism which is all well and good but it really wasn't what i was looking for. I'm sure that area is a great place for a vacation, we just made a few bad choices while we were there. Still got a lot of great memories and had alot of laughs.

I hate to tell you this, but 140-160F water isn't going to do much. And there is no such thing as a biological vacuum being a problem in the case of a sponge. Once you use the sponge the first time, you are back in the soup. The environment of a sponge is too dependent on what you wiped up last to depend upon a benevolent bacterial population like exists in your gut or on your skin. It is just not the same thing at all. On the time issue, bacteria multiply at a rate at room temperature that you would have to throw out your sponges daily, at least. The key advantage that the cloths, mes scrubbers and 3M thingies have is that they dry relatively quickly. I am also not sure I understand your aversion to dishwasher detergent. With the exception of fine glassware, it all goes in the dishwasher in my house. The cheap glasses will get etched in a few years and I just throw them out. Metal won't be affected, with the possible exception of hard anodized aluminum like Calphalon. I have some stainless flatware that I have had for 30 years, in the dishwasher every week, looks fine. I have recently switched to the "Shine Shield" Cascade but I have no idea how that is supposed to work. ← Firstly, nothing that can harm you is going to live over 160F. Secondly, your not "sanitizing" sponges in the microwave, your "sterilizing" them. All the residual dirt in the sponge is not gone, its sterilized and ready to be inhabited by whatever comes along. Maybe "biological vacuum" is a bit strong, but you are putting a petri dish(sponge) back on your sink. And don't get me wrong, i use my dishwasher all the time but i find it cheaper for me to throw the sponge away rather than my glassware. Having said all this, my sponge smells funny right now.

I swore i wouldn't bite on this thread, but i just had to. I do not put sponges in the dishwasher, the microwave, or boiling water. I put them in the trash can. There are very few things i DO put in the dishwasher given the base of dishwasher soap...lye, NaOH. It is VERY hard on things. No metal, no glassware, definately no knives. Microwaving or boiling sponges seems like it would only create a biological vacuum possibly making your sponge go smelly even quicker. All it takes is a soak in 140F-160F water and that will do the trick as far as bacteria are concerned. Boiling and microwaving really seems like overkill to me. Besides, my sponges never last that long anyway. They get more tore up than Ted Kennedy on St. Patricks day!! How long are we keeping these things around anyway. Dare i ask whats the longest one has ever kept a sponge?

aaah. makes perfect sense. My friend said i use it in my ranch dressing all the time, and i do. can't believe "thyme" was such a stumble! Thanks so much.

I was hoping that someone here could assist me with deciphiring an ingredient. I was attending a birthday party for the daughter of a dear mexican friend and we were discussing food (imagine that) and she said that the salsa had tomillos(not tomatillos) in it. I don't know what tomillos are, even tho she swears i use them at the restaurant all the time! "Cositas verdes" she said. little green things. She said they are not a spice. Something like that just drives me NUTS Anyway, any help would be appreciated. Barry

I'm new to this forum but i wish i had inquired here before our foray to the yucatan. We stayed at a huge resort Riviera maya. It came highly recommended and was beautiful. I will have to say that it was not very mexican....definately catered to americans, foodwise and drinkwise. I love tequila, maybe a bit too much!!, but the vast majority of tequila there was cuervo gold and i do not like cuervo gold at all. We decided to take a taxi to Playa del Carmen. Very few good things to say about PdC. Huge tourist trap in my opinion. Pizza, french fries T-shirt shops and merchants who call, yell, follow, insult...whatever it takes to get your attention in hopes that you'll buy whatever overpriced junk they're selling. These were some of the bad things but it was not all bad. Our concierge directed us to a delightful restaurant outside of PdC. Great food, Just what we were looking for...and the people were fantastic. Made lotsa friends, drank lotsa tequila (even tho i had to find an american liquor store to get what i wanted!! I will definately go back to mexico, just not there and i'll do my homework a bit better next time. I guess, since i'm from southern chester Co., Pa, i'm a little spoiled. Huge mexican population here. The taqueiras and small grocery stores that have popped up here are AWESOME. The Mexicanas i used to work with would bring me taquitos and tamales to die for...and would always share the recipe for them and their salsas and moles. I'm a MUCH better cook with the addition of my mexican repertoire. PdC was definately not for me for the same reasons stated by rancho gordo. I was advised that if i wanted tequila i should go to Jalisco. Any thoughts?

years ago when i worked at a bakery in phila. we were knocking out large amounts of baguettes. We could get them in the oven pretty fast so they would be done in a similar rotation. we'd be unloading 100 to 150 baguettes at a time and a few minutes after unloading, all the crackling made it sound like it was POURING rain outside. That never got boring.

my worst: In college, enthused by cooking, decided to make lentil soup for some friends. Gathered my meez, followed the recipe to a tee. I don't still have the recipe but i know it was tomato based broth. Decided to cook the soup in my brand new cast iron dutch oven (yeah, i know..but i was still too green to see the big flashing neon sign saying "BAD IDEA") The soup wasn't altogether inedible but it had an awful tinny taste. Afterwards one of the girls started laughing and said my teeth were grey. I was shocked because i thought HER teeth were REALLY grey. Nice girl, bad hygene was what i thought. Well, ALL our teeth were grey. Soup went in the trash. Teeth were fine in a day or so, but there was some consternation on when and if this color was going to go away...and i didn't have an answer. i was SO mortified. Trying to show off i thought i ruined all our teeth! Still have that dutch oven tho

I don't make ricotta much anymore because i live close to Fieros in wilm. De. and they sell the regular and the dry curd...which is what i use for cannoli. When i did make ricotta, i simply took a gal. of whole milk heated to 180F and held it there. added 3Tbsp of an acid(i used lemon juice and found that it did not give a "lemony" flavor, thank god) and waited for the curds to rise up. skimmed them off and drained them in a cheesecloth lined colander overnite. It seemed like to me(and this could be wrong) that the longer i held the curds in the pot at 180F, the less water i found in my bowl the next day. It seemed to give a "drier"curd.

Gotta go with fred on this one. I forage for morels in the spring , but i have a degree in mycology and know exactly what i'm looking for. The false morels are real. You don't need a degree to know what your looking for but its not wise to romantcize foraging for morels or any other mushroom. The toxins don't just make you ill, they make you dead. This isn't scare tactics, just facts. Fresh morels are expensive and there's not a big window for that market. Dried are always available. Why aren't they grown commercially? Well, researchers, including a few in my dept., have had success growing the fungus but no luck getting it to friut. The last i heard there was a company in lansing, michigan that successfully fruited blond morels. It's ok, i kinda like the seasonality of them.

That IS interesting. I'll definately try to score a few bottles. I'm a baker from southern chester co. and i WISH my name was cakebread!! THAT would be cool.

I was reading this thread yesterday just before my wife and i went to buy our new years eve stash of champanges and figured i'd check and see if the wine and spirits shop in hockessin de. had it. Well, they did, but the cab was $89.00. Does cakebread have different vintages of their cabs? Just wondering. I love the big reds but rarely dig that deep on a whim. Barry

i scored an acmc chocolate temperer. never saw it coming. great surprise, can't wait....even tho i've never used one before.

My experience with low carb doughs(admittedly limited) is that they are really dense if they get wet. If your putting sauce directly on the dough, maybe try putting the cheese down first and then light sauce on top...or maybe just tomatos and basil. i have a pizza stone in my oven and i use it. it does a nice job for me.