Wendy DeBord

Make sure you taste them with the shards. Personally, I think thats too thick of a piece of sugar....I don't like to eat that myself. If you use isomalt to make bubble sugar you won't get the caramelized sugar taste, just hard crunch. I do think people would be very interested in seeing you torch them off in public......taking precautions of course. Champagne I used..........we always have a couple left over open bottles at the bar.......I just used whatever they had. Just pick a popular brand you like. Have you any grand plans for you table decor?

We used to go to a small local breakfast spot but everytime we'd go there the owner would force himself upon us, all his customers. After he's touched everyones hands I don't want him to touch mine when I'm about to use my hands to pick up my toast and eat it. I don't need any additional help picking up a cold or flu bug. Sometimes the owner would come up to shake your hand while you were eating. So you have to stop, let you food get cold so you could wash the koodies off you hands, no thanks. We'd try looking the other way to avoid this person so we could eat in peace, but the guy doesn't take that hint. Now we won't go there anymore. Ultimately I go to a restaurant for the food. Although I like a freindly atmosphere you can't persuede me to come again based on your friendliness. Instead I would have like to see him put his social skills into serving the food and teaching is staff.

ah good idea Chiantiglace, come to think of it, you could serve this in mini tart shells, I serve creme brulee in puff pastry cups and people really like that.

I've made that recipe before and really like it. I do think you've got to torch them off to call them a creme brulee.........and I do think it adds to the over all taste, gives you a contrasting crunch to the soft custard. I'd probably look into using foil cups, myself. Also when I make brulee's, after I torch them off I still garnish on top. I really like a little dollop of whipped cream for some contrast, or some fruit (if the brulee didn't have fruit on the bottom).

Hum.........well you can't stack them and freeze them, unless the icing drys very hard. I never worked in small batches that would fit in a tupperware type containers. I've always had to wrap my items in plastic wrap or sheet pan covers/bags. You can freeze the cookies uncovered and prevent ruining the image then, but when you defrost you either uncover the item and condensation will form on the surface and ruin your image (wet spots discolor). Or you keep them covered while defrosting........and then the condensation forms on the outside of my plastic but then that sinks down touching my cookies ruining them by sticking in the frosting. The moisture from the defrost can make your colors bleed. That can happen even if your not freezing them. I like a frosting that drys the best for decorated cookies in cookie baskets. I bake my cookies off, then freeze them unfrosted. I decorate them, then let them air dry for a day or two before their needed. My frosting never gets completely dry (it crusts over really). Buttercream adds more weight to a cookie on a stick then many other thinner frostings so you can't use a real fragile cookie. I use a shortbread cookie recipe that isn't sweet with my sweet xxxsugar frosting and they make a great match. I've tried other cookies like sugar cookies and by the time I frost them they just seem too sweet. I know a pastry chef that uses fondant for her frosting on cookies, then air brushes the image on. That would work well.......... it does for her. I've tried, but struggled with it.....I just haven't mastered it.........

I've never had a red cake that I thought was a 'great' cake. The taste is very mild chocolate (almost hard to detect), the texture is not real moist. It's rather plain, nothing that knocks your socks off. I'd guess that explains why it's not a hugely popular cake from coast to coast. This is my husbands favorite cake, why I'm not certain...........but it's something Grandma and Mom would always bake for his b-day. Maybe it's the combination of the frosting that isn't too sweet or rich with a simple cake that appeals to people.........

I too do this, constantly, even while I'm at dinner with my husband (don't tell him) I may be day dreaming of how I'm going to accomplish my tasks at work the next day. I've always got a plan in my head on how to achieve my schedule. Unlike the hot side, we really can't chat as we work, minimize any distractions that you can. While your doing one task your planning what your smartest next step should be.....so your a little flexiable in your schedule. But I generally plan out that Tues. and Wed. will be baking days and Thurs. and Fri. will be assembling days. Giving myself Sat. as my finishing touches day. If I do most of my baking on the same days it's suprising how much quantity I can turn out. Verses baking cakes while I'm making mousses while I'm decorating cakes. Many times you don't have to wash out your mixing bowls between items if you making similar things, that saves steps. Typcially the time it takes me to mix up another batch of cakes and portion them out into my pans is just about the right amount of time that I need to monitor what I already have in my oven. I get in a real pattern. It forces me to work quickly so I'm ready with the next batch before the last over bakes. I fill up two tall sheet pan carts with baked goods per day, typically. Then before I go home I wrap them all at one time and freeze them all at one time. I also try to think in advance about how I can combine several steps. If I need a pastry cream for one item, do I need it for others too........so I make one huge batch instead of several small ones. When I started I didn't know I could sub in my own recipes into other peoples recipes. As in, one recipe called for a pastry cream with xyz portions of egg and cornstarch and abc recipe calls for whole eggs and flour in the pastry cream..........so I'd make each for each master recipe. Now I make my own huge batch of pastry cream for the week and use from that what I need in each master recipe. In combining steps.........if I have to cook something on the stove I'll do all the items that require the stove for the week at the same time. I can easily focus on 4 or so pots at the same time. I might be making a creme brulee, a pastry cream, a toffee and a anglaise sauce all at once. Because it's harder to be working on the stove (looking to hit an exact temp. ) while your filling molds with mousse that the gelatin is setting on. I also can reuse my chiniose from my anglaise in my brulee......less dishes too, etc... At my job my ovens are on a different level then my prep area. I also don't have any refridgerators in my prep area. I used to run around alot gathering ingredients and checking my ovens! Now I use a sheet pan cart as my most necessary tool. I hardly make any move with-out it being by my side. On it I always have towels to grab hot stuff with, so I never have to search for one and empty sheet pans. I can always carry on it tons of items, so I never have to walk back and forth picking up items or juggling where I'm going to put sheets of hot product. Are you doing these things? Have you looked at how you can simplify your steps OR is there more then any person can accomplish regardless of working smart?

You'll also want to consider the type of cookie your using and the moisture content of your frosting.......if these need to remain firm after defrosting for your project.

I'll be interested to learn on this topic. I've never found a cookie frosting that I can freeze and defrost with-out ruining the appearance. The only solution I know of is to use royal icing and let them air dry, keep them unrefridgerated and wrapped well.

Ah, I work at a country club also. It's highly possible that your doing nothing slow but that their system isn't working for you. System as in, when you get party sheets and how THEY work with a pastry chef. Country clubs kitchens are run for the hot side with little thought as to what a last minute order and change of order does to how a pastry chef works. Hot side chefs have little to no idea of the time frame pc's need to complete work. I think I/we can really help you, at least I finally know I've done everything I can do to master the same type of job....so hopefully we can talk more details and you can see how others are handling similar. So can you talk about more specifics? Like focus in more on what seems to be slowing you down or holding you back......... For example: when I began working at clubs I worked on orders as they approached date wise. That all worked fine until they began giving me tons of last minute orders screwing up my schedule of how I had planned to get the first project completed. Is that happening to you? When do you get you party sheets/ notification of orders you need to fill? I've had clubs not issue party sheets until the week of the event. When they have multiple huge parties back to back sometimes that's just more work then anyone can complete in that time frame. Do you keep any basic items in stock? Like do you have several cakes in the freezer, do you always have staples like pastry cream on hand? Do you always have fruit sauces on hand made and frozen? Then in time I learned what items I can make quickly. It's extremely helpful to have as long of a mental list as possible of quick items you can make. For example, I know if my chef or manager comes up to me and says I need dessert for 50 tonight or asap that I've got puff pastry in my freezer and pastry cream in my cooler. From those two things I know that I can make many items with those two staples. The point being that sometimes you can't always make what you want, sometimes you have to make the quickest thing to fill the order and or to fit into you planned schedule. Are you alone, are you a one person department? Do you have your own freezers? Do you order your own ingredients? Do you use any convience items like premade tart shells, etc....? Do you choose your own ala carte menu? How often do you change it? Do you/are you supposed to make and plate all your items yourself? How many outlets do you service? The halfway house, main dining room, catering, parties and just how much business is typical? How many ala carte desserts do you sell a day in addition to your banquets? How many functions do they typically have a day? What sized parties are they on average? Are you making breads and pastries? How many hours are you working a day? Where did you go to school or how did you become a pc? You don't have to answer each of my questions........I'm just looking for an outline of what you have to accomplish and where you think you may be struggling.

Actually, I have to disagree with the advice of adding more flour casually to a dough. Rarely does that solve issues in baking, correctly. If you add too much flour you'll ruin the recipe's out come. In fact most of my favorite doughs are rather sticky and hard to handle. Not only cookies but many breads seem too soft when they are first mixed together, but they are indeed correct on their moisture levels. Before you come up with a sticky dough you should have been following the amounts for each ingredient closely. So you should have never come up short or heavy on any ingredient. If the finished raw dough is sticky it's USUALLY supposed to be that way when the mixing is completed and before the item is baked. Except in the rare case that there was a miss print of the recipe. What I do and reccomend is refridgerating a sticky dough (as already mentioned) until it begins to firm the butter back up in the dough, then handle it to shape and bake. Although I scoop all my doughs right after mixing them, and then refridgerate or freeze them (then bake from a cold or frozen state). To releive your worries test bake a cookie or two right away. See how they turn out after baking and cooling, then as a last resort add a tiny bit more flour. Then re-test bake a couple cookies from that attempt. Again slowly add more flour. But in my experience if the recipe is that far off with the flour in the beginning adding more isn't going to help you. You may just have one of those poopie non-working recipes. But eliminate any problems from the beginning and measure your ingredients correctly.

I think chefpeon gave you some really solid advice!

I think Karen already mentioned this.........but I too add scraps to other pieces of dough that haven't ever been rolled out. Instead of pushing them all together and making a seperate crust out of them. If you do mash them all together, you'll usually find them hard to roll out because of the gluten development. If you want to use up your scraps make them into garnishes like leafs to apply to the baked crust or at least re-chill the dough for the gluten to relax again. No, they won't give you as flaky of results like dough only handled once.

Wow, thank-you .....what a great description. Can I ask you what aproximate percentage of the book pertains to baking verses cooking? ......even though I already know I must buy this.

My recipe is at work..........I tried to find it online where I orginally found it, but didn't have any luck. I'll post it asap. Have you found the Gartner recipe at Marthas? What are you pairing with this? Iga's (maybe it's Inga?) recipe is a lightish colored cake where as my suggestion of a variation on a carrot cake will still be dark like a fruit bread. The thing is, that moist coconut contains alot of sugar and most pro's want to control that by using a non-sweetended coconut. The only recipe where I really notice the sugar level in the moist coconut is when I make coconut macaroons, I do adjust down the amount of sugar I use in that recipe.

I've done similar Jason where I've baked off cookies and let the kids decorate their own. I use almost the same frosting as you but I don't add any shortening or butter. I use xxxsugar thinned with heavy cream or half and half (milk makes the frosting thinner) and flavoring (usually vanilla but sometimes lemon or almond). I don't follow a recipe for this I just slowly add my cream until I've reached a thick spreadable consistancy. I also like this frosting for this application because it's cheap and easy/fast to put together and kids like really sweet frosting. If you dipped the baked cookies in a base color like white, purple or scarie green and let them dry completely. Then all the kids do is add the drawing/artistic touches to this.....it keeps the mess down and gives them a better looking finished product. This way you supply a smaller amount of frosting in disposible pastry bags (less waste) and they draw with them like crayons. If you give them open bowls of frosting where they can dip a spatula back into the frosting as they work, they'll get tons of crumbs in the frosting ruining it fairly quickly. I've done gingerbread houses for them to decorate too, for those I do give them royal icing because they try to save them.

DiH, if your dough is tearing that easily, it's too dry. I lift and turn for the reasons JayBassin mentions.

Ah, yes you can't use dissicated coconut (I don't even keep it around myself) as is, it is a sponge. You can either moisten it by sprinkling h2o or try coconut milk until it becomes moist and sticky like the kind you find in grocery stores. Thats what I do if they accidently order in dry coconut at my work. I moisten it in a ziplock baggie............like if I was trying to color the coconut. Best yet, start with really moist coconut. I like the moist stuff you get at the grocery store...........it makes the best coconut baked goods, imo. I know I descent from commonly accepted practices here, but I never/rarely use dissicated coconut. It's too dry!!! Only good for meringues. It has to take liquids away from your recipe to rehydrate. If not, you can't even taste it. I also don't like it's texture rehydrated as well as other moist consumer types of coconut. Try a couple recipes comparing the two, I'll be shocked if you don't like the moist coconut more. Also back to the carrot cake...........sans carrots.........it all depends upon your recipe. I make a super moist carrot cake that uses oil not butter and it isn't "cake like" it's very dense and moist.

You never know who might respond here on this thread.......... but chances are if you posted this question in our Cooking Forum you'd get more responses and recipes.

Depending upon your recipe and how you bake it, neither cake really is superior to the other, both will do fine. I wrap plastic wrap around the exterior of my cut cakes to prevent the edges from drying. I doesn't touch the top of the cake to ruin you frosting. Take long stripe of plastic wrap and fold them down to the height you want.

Hum.........if you have a recipe you love, you could make a carrot cake with-out carrots, replace it with coconut. My favorite coconut cake recipe comes from Iga Gartener (I hope I spelled her name right). I think I got it over on Martha S.'s site. It fits your description pretty well.......depending upon how you bake it.

I guess I work it similarly to jgarner53...........I pick it up frequently giving it turns, randomly so as I'm rolling out I'm keeping the round shape always.. I choose how I should roll the dough to keep it in a circular shape by thinning out the thickest area of dough along the way.

O.k. I for one am confused. The recipe of making a simple pastry cream (sans eggs) seems clearly different to me then the recipe posted by lapasterie, am I alone? French buttercream involves eggs, not cooked flour and completely different techniques........I can't put any similarities together. Chefcyn could you post a reference/source or recipe where you learned that this is an old french butter cream recipe please?

Wow, this is the first time I'm learning this. Unless I'm misunderstanding something, this is not what's been widely known/taught in pastry. So are you saying that it's the moisture in the dough that creates the steam.........and does that then apply to all similar fat layered baked goods (like pie crust or danish)? ......seem to me it would have to..........

Never having been in the same building as a paco, I'm way behind in understanding it. Steve, you wrote," use that pulzerized powder" in reference to the orange peel are you saying that spinning the peel doesn't create a paste? And is the cooling/freezing action optional in the paco........can you run it with-out chilling down what it's spinning?