Wendy DeBord

For years now I've seen recipes for tirimisu and each recipe practically uses a different liquour...........so I've never really been sure which liquour to use or what combo is correct. So I'm all eyes.........can someone ditto Afn33282 with certainty?

Hey, I missed that. Where?

Welcome to The eGullet Society For Arts & Letters KathyF.

I've had Andiesenji's candied ginger and it is too die for.............so if your serious that's who's info. I'd start with!

I've been meaning to personally welcome your to The eGullet Society For Arts & Letters LCS...............please forgive me for not saying so earilier. O.k............I feel embarrassed to have to ask this because I should know who is who, but I don't. I'm sorry, I'm just horrible with names. Would anyone who particpated in this exhibit be willing to reveal what their real name is? No pressure..........just interest.

I know of a pc position that would start you at 35k maybe more and pay benefits (pay you to take classes too). Still be a one man department, plus have the time to experiment, etc... I know of other pc jobs starting at 30K in the same area..... But it involves changes and maybe doing things your not so interested in doing.

To explain: If you bought almond flour and or hazelnut flour thru a reliable source like King Arthur, what you recieved was those flours. They wouldn't need to be processed further. The instructions where your supposed to process the nuts with the sugar is to make the flour. But if you bought nut flour, you wouldn't need to process it further so you'd pass that part of the recipe. Nut flours are not as fine as other flours. They are indeed rather course and will not sift thru a strainer completely. The part where you say your meringue started to deflate before you piped out the second disk...........my guess would be that you either didn't whip your eggs stiff enough before you folded in your nut flour or you over mixed in your flour deflating your batter. You really didn't make any obvious mistakes....I think I made both when I began.

Yes, thank-you for explaining akwa.

Altaf, this is the recipe I've been using for tiramisu (the recipe comes from my chef and I'm not sure where he got it from). It doesn't use gelatin at all. 1 quart heavy cream 1 lb. mascarpone 4 oz. powder sugar 8 egg yolks (I use pasturized raw egg product) 1/4 c. amaretto 1/4 c. frangelico Put all of those ingredients into you mixer at once. Use a whisk attachement and whip this until full and firm like whip cream. In a seperate bowl, whip this: 8 egg whites (again I use pasturized eggs) 4 oz. powdered sugar Whip until firm then fold this into your mascarpone mixture. Is it that you can't use eggs of any sort or is it that you don't want to use uncooked eggs? If you can use eggs, look for pasteurized eggs to avoid salmonella worries..........and you could use meringue powder in place of fresh whites. If you can't use eggs at all, you can make this recipe omiting them...........it will work but it will me more of a marscapone whip cream then a true tiramisu. For my soaking syrup I use: 3 c. coffee 1/2 c. amaretto 1/2 c. frangelico 2 tbsp. coffee extract all mixed together. If you can't use real alcohol.........aren't there bottle of flavoring that are similar sans alcohol? If you can't find that just use a slightly sweetened rich dark coffee... This tirimisu recipe is not firm enough to use in a cake. I assemble this recipe in glasses. Method: Pipe some marscarpone mousse in glass. Quickly dip purchased firm lady fingers in coffee syrup lightly, layer over mousse, sprinkle with cocoa powder. Add another mousse layer, followed by another ladyfinger layer, sprinkle with cocoa powder. Do this until your glass is full. Finish with a top sprinkle of cocoa powder or chocolate curls. I add a sprinkle of cocoa powder to each layer of my lady fingers. Traditionally you only add it to the top layer. But I like the extra cocoa.

I have to respectfully disagree. A cracked cheesecake is one that is poorly made and or baked. The density of the cheesecake has nothing to do with whether the cake cracking or not. A cheesecake is basicly a baked custard with cheese in it. If it's over baked or baked in too hot of a oven it will crack because the eggs have been over cooked. I don't believe cheesecakes crack because of surface tention or even mixing method (if you incorporated too much air). Personally I find time after time that secret to perfect cheesecakes is correct baking/handling.

The recipe I use for strawberry or raspberry mousse comes from Pierre Herme's book, La Patisseried De Pierre Herme', page 33. The ingredients are: 700 g fruit pulp (raspberry puree or strawberry puree room temp or warmer) 15 g lemon juice 25 g. gelatin leaved 400 g. Italian meringue (I often us instant meringue power) 500 g light cream (I use heavy cream) Soften the gelatin in cold water. Whip your meringue and you cream seperately. Drain gelatin, then heat to melt/dissolve it. Temper in some of the puree then add the mixture back into the puree. Fold in your whites then your cream. This mousse freezes perfectly. To make a lemon filling, I might use a lemon curd or a lemon mousse or use Herme's lemon cream as written. You can add some gelatin to Herme's lemon cream filling to further stabilize it if you want. I'd probably add about 3 sheets per recipe. The fillings and cake flavors are your choice. For a chocolate filling I'd use a chocolate mousse recipe and probably coat/frost my cake with ganche. I often use additional flavorings in my chocolate mousse, items like orange oil, lemon oil, cinnamon, ets... Do you need recipes for chocolate mousse and lemon mousse or are you familar with them? For the cake portion.........you really can use any cake you like. You can use a cake mix if you want, or make a chiffon, genoise, etc.... . I can't recall what I did in the photo your mentioning specificly. How I assemble this type of petite four: After baking your cakes, level them........hopefully you did bake off thin layers, or else you need to slice them. Then freeze your cake until firm (I use cake cardboards underneath my cakes to carry them around). Melt some chocolate and frost one side of your cake layer (the side you want down) thinnly with the chocolate. Return it to the freezer. Make you filling, when the filling is made pull you cake layers out of the freeze. Put the cake layer with the chocolate on it, chocolate side down in your pan (In a pan so it holds the mousse in place while it's setting up). Pour mousse over the cake, add top layer of cake and refreeze. Once it's solidly frozen I unmold the whole cake(by applying heat to the pan) and reinvert it so the chocolate side is down. Then I frost the top of my cake with anything I like from ganches to frostings and flavored whipped creams. As the cake just so lightly begins to defrost but is still quite firm I cut the whole cake into petite fours using a clean warm knive. Working with the cake while frozen prevents dents and lets you handle them with-out damage. I then refreeze my petite fours until an hour or two before serving. Through-out this process I'm never letting my cakes completely defrost until I'm ready to serve them. HTH?

I can reccomend the recipe for cassata in the book, Spago Chocolate written by Mary Bergin and Judy Gethers, published by Random House. It's very good!! I do one thing different then how they've published the instructions. I found their cake to be a bit too thin to layer, so I bake individual cakes for each layer.

Welcome to The eGullet Society For Arts & Letters Tekna! I hope you try out some of the suggestions previously made. Everyone has mentioned and pointed out any and every thought I've thought of that could help you on this cake. Genoise is not always an easy cake for people learning. I do find there to be slight differences in taste and handling in recipes published in baking books geared for a general mass market verses those geared toward professionals. In such case, I too reccomend Herme's recipe over Roses' and Flos'.

Welcome to The eGullet Society For Arts & Letters RuthWells! I'm glad your enjoying our site.

Akwa, I've never done and can't really visualize these two items you've mentioned. Would you please elaborate a little more? A photo would speak volumes if you have any. I don't know the word "siphons" to understand that dessert, would you please define/explain the word? Thank you.

Briefly, I want to mention that we've had many threads in the past discuss this. If you page thru our older threads in this forum you definately will find every answer you can think of regarding baking cheesecakes and doing so in large quantities, plus recipes. Personally I use any and every cheesecake recipe in any pan or mold I choose. Any cheesecake recipe can be baked in multiple forms. The most important thing is learning about these cakes/custards. Your method of mixing and baking greatly influence the success of your recipe. There is no single right or wrong way to bake or mix a cheesecake.........and anyone whom tells you there is, is wrong. Unlike other cakes that need the correct pan to rise in, cheesecakes are more like custards and can be handled like them. And if you learn how professionals handle them (freezing to unmold), you'll learn that you can really bake these in any pan type.

Maybe it's just me, but I still find the answers to be more complicated. First......... artisticly...........hum.......sometimes breaking the mold/going against tradition is what the art is exploring. Modern art verses the classics. Both are valid. I've always enjoyed art that broke rules, that made you uncomfortable, made you think or question whether that took place in modern art or classic. I believe that should and can take place in confectionary that is developed into an art. I can't really say that I've seen more then one item of confectionary pushing this envelop and that makes me wonder what this original post is referring to? (Just to clarify things........I see talking about taste and looks as two seperate things. The taste is first and foremost, even though I haven't mentioned it in my responses in this thread yet.) I don't see the analogy to the broken windshield as others have. The car is a mass produced item, each is not hand created by the artist. Each is not a unique piece, it's more of a limited edition reproduction. Yes, I agree that fine craftsmen build them, but they aren't building "art". Where as if a artist buildt me a car themselves as a piece of art, and they broke the windshield as part of their work of art, yes I would of course accept it, gladly as their artistic statement. But you don't buy (time parishable expensive) fine art from artists that you don't admire and understand (even though you might buy non-edible fine art as a commodity). If your want fine craftmenship, seek out a fine craftsmen. A fine craftsmen is slightly differently defined in my head. And I do believe that the application of the words artist and craftsmen do apply to edible goods...and may or maynot be used interchangably depending upon the specifics. Second is how the artist or craftsmen makes a living at their craft or not. Few artists make a living off their original pieces where as a majority of artist can and do make a living off of their more mass produced pieces. Theres alot of factors in the world/society that work against the artisian. Theres only so many high end buyers willing to pay for the artists time and they can't support all the artists in the world. To erk out a living an artist might have to find many different avenues to support themselves so they can stay alive doing their work. As Cotovelo mentioned he's been doing this for 12 years and just now is controling the terms in which he makes confectionary. New artisians often don't realize the amount of time and compromises artists made and make to finally achieve this stand/level. And the risk of trends knocking down you empire or unethical people stealing your product and selling similar at a lower price point is tremendous.

No matter whom or how they are using them, if they do it well, theres a place for it in my opinion.

Yes, exactly! It does take an educated consumer, too. It's also very subjective just like fine art..........so the consumer really needs to understand the process to know how to judge the quality. I'm not sure how many real artists are slapping out inferior work. But believe me you get TRAPPED in the pricing delemia. AND it's a huge delemia!!

OH MY......how I love thos close-ups!! No, of course hand painting is more difficult and skilled work. There is no comparision except to the over all design qualities. I think the printed images have their place and they really have their place in busy kitchens. They do allow you to be a graphic designer, which is a very skilled and artistic position........

Once upon a time I thought mousses never contained gelatin..........until I started working out of some expensive French pastry books. I've always disliked gelatin products, I don't much care for jellies of any sort. BUT after I tried some of Herme's mousse recipes I discovered that you really can't detect the gelatin in his mousses. He doesn't over use them. Theres just enough to make the mousse set, that's it. Then I discovered that theres alot of other chefs that have also used gelatin modestly and it isn't just a Herme' thing. What it was, was a thing of the past. Older baking books did over use gelatin in too large of quantities. So what you've seen in my blog are all mousses. I do make bavarians..........but not that often. I'm not aware of any basic proportions one can follow when flavoring whip cream. I really do do it to taste.......and usually I'm pretty liberal. Some flavorings can weaken the stability of your whipped cream, some add to the stability. You can also look at doing this from another perspective. Many pastry books have you whip the cream and then fold in the accenting flavor. I've found by trial that I can add those flavors in before I whip my cream and that gives me the most stable product. For example, my tirmisu. In my bowl I whip together all at one time, my marscarpone, heavy cream, liquours, egg yolk until it's full and thick, like whip cream. Instead of whipping my cream and folding the other ingredients into it. When making large batches I also keep this in my mixer while I add my whipped egg whites and let the mixer fold together the two. The mixer with the whip attachment doesn't do any harm that hand folding doesn't.....if done responsibly. (I have to run to work now, I hope others will join in while I'm away.)

This is a pm from CanadianBaker that I'm posting in thread with her permission. Although she orginally dirrected her question to me, I hope that everyone knowledgable on the topic will jump in and particapate..........so we all can learn together. "I'm sorry, I'm technically challenged. I'm not sure how to get the pictures here but hopefully you can tell what I'm asking about by your comments. It's on page 6 of your blog. Looks like 2 layers of yellow cake with chocolate mousse, buttercream on top with a rosette and half a marbled cigarette. I'd like to make 4 of these in a 9x13 size with different flavoured mousses. I've done a bit of research now and realize that it's probably Bavarian Cream. I found a post you made on... I think it was Chef2Chef in 2001 or 2002 and it mentioned this. I've looked in a few cookbooks and have found limited advice although I haven't begun searching the net for Bavarian Cream yet. My CIA book has a basic recipe with the option of flavouring it strawberry with strawberry puree. I'd like to do a filling with Pierre Herme's lemon cream, raspberry puree, maybe one mocha and one Dulce de Leche. So my questions are, in the CIA recipe it calls for 8 oz of water or 8 oz of puree. How much lemon cream or Dulce de Leche or melted chocolate & coffee would I add when they aren't nearly as liquid as puree? Second, what type of cake did you use? Is it just a basic yellow cake or a chiffon? I'm not as practiced with chiffon so if that is what you used, would it be successful with a regular yellow or white cake instead? How much can I do before freezing it? Can I fill the cakes? Or can I go as far as icing and garnishing?"

I strongly agree with all the points made in Chefettes post above. You must first practice great craftsmenship, regardless of motive. In addition as an artist I want to see that items are indeed made by the artist themselves. I believe that reproductions that are hand done by the artist retain the value and title of "fine art". But when you use a machine that is set up by a human other then the artist and the reproductions are accomplished by that person (whether their using a machine or not)......those are not fine art pieces. I believe similarly when this process is used in manufacturing chocolates. Unless the chocolatier/artisian is participating in the process I don't see the product as having the same artistic value. In a world dominated by machines and mass production I highly value hand created work! One of the ways to set your work apart from others is to make them not look mass produced. How far you want to take that......is up to you. Ideally, I'd like to see chocolatiers design their own molds. I also think this should apply to world wide pastry competitions. I think all molds should be designed and made by the "artist" presenting this as "their' art/creation. Better yet, I'd love to see them make even their molds at the competition. This is something that really defines artists from craftsmen in my opinion........the artist can create the whole item from start to finish with-out another persons interaction. If you want a stencil, you create the stencil. If you want a pattern, you create the pattern. If you want to use a transfer sheet, you make it. If you want to use a mold (either to mass produce something or not) you the artist create the mold. I do intentionally try to make my work look different then what you can buy at a stores. I never want someone to mistake my work for someone elses or bought in product. Why would you want your work to be exactly like everyone elses? I do try to achieve perfection as outlined by Chefette even though I'm a long way from achieving it!! Sometimes I may be trying to achieve a "rustic" look and sometimes I'm not.........either style or any other, still must be made with as best of craftmenship as one can achieve. Artists/confectioners can hand create sleek contemporary designs just as they create rustic designs. The craftmenship should be the same even if the finish isn't. Unforunately, we all have to start as students before we become masters and in that process I find beauty in artists imperfect studies/work. When I see a master chocolatiers work have bubbles in it.......theres no excuse.......thats poor craftmenship verses artistic statement (well of course that could be argued too).

As I understand things, I look at it as theres two ways to do something like this. 1. So far this thread has talked about printing images onto an edible paper/sheet and then that is layed onto the cake. The better edible sheets really do dissolve into your buttercream and you can't detect any seperation as you eat it. Your placing on the image and then peeling away the non-edible sheet of paper that supports this thin edible paper as it's handled and printed on. 2. The other way I know of is there are printers that print edible ink dirrectly on gum paste, rolled fondant, chocolate plastic or any combo of those. You roll out your own dough so it could be any length. You do need to have the surface clean and the right texture (not to sticky nor too cornstarched). These systems are expensive (a place I worked at bought a used one about 10 years ago for somewhere between $5,000. and $10,000). When I did the cake mentioned in the thread previously linked to, this type of printer was used. The skill and knowledge to print using this method requires far more knowledge of colors and how the prints interact with your surface then the printed sheets method described above. At least as I saw it used, the owner really stuggled and rarely did a great job. I have to search for my links (I try to at another time) but I believe this is the method used by places like Elegant Cheesecakes and others. The first cake in the photos shown as examples with the yellow and white flower pattern............to me (not being able to see this in person) it appears to be not printed but a stencil has been used. Typically I think of stencils when I see a single color being used with such a simple pattern. In addition, I've done similar..........and Kerry Vincents book details this method down to even using a folding pattern when laying the patterned fondant on the cake......... The rest of the cakes look like they used edible sheets and transfered that onto their cake..........and not what I mentioned in my second method. The second method I mentioned, you can't get the fondant that thin and you probably wouldn't have wrinkles that appear quite like that. The "second methods" imperfections would prbably be, fondant that appeared to stretch and it would be thicker.

Not being familiar with Jaymes... I believe this is the Jaymes caramel popcorn being refered to.