bakerboy

. i make torrone at all holidays(well, thanksgiving, christmas, and easter anyway). I do not heat my syrups separately, i always heated my honey, sugar, h2o, and cornsyrup together. I'll have to try heating separately and see if i get a more pronounced honey flavor. I'll have to say i've had the problem of soft torrone too. not that it was bad by any stretch. soft torrone makes great candy bars. One thing that happened by accident last year, i overcooked my syrup. My recipe calls for the syrup to be heated to 290F. Mine was close to 310F when i added it to the whites. the result: best damntorrone i ever made. firmed up NICE. All the old paisanos at my holiday party loved it...and they don't like too much!! My relatives used to go into phila. to get the "good" torrone, but that torrone is rock solid. they literally had to use a hammer to break chunks off, and it tasted real cheap and sugary. not a fan of that torrone.

years ago i purchased a book by Carol Bloom called "Truffles, Candies,& Confections. I liked it alot for home use. the recipes are scaled down nicely. Its been extremely helpful when my neices and nephews come over and want to make something.

Your obsevations are correct about the mbc's. If i'm going to make an italian mbc, i know how i'm going to do it, but i guess i can also understand that someone who doesn't do it all the time can "mislable" a buttercream. that sounds like what happened, just a mistake.

Its Marengos pizza in avondale Pa. in the Boomers complex. would love to have you. of course we bake alot of bread out of those pizza ovens also. feel free to email or pm me about your timetable. I'm sure you'll love it. Barry

Mr. Reinhart, thanks so much for Crust & Crumb. Its always the book i grab off the bookshelf when i need an idea or to tweak an existing idea. About 3 years ago i was summoned from an artisan bakery in phila. back to my hometown of kennett square to assist a friend who was opening a pizza shop. I was unfamiliar with pizza but very familiar with bread. I am currently raising my pizza dough using risen dough not yeast (20% of the weight of the flour), shaping immediately, retarding ovenight and using the next day....and it is overwhelmingly popular. Its far superior to the flat white tasteless stuff thats all around. My question is: Is there really an artisan pizza craze taking place? If there is, do you think its because people are taking the time to make and ferment really good crust or are people simply putting on lots of wacky toppings and calling it "artisan". In MY case, its definately the crust because we do some nice and different toppings but plain and pepperoni are still tops with eveyone. It is however much more time consiming and labor intensive. thanks again. barry

I was always under the impression that the eggs were "candled" and the doubles were sorted out and sold as "double yolks". Thats why i figured i've only seen 2 in about 10 years. Now i'm shattered!!

Ore, nice pics, nice loaves. Seems like everyones baking situation is unique and may require creative means to get the job done. You seem to be adapting well by the looks of the loaves. you can fine tune those loaves by adjusting fermentation times, hydration, etc. For what its worth, i'll throw in my 2 cents. and these are just MY preferences. I would have gone with about 60-62.5% hydration. I think artisanbaker already mentioned that. I have never been a fan of interupting my fermentation of my bag dough by punching down or folding. Three to four hrs. on the floor or until i acheive a nice doubling. I too don't have linen with which to couche my baguettes. Instead, i use clean aprons, well floured. Not conventional, but it works...and the linen service always gives you a few aprons that have no strings. I also cover the whole board(or hotel pan in your case) with a trash bag and give the shaped product a 12 hr cold proof in my walk in the reefer. This gives me the porous interior and nice crust i'm looking for and the slow cold rise really develops the flavor of the grain. Hope this helps.

This warm weather has been a bit of a pain. we don't bake cookies where i work now, but in weather like this i've noticed that when the kitchen is warmer, the flour and sugar usually are too. A warmer cookie dough might spread more than usual, given the same cooking time and temp, and become a bit thinner and crispier. If this is a posibility you can always throw them in the fridge for 30 before you bake them. Hope this helps.

diggin those macs. now i'm gonna have to make those, damn.

A lavender/pear bavarian wrapped in a almond joconde and drizzled with a little honey is something we do thats always well recieved. Have to agree with tan319 and bondgirl, use a little less than ya think. Too much lavender and the whole thing tastes like a creamy pot pourri nightmare.

Had to post a goodbye to a great baker and a great lady. Loved her stuff, loved her attitude. Really gonna miss what she brought to the table.

Okay, I guess I'm the only one who still uses the old bucket, ice, and salt machine. I can't really say i've ever tried to make creams or sorbets with any other machine. I keep two of them at work. Always plenty of ice and salt there. It is kind of a pain when i make it at home tho. Can't say i really have that "icy" problem when storing my stuff in the freezer at home. (maybe it just doesn't hang around that long:) Just made a Black Plum sorbet last week with some really ripe plums. sooooo good.

thought i'd add my 2 cents here. i was recently in mexico in the playa del carmen area and decided to look for some mexican vanilla beans. no luck, lots of extract though. Some looked harmless. Alot said "does not contain coumarin" which is an extract from tonka beans. it tastes like vanilla and some countries allow it as an "extender". it does have anticoagulent properties. The medication called coumadin is given to heart patients as a blood thinner and it is a derivative of coumarin. There were some scarier looking "extracto's" there that were supposidly for medicinal purposes and had ingredients like "agua emulsificada" ....emulsified water ? needless to say, i didn't bother. I went for a nice box of romeo and julietas instead.