Wendy DeBord

You could just saute your apples also. In either case if you bring your apples to a fork tender state you won't need to bake them uncovered on the tart shell. Bake the tart shell all the way, put your cooked apples on it, pour over custard, bake until custard begins to set, then sprinkle with xxxsugar, finish baking.

Sugar isn't going to toughen your dough........gluten does.

Just briefly, I'd like to ask a follow up question about your views on new hires. Do you have any strong feelings about hiring culinary school grad.'s? I know we each run into good and bad examples of students coming out of school. Many jobs now require a culinary degree, how much do you value that degree when approached by applicants? Are there any culinary schools that you impress you with the over all level of their graduates? Maybe it's just me but I feel like theres so little time to do all that I want in this profession. I'd love to compete in many competitions and various exhibits. I'd love to be really good in breads and chocolate. Well, really good in everything, but it's so challenging/impossible to be really good in multiple culinary arts. The skill level in pastry and breads have exploded over the past 10/15 years. What was once cutting edge is now basic. Sometimes I find it hard to just keep up reading everything thats going on, yet alone take on learning how to do something new. Are there any subjects you really want to explore and haven't gotten to yet? If you didn't have any limits/responsiblities and you could just hop on a plane......is there any restaurants that your dying to dine at, any classes you'd love to take, any cusines that you'd like to explore more deeply, any competitions or exhibits you'd love to take part in? .....and why?

I was researching an answer for someone asking about Pacojet recipes and in my search I stumped upon a previous conversation we had this past May. Here's the link to it. In reading that thread I starting thinking about what Bond Girl wrote as the last line in your Demo thread Chef Ong, you've got many pastry chefs reading you here. Can you shed more light onto this topic. I think many of us have the interest in savory and crossing over in ingredient uses........but I think we run into on the job problems that hinder us from doing more savory work. Then you add into the mix the public's perception of what they expect a dessert to consist of.........how can the average pastry chef conquer this?

I have played around doing this and find that I can't make it work using straight cocoa butter colors. They need to be in an opaque base as you realized. The best I can do is start with white (from PCB) and add some color to it. Adding the colored cocoa butter to the white opaque cocoa butter doesn't work well. It thins it down too much (makes it transparent) and I can't get the color intensity I want, only pastels. BUT it you buy colors for cocoa, those are different then colored cocoa butter. They are closer to being like a food coloring paste, but thinner. They will let you get an intense color with minimal added cocoa butter thinning down your opaque base. I've bought these colors thru Albert Uster and believe it or not, my local Michaels craft stores. They come in like 4 oz. bottles from Uster and about .5 oz jar at the craft store. Those little half oz. jars of black will color my chocolate a dark black! These colors should give you what you need when screen printing. When I use my PCB colors I nuke the whole bottle on 30% power for like 2 minutes. Just enough to melt parts of the bottle but not the whole thing. I shake it up to melt more in the bottle. Then I let it set for a couple minutes. Then my colors are the right consistancy for me. Where as, if I heat my PCB color and pour it into a bowl and let it set, then it goes from liquid to solid faster..........more surface exposed to cool air, verses holding it in the bottle. I think your right on the verge of getting this. I do think that the consistancy of your "ink" (in this case your cocoa butter) is critical. If it's too warm/thin it will bleed and apply too thinly. I do however think a rubber scraper is the correct way to get an even layer..........you may just need a little more practice or a thinner lighter rubber scraper. The ones they use for standard silk screen inks are rather thick and bulky. I'm not totally certain (because it's been about 20 years since I last silk screened) but the you should be able to use frisket as a food safe block. It's basicly acetate with an adhesive........I think (it used to be anyway). But then you cut in your image by hand, then apply it to your screen. Your using a light sensitive emulsion right now, and I really question that it's food safe. The reason I mention this is, it is something you need to look into now. If you can't find a food safe product to use as your block, theres no point in perfecting this. Unless your willing to hand cut your own stencils using frisket.

Do you have any advice for others in how they can increase their sales? I've heard many pastry chefs mention that it's up to their wait staff to sell dessert. If the wait staff likes something, they sell it. Sometimes the waitstaff aren't dessert eaters, sometimes their not thinking about how increased sales will increase their tip. Sometimes you feel like your fighting a battle with the wait staff to get them to sell your work..........and the pastry chef always loses. We've had many discussions on that topic here! How do you motivate wait staff that aren't selling desserts? How liberal are you with feeding the wait staff your items? What can a pastry chef do to get unmotivated staff interested and always selling desserts? Personally on my jobs I try to maintain a freindly relationship with the wait staff. I ALWAY let them taste anything and everything whenever and however much they want (usually they eat like birds so that isn't a problem). I'll talk to them about my items as long as they'll listen...... But sometimes I feel like selling desserts is a battle. Often I think we give out too generous of portions for our entree's and that ruins their hunger for dessert. But then I've experienced working in places that will run contests for the wait staff, like whomever sells the most desserts for the month wins (usually a couple extra bucks). The frustrating thing is, I've had sales really jump when they've run those types of competitions. Then they drop when the contest if over. Whats a chef to do?

I just want to mention that pre-rolling a warm cake to "set" it's shape is out dated advice. It's truely not necessary and it only makes things harder when you go to fill your cake. I hope I can explain this well......... First, either your cake is flexible or it's not. If it's too thick, the cake will crack as you roll it into a log regardless of "training" it by rolling it in a towel when warm. If you take a cold cake and roll it into a jelly roll shape it too will crack in places if the cake is too thick. The cake doesn't need to be "trained" to keep the shape of a log. It will roll and remain in the shape you dirrect it into. Both the filling and gravity will hold it in a log shape. Always placing your seamed side down underneath the weight of the cake. Also when you pre-train your cakes by rolling them in towels, it sticks too much to the towel and makes it hard to peel off. The cake wants to break as you spread your frosting on the rounded areas and you can break your cake doing more handling damage to it, then needed. To make a good jelly roll cake the key is having a thin (yet not too thin) moist cake. If you bake a good thin moist cake, you can put it away for days as is, flat. All you do is spread your filling/frosting on the flat cake then roll it up. Wrap it in plastic wrap. The cake will roll and not crack unless it's a flawed cake (over baked, dry or too thick). The only tricky thing is wrapping your cake when you first roll it. I either use a sheet of parchement paper (as was previously suggested) or a long length of plastic wrap. When I lift it, I put a piece of cardboard (or plexi glass) underneath the cake to support it's weight as I position it on the plastic wrap.

It's so hard to say what could have been wrong with-out being there. Theres a couple things that don't seem right. I'd guess that it was the quality of your apples. If they were browning in a oven for 20 minutes.......and sliced thinnly..........I think they should have been perfect, ready for a little custard. They should have been done cooking at that point before you placed your custard over them. The custard would have insolated the apples from baking more until the temp. of the custard got hot. Then the whole thing starts to bake together. But 10 minutes with the custard over it, is just barely enough time for the custard to set, not long enough to continue baking the apples. I don't think the apples should have juiced with the addition of the xxxsugar, because any slices that were left exposed usually just brown (and shrivel up) from the heat of the oven. I hope that helped.....................

Chef Ong, you obviously draw a great deal from your Asian background into your work. Can I ask where else you look for inspiration and ideas? Are you a avid reader of baking books and or magazines? If so, which books or magazines?

The quality of work at this show is just amazing! seriously............... Thank-you soooo much for taking the time to share your photos with us bkeith!! Congratulations to you! Top 6 is mighty impressive!!

We have alot of mid-life career changers that are members here, as well as several culinary students. Can you give them any advice on how they can stand out from similar applicants and actually land those rare jobs in the better/or well known career building kitchens? P.S Will your Asian Puff Pastry recipe be published in your book? Will we see alot of new recipes from you or will you be saving those your new shop?

I have to admit I've never heard of Asian Puff Pastry before. I'm wondering if I can draw a similarity to it.........is it similar to the Indian samosa and American pie dough? Is it widely used in Asia as pie dough is in the US?.......flaky crust adaptable to a wide variety of fillings..........?

Just briefly I'd like to mention that Chef Ong has graciously provided us with a demonstration thread on Asian Puff Pastry. Please look here to view it. Any questions or comments you have on his Demo thread should be posted on that thread. For anyone who missed our newly pinned thread on the top of our Forum, please look here for a complete explaination of what a Pastry & Baking Forum FOCUS thread is. I too want to welcome Chef Ong, thank-you for sharing with us! I need to tell you that I keep the article you wrote for Food Arts July/August 2004 entitled "Sugar and Spice: Is Everything Nice?" on my computor table to view daily. I try to read as much as I can on pastry chefs and following the happenings in our field. I have to say that that specific article stands out to me as the most true and echoing thoughts I've read in print from another pastry chef. It bonds me to you instantly. I wish I could reproduce the whole article here for everyone to read, but I can't because of copy right issues. For those of you that do subscribe to Food Arts I hope you'll look up that article. For those that don't I'd like to highlight a couple qoutes......... "Yet it now seems that pastry chefs are considered to be of less stature then their executive chef peers." " I believe it's within our power to change this for ourselves, and for the generations of pastry chefs to come, through unwavering commitment to the daily practice and refinement of pastry artistry." "We must also deal with today's economic realities. As a result of the business downturn over the past few years, some restaurants have opted to eliminate the pastry chef position and have left desserts in the hands of the chef de cusine." "We must create a network of industry friends, have specialized public relations professionals at our disposal, find sources of inspiration, and stay on top of our game by attending events where we can learn, improve, and share ourcraft." "We must continue to build and nurture this family on the international, national, and local levels to ensure that our careers and our creations achieve and maintain the critical and economic success they deserve." You wrote that in 2004 and here in 2005 I see that you really do mean those words and do live them too. I take guidance from that, thank-you. Did you set out with a clear cut plan/design for your career or has your current dirrection (writing a book and opening your own place) developed by accident and circumstance? I ask that out of my own selfishness/curiosity as a middle aged Pastry Chef wondering where my future should go.

In case anyone may not be aware, Chef Ong is currently being featured in our P & B Forum. Please look here. You're welcome to ask Chef Ong any questions about this Demo right here on this thread. If you have any other questions or thoughts you'd like to share with him, about him or his career or other techniques, please post those on the Focus thread.

It's hard to be patient, this show always produces terrific work, I can't wait to see them. How did you do bkeith?

Or make a pumpkin mousse............ also check out the thread on Pichet Ongs' cream puff recipe, it's auesome. I'm making these for my Halloween sweets table. I've colored the choux paste orange and plan on filling them with pumpkin mousse and decorating them as pumpkins. I probably will add a squeeze of plain whip cream into the puff also to compliment the pumpkin mousse.

Actually I've been working on the same project..........all night until I just logged on. I've been doing halloween buffets for a couple years now at several country clubs. I'm too tired at the moment to mention what I've done/ideas. I think I posted photos from a couple halloween parties I've done in my blog. Here's a link to it. Hope that helps alittle..........

Did anyone attend this year? comments........? Also I've been looking for photos from this year and haven't seen any posted yet...........anyone have a source they could share with us?

I too use a 9 or 10" pan and double her recipe, using all the batter. That works fine for me. Did you have it in a deep water bath? If the water didn't come up high enough on your sides it wouldn't have insolated it enough. So that could have given you an over baked cake. When I follow her exact instructions 15 minute worth of baking is just right. Definately not enough to over bake it. If it over baked and you followed all the instructions exactly, next time bake it for a shorter time........maybe 11 minutes total. I do bake mine with-out a water bath from time to time (out of necessity) and you can do this. Definately turn down your oven temp. and don't over bake. You can judge when it's done, it's very similar to a cheesecake in looks and texture. Very often I'll get a drop or two of butter that will form on the surface of my finished cake. Once the cake is cold I scrap that off, no harm. Making the oblivion torte. I find that you do really need to whip your eggs for along time to get the full volume from the eggs (about 10 minutes) and when I incorportate the chocolate into the eggss the chocolate butter mixture must be warm or the chocolate will sieze. Just like when making chocolate mousse.........

The time............truthfully I rarely look at the clock when I bake.....It took me that time based on my oven and how full it was. For you, I'd say you can bake it for 1 hour with-out even checking on it. Then you will need to judge when it's done and it might be 2 1/2 hours or it may be less. For instance if your pie isn't a full as mine was it will take less time to bake........ To know when your pie is done, I always let it bubble over thru the slits I have on it's top. Then I'm certain it came to a boil in the center to set my thickeners.

O.k., I hope I can make further sense of this issue...... Technically I can't speak for the specific recipe your trying that comes from Chefpeon...........I can only tell you my experiences. I use cold butter and rarely do I refridgerate the whole mixture before I mix the liquids in. I find that if the butter is too cold that I will need more liquid in my crust to pull it together into a dough. I also use cold tap water and don't worry about it being close to frozen. What happens is: a certain amount of your peas sized butter chunks will blend in as your forming it into a mass. That adds to your over all moisture, pulling the dough together into one mass. When that doesn't happen because it's sooo cold and none of your butter is breaking down, then I need to add more water too. Also when I add my liquid to form the dough. I drop it in all at once, then mix quickly. If you drop in the liquid and let it set, it will get absorbed into the flour it makes contact with imediately. Giving you clumps in your dough that are too soft (from absorbing all the water) and patches that are too dry (and or crumbs left in the bottom of your bowl because you don't have any liquid for it to get absorbed into). Alton Brown is no baker, sorry, but it's true. If your using a spray bottle your thinking too darn hard about this. I used to hold back a percentage of my liquids as Chantiglace mentions. But I find that if I have a good recipe where my liquids are right on, theres no need to do that. AND doing so can cause your dough to have an uneven absortion.......making some spots in your dough drier then others. Theres a certain amount of confidence you should have and just mix the whole thing together (forget about what if's). So at the worst you may have a tbsp. too much or too little liquid........learn from it, so the next time you hit your liquid level and mixing technique. It may take you a dozen or so times making pie dough before you start getting it perfected. It did me..but then you'll get the feel for it.

I bake it at 350F.....no turning the heat up or down along the way. I don't need to cover the top of the pie to protect it from over browning either. There's another technique you can try if you want. You can bake it closed up in a clean brown grocery bag. Believe it or not it works really well. It insultates the pie from the dirrect heat, the whole pie bakes perfectly even.

Your right, I didn't get a beautiful sheen, but they did seal well (which was a worry).

Just to breifly respond to the points brought up: Recchiuti tells you to NOT refridgerate this recipe (and I think all of them thru out his book) that's why I let it set for 2 days. He's continually makes the point to not use the refridgerator to hold items throughout the whole book. It all cooked beautifully, no crystalization, I didn't have a copper lined pot, I did cook on med./low heat. My kitchen is running around 80F right now and the humidity was high the day I made the batch. Technically it's a pretty terrific recipe. The batch size is pretty darn small so x4 batch was only 3, 8"x8" pans of caramel. Technically it should have been 4 pans worth but I wanted mine thicker then he suggested. I added the salt when suggested and did stir right up until I was pouring it into the pans to set. The salt grains still remained behind in the pot, then sunk. I tried to keep them moving but they didn't co-operate. I would have loved the slight crunch of the salt to remain in the caramel. That wouldn't have been a problem. And I could have/should have added fleur de sel to the top of my chocolate because I really dig salt and chocolate. This recipe turned out great, don't get me wrong. I'll definately be making it again. The caramel is soft, I can't image it being any softer and still being able to dip it so I'd say it was pretty perfect. Just too soft for me to manage it being dipped into chocolate at room temp. once I refridgerated it I could handle it easily. I can't believe anyone else could have dipped those caramels at room temp. either......as dirrected by the recipe. Thats why I questioned myself.

This past week I made his fleur de sel caramels and dipped them in semi sweet choc.. I ran into 2 inperfections. 1. My salt didn't incorporate as it should have. The recipe calls for a fine/or med. texture fleur de sel........but my jar didn't state which it was. So I made a batch x4 and as I was pouring out the caramel the salt had sank to the bottom of the pot. So the last pan got the majority of the salt....and it just sank to the bottom as it set up. I was able to cut that area out and still use the caramel. I'm thinking I should have used ordinary table salt or ground my fleur de sel to make it finer. Yet I worry that it still may sink. I'm wondering if anyone offer some advice on this issue? I want to be able to call them fleur de sel caramels............yet I think it's only going to work on top, not inside my caramel.............. Or maybe I did something wrong? 2. Second issue I had was maybe a combination of the recipe and my skill. The caramel is devinely soft.....I let it "setup" for two days at room temp. before attempting to cut them. When I did, I got some spread........and they were definately too soft for me to dip in chocolate. I wound up putting them in the cooler to firm them up before dipping.....which creates some moisture. Next time I'll wrap them better when I chill them to avoid having to hand pat down each caramel to rid it of moisture. BUT anyway I'd still love to learn how to do this better and I'm seeking advice from experienced confectioners on this topic. How do you enrobe/dip soft caramels? Are you really leaving them at room temp. and still able to handle them in the chocolate? Do you just use a firmer caramel to avoid that issue? Thanks