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kthull

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Everything posted by kthull

  1. I used to have a real hard time with dry caramels because many recipes indicate to put all your sugar into your pan and heat it until it begins to melt. Some say to heat it undisturbed, others say to stir from time to time or only begin stirring once it starts to melt. Invariably, I would have clumps and the sugar would be approaching the burnt (not in a good way) point. Than I used Herme's recipe (and I'm sure other experts) which calls for heating just a few tablespoons of the sugar until it is a nice amber, then adding a few tablespoons more and stirring until that is melted, continuing on in small portions until it's all melted, at which point, you're practically ready to add the warmed cream. That method for a dry caramel has never failed.
  2. Ellen, you'll want to experiment too. If you've never caramelized sugar before, you'll be surprised at how much variation in taste and color you will get depending on how long you cook the syrup. Also, the darker you go on the syrup, the more complexity you'll taste in your final sauce. But if you go too dark, you will burn it. Also the tip from Steve about warming your cream and adding it in stages is a real gem. Many recipes don't suggest that and it just means more work for you to remelt the caramel after you've added the cream.
  3. Jody, there are so many differences in cheesecake recipes that it's hard to make that call. Really the key is to get a final batter height of and inch or slightly more so you can cut into final cube-shaped bites. I've baked some recipes that don't get much higher than that to start with, but most are in the 2-3" range, so I have a variety of different pan sizes available to divide the batter into. Once you target a few favorites, it's easier to proceed from there.
  4. I am a home baker JFLinLA and it's nothing special really. I just bake the cheesecake in parchment lined square or rectangular pans so that my batter is about 1" deep. If you use pans with removable bottoms, it's easier and there's less waste. When I don't have removable bottoms, I make sure the parchment extends above the sides of the pan so I can (with help if needed) just lift the whole thing out (I've only gone as big as a 12x18 with this). You'll have to watch the bake times a bit more closely, since it's not as tall as normal. Once it's cooked and cooled, I remove it and cut it into squares. I did a lot of these for a while so I bought a 14" granton knife pretty much just for cheesecake, but I've used plain old chefs knives too. It's great to ganache or sauce the squares and arrange them on a platter. And it never ceases to amaze me that one cheesecake will yield 12-16 slices, but the same recipe will turn out 80 1" squares (with spoilage). It makes the cheesecake go a lot longer at parties.
  5. I'm only a home baker and I got myself a nice 11lb block of Callebaut 70% dark and it was the most temperamental chocolate I ever used. It always broke. I could only use it if I added in other chocolate. And believe me, 11lbs of chocolate (diluted at that) doesn't go all that quickly in one's home. I had plenty broken ganaches with that and will never go back to Callebaut as a result of it. And I know what some of you are thinking...age. But it was bad from the get go, so maybe it was bad from the start, but it wasn't a factor of getting worse over the months. And I store my chocolate very well. Since changing chocolates, no problems.
  6. Skyflyer, I'm with you!! My wife thinks I'm nuts, but nothing beats a frozen solid slice of cheesecake. Even better if you bake it in a sheet pan and cut into bite-size squares.
  7. I agree with Karen...I've never had problems using a regular whisk. It's a lot of work, but well worth it.
  8. Me too...I haven't had change of texture when freezing.
  9. Speaking of Herme, his chocolate mousse is my favorite...not quite as easy as the chocolate whipped cream Neil suggested.
  10. kthull

    jar cherries

    I bought a jar of Montmorency cherries at Trader Joes to use for Pierre Herme's Philadelphia Cake. Now I have two baby Montomorency cherry trees in my yard! I froze my whole crop for use next year: 13 oz.
  11. It really is pathetic. I was all excited to enter a cheesecake recipe I developed, only to see the entry rules, which was something like no more than 8 ingredients and must use Kraft products. What a crock that was.
  12. You should also look into the black cocoa sold at King Arthur. That'll help you along in the color department.
  13. As far as doming goes, mine depended on how deep the batter was. I filled my half sheet pan two thirds and then poured the excess into a 9" square. Neither domed much and then leveled off mostly on cooling. But when I did an 8x3 round, it looked like Mount Vesuvius...huge dome and cracking all over the place. And I don't use the magi-strips. As far as bitterness, I'm curious which testers tasted bitterness and whether they used dutched or undutched cocoa. I used dutched and didnt' catch any bitterness. Very smooth chocolatey flavor. I think if we can get a consensus first on the type of cocoa, that would be more valuable than brand, since the flavor range would vary more widely on that front. Right?
  14. The texture you described sounds like what happened to me with my failed attempts. Was your melted chocolate on the hot side? Your recipe sounds close to the one I'm using from the Cake Bible. That one is 6 oz white chocolate and 1T+1tsp corn syrup.
  15. Without knowing the real reason/science of it, I have noticed that if I mix in my corn syrup when the melted chocolate is too hot, it doesn't come together as nicely as when I let the melted chocolate cool down to just slightly warm. I also am careful about not mixing the corn syrup in too much...just until the mixture starts to coagulate. Again, I don't wholly know if that is the solution to your problem, but overmixing and too hot produced some bad batches for me. It's nice to know they can be salvaged...thanks Wendy!
  16. Brewsource.com sells a product called Lyle's Golden Syrup which they list as invert sugar. That might be worth a try at $5.25 for a 10.6 oz. can. I would think that invert sugar used for brewing ale would be no different than invert sugar for baking, right? The composition they list is 49% fructose, 49% dextrose (glucose) and 2% sucrose.
  17. Lorea, the recipe I posted at the start of the thread is a tweaked version of the Cooks Illustrated recipe. While it's not exactly it, it's pretty close (minus the vanilla pudding mix). I do remember making it while testing last year and it wasn't as good as the version I posted. HTH
  18. Try Whey Low as a low cal, low carb, low glycemic sugar substitute. It's about $5/lb in bulk and it works nearly identically to sugar. I've tested quite a few artificial sweeteners and the like, but this beats them all out hands down and there's nothing artificial about it. No aftertaste, caramelize it, make candy, ice cream, baked goods, you name it. And anytime I tell someone about it they say, "Man that's expensive...Splenda is cheaper." But I just saw that huge bag of Splenda, all 10 ounces of it for like $8. I think people see a big bag and think they're getting a lot since it claims the sweetness of xx pounds. Hah. Try explaining that to your cakes and cookies when they don't have the bulk that sugar adds. Heck, the Splenda web site even says you'll probably get a lower yield and the few applications it's intended for. Whey Low...you have to try it. (And as I've said before, no I'm not on their payroll.)
  19. Lucy, if it helps, the mkfradin cupcakes finished in 27 minutes and the 9x2 round in 43. I had the cupcakes on the upper rack and the round on the bottom until I took the cupcakes out. For my recipe, the cupcakes finished in 23 and the round in 43. I needed cupcakes for my daughter's birthday party tonight. Perfect excuse to make two different recipes!
  20. The cocoa I used in my tests was Droste Dutch-processed cocoa.
  21. Hard to say without seeing your recipe. But a sauce is generally just the caramelized sugar, enough cream to get the right thickness and then any flavor additives (butter, alcohol, etc.) but no extra cooking beyond the caramelization aside from stirring over low heat after adding the cream to melt down what siezes up when you add the cream.
  22. After chilling the cakes, both were much improved, though mkfradin's definitely beat out my recipe. Taste was comparable, the pudding version was a bit dryer and was more crumbly. mkfraddin's recipe baked up lighter in color both inside and out. Here are the two side by side exteriors (kthull pudding recipe left, mkfradin recipe right): And here are closeups of slices (again, kthull left, mkfradin, right): Neither cake was very moist. Neither made me say, "Man, that's some damn good cake!" My ratings: kthull - 3.5 mkfradin - 4 It will be a while before I can test more...freezer's getting full of cakes. But I definitely have samples for future comparisons.
  23. Ok, so tonight I made both mkfradin and my recipes. I also took detailed pictures that I'll probably post tomorrow since it's getting too late tonight. mkfradin's is definitely whiter, seems like a tighter crumb, but the cakes were still a bit warm when I cut into them. I'll see how they are tomorrow. And neither tasted all that great...it's been a while since I've had white cake. Give me chocolate any day!
  24. Since Trish's cake has been tested once so far, I'll be testing mkfradin's cake tonight. I'll also freeze some of what I make tonight and save it for later comparisons.
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