Wendy DeBord

... totally in that camp! I am floored by your creations and whim. That club is unbelievably lucky to have you there. Thank you for sharing your work with us Wendy! ← Oh good.....I was worried. Thank-you for reading along.

Hi Jason, glad to see you here. The books question: yes I do own all three books. Herme's has NOTHING at all on individual plating. Both Bau's and Balaguer's books have plating that I can't do in this kitchen. They involve last second plating totally and multiple components. I try to even avoid scoops of ice cream on a ala carte dessert. My desserts have to be a one reach in to the cooler for the guys. The guys plating my stuff work darn hard and I can't ask them to do more work and expect them to get it right everytime. Sooooo plating........hum. To tell you the truth I wouldn't pick any of those three choices for books on plating, their too limited. I would be more then happy to talk in more detail about which books I like for plating in the Baking & Pastry Forum when I'm done blogging.....just because I'm so limited on time right now with work and blogging. Oh by the way, anyone who has been kind enough to pm me the last several days............I'm so sorry I haven't responded. I don't mean to be rude, just very short on time at the moment...........life will get back to normal (ish) next week......... and I'll be bored then and wishing I was still blogging, so I'll chat everyone ears off then.

Hum.........I must have screwed up and posted the same item twice........? Sorry I haven't had time to double check my writing and work. This blogging thing is more time consuming then it appears on the outside looking in. Ah thinking more about this............. the barn cake (actually the theme was Old McDonald) and the Barney cake were both done for the same child. That mom has big parties for this child and will pay for my time.

Hi there. I got out of work at a decent time, only 7 1/2 hours today........... I have really good hours for a pastry chef. Today was a "pick at it day" to describe my eating. I strolled into work at 9:30 am and got busy on the ladies luncheon party due at noon, so I didn't stop to eat any "breakfast cookies".........like the other day. I made the ladies pineapple tartlets using puff pastry squares we buy in already cut (hows that for lazy!). I slapped some pastry cream on each and then fresh cut pineapple (which was pretty ripe if my photos colors don't show that). This grossly underbaked one I ate. I just wanted to see what it was tasting like so I knew what kind of sauce or accompiment it would need. This is an 'in the oven' photo shot. I served these tarts warm, straight from the oven to their plates and I couldn't work and document that part for you. Instead you've sort of got a preview, while I was pacing around waiting for them to finish. Notice the horrible rise I got on the puff pastry................! Someone must have left the box of these out for too long because the dough had no poof at all. That's not unusual. The hot side really abuses puff pastry. The things they do with it never have rise, so they don't seem to understand the whole concept. Oh well. So what those tarts needed was some sauce and whipped cream. The whipped cream is to take you back to a base/vanilla every bite or so.........I mentioned this before, it's how I eat, I think your tongue gets used to a taste and can't appreciate the flavor after eating several bites. The sauce was auesome even though the following photo looks gross. I pureed fresh pineapple and added some grated fresh gingerroot and vanilla. I LOVE that taste combo........the pineapple and gingerroot (light on the ginger) are good/fresh then the splash of vanilla makes it pop. While I was in the upstairs kitchen plating up I nibbled on some pork roast that was conviently left on the slicer: That took care of my hunger for quite a while so I never sat down to a formal "lunch". But it didn't fill me so that's what made this a "pick at it" day. Anything laying around was fair game for my mouth. hum.............that's sort of typical when you work in a kitchen. We nibble on anything that looks good and sometimes stuff that doesn't look so good. I made some danish today. Naturally they weren't my best. God or whom ever, likes to torture me and throw me bombs when I try to show off. Or is that Murphys Law...............I'm not sure which but which ever it is, it sure keeps me in check! As soon as I brag, I trip! I'm jinzed that way...................... Someone (I can't stop now and go look cause I'm scared I might loose this huge post) had asked if I'd make bear claws the other day and I shot my way thru making danish to share that. Second fold: AND CRASH! Oops............the table I roll out items on, has wheels on the bottom. The wheels have locks, but naturally..........they don't work and no one cares to fix it because no one other then me rolls dough on it. So boom, the bowl of flour rocked off the table. I guess it's my fault really I was distracted playing photo documentary women. AND I shouldn't have put my flour in a glass bowl, but I was saving my stainless ones because they were running low already. I cleaned things up and went back to rolling and shaping danish. Here's the rest: Heres my frangipane being made to fill the request for bear claws. I put too much filling in! Don't follow this example: About this time my buddy Izzy came in to work. He's the night salad person and my best buddy. He's Mexican and cute as the dickens.........tall (yep), dark and handsome. Anyway I had to stop and hear all about his love life. That's the norm. Everyday theres something new to share on that topic. He's quite the ladies man...........and I LOVE to tease him about that.........then he just gobbles that up. Anyway............Izzy makes these h.d plates each table gets for free! It consists of basicly a relish tray. Theres carrots and celery sticks, a cheese whip (ish) thing, olives and pickles..........and the best part: these salami rolls. It's a slice of salami with a herb cream cheese piped into the center, then he rolls them into corinets. I grabbed a couple of them...........well I just grab the unmade ones and make my own so not to be eating his work: I did do a whole bunch of other things today...........but it's hard to work and take photos. Heres a mini birthday cake I had to make (they aren't normally this small). It's a marble cake, chocolate mousse filling and buttercream frosting. This is how I ALWAY decorate my b-day cakes at this club, it's sort of my "house style" here. At other clubs I had other designs. I change up the frosting or icing....whatever they choose and so sometimes this is a white on white design or a chocolate on chocolate design to match the cakes flavors. I always put a chocolate plastic bow on top of my cakes and make a "gift tag" to put the writing on. Oh, I make my bows, those aren't bought in. I should show you my garnishes cabinet and that would explain a little about how I make up these things and store them, so when I'm busy I can just pop on a bow or flower and go. I snacked a little more along the way: I did NOT eat that whole thing. It was a scrap from another project and I only picked at it. I think I've come to the end of my photos from work today. All that's left for eating today is dinner at home:..........guess what it's going to be? 'Take out' of course. Last night my husband picked dinner and had to run to pick it up. Tonight I chose Chinese and had to make the run. That is a huge portion..........and I sure did eat the WHOLE plateful! It was moo shu chicken served American style. That's like stuffing it like a buritto......none of that polite thin rolls. The other dish is garlic shrimp. I washed down dinner with another wonderful bottle of GRAPEeeeeeeee h20. I sure am sick to death of that flavor! I got hooked on that h20 stuff when I attempted the Atkins diet a year or two ago. I used to drink alot of diet pop and that didn't fit into their diet. I should drink plain water and I certainly do drink it. But I choose to drink flavored water then it's going to sit out at room temp. for extended hours. I just don't like plain water at room temp., but strangely enough I like any other drink left at room temp.. So someone will probably ask me "why room temp. am I too lazy to get ice"? The short answer to that is no. The detailed answer is my teeth are very cold sensitive and I don't mind room temp. flat sodas or drinks. I've grown used to consuming 'whatever'. I think many people who work in kitchens become that way. You get so overwhelmed with work and racing around that you just can't take care of 'what you want' cravings, instead you always settle for whatever's around.

Usually I freeze unwrapped because the plastic crushes your work. Then as soon as it's frozen I wrap them. I like to use large plastic bags we have, I can get things pretty air tight with those. I never stablize my whipped cream.....it's just normal. I'm always confused about this issue because I get asked about often. If you whip your cream long enough so it's firm, it will hold up for several days perfectly. Thank-you Kevin. No one else has any questions or thoughts.........am I boring you?

Hi. I'm running late this morning but I'll post some photos quickly in hopes to keep you interested......... Breakfast was exactly the same fake cappiccino in the same red plastic mug in my first post to this thread. It's not very exciting, sorry..........but the mug was fresh and clean. I certainly tasted and had some of every following item. These are just random photos I had in my computor.......a couple are cropped but most of them are unedited and I wish I did have time to sort thru and give you better shots..........but.........

I had a little extra time before I fall asleep tonight so heres a couple random photos from a seafood night we recently had. The room was really this dark and it was sort of romantic. The sandcastle is all cake. Peppermint meringue cookies piped like lobsters. I made white chocolate sea shells and dusted with with luster dust: I brought in plates I own for this buffet.......so don't go thinking we own anything decent at work. The fun thing about this dessert is I made fish candies out of sugar using an antique mold I own and so it was fish swimming around in the flan syrup: The blue bubble sugar garnish doesn't show well in this photo, sorry. I've just been randomly picking out photos to upload. I wish I had more time then I'd choose better shots and items. But I'd be happy to post more photos and talk more in depth about anything you see in my blog, later in the Pastry & Baking Forum. Thanks for letting me share. I hope you'll come back tomarrow. Good night.

Awesome photos everyone!!!!!!!!!!!! I want to welcome you Ohmyganche to The eGullet Society For Arts & Letters! Wonderful first post, I hope to see alot more! Tony13, I'd kill to have those plates to work on. Great job!! I'll join in with some photos too when I'm done blogging next week.

Look at the very top of this whole eGullet page. On the top right side you'll see "Imagegullet". Click on that. We down load our photos into imagegullet and then choose the IMG box (it's dirrectly above where you type by the bold, Italic, Underline, Font options) and cut and paste our image thru the IMG box. Your images must be under 640 pixels to load, so you may have to edit your photo down. We have a whole Technical Forum that's located on our main page, it's toward the bottom of the page (maybe 3/4's of the way down). If you look in there, there is a huge thread on how to post photos with really easy to follow pictures that make loading photos very easy. I have tons more questions about this topic. and your work, I'm temporarily very busy with blogging but I will return to this thread asap.

Since everyone has answered your question I just wanted to chime it something. That coconut cake is to die for. It's the perfect coconut cake.......well she calls them cupcakes, but I bake it in full size pans too.

Well, I can tell it's spectacular! Great job! Oh, I used to work at a job that had those exact plates.........

It's totally the secret to every pc's production all day everyday, it's as important as my oven to me.

Actually it's hard to see in the photos I chose, but the wires are supporting gum paste butterflies...........they are suposed to be flying around the bunnies. I put the butterflies all thru the buffet. Those are the only wires.

I gave them to the waitstaff as sort of presents. After all we all worked hard on the holiday and no one wants to go home and cook or bake.

The beauty of the garbage bag is how dirt cheap they are. Use it once and pitch it, plus earily in the day you can use it to double line your garbage pail. I use plastic wrap/saran wrap over my smaller mixers and the one that has a shield..........that's lovely cause it contains the mess better then open mixers, even though it's challenging to work with.

No way....really? That's weird......... Breakfast..........hum.........you'll see. Like I plan that out, you forgot I only eat what handy imediately.

One huge rational is time. Good lord theres never enough time in this job for how much they need. Using a cake mix here or there is a huge time saver and for white and yellow cakes I've yet to find the "perfect" recipe. Oops, I forgot I do have that white cake recipes........I just haven't disclosed that here yet. AND the yellow cake is how it came when my Chef purchased from a broker. The yellow cake slightly contrasts with the lemon mousse and lemon frosting. I could have baked a lemon cake and have a decent recipe or two for them, but too much lemon is too much lemon. I'm a HUGE believer in ying and yang flavoring and I adore sweet and salty. Or.......well probably the most often I include a vanilla (often it's vanilla whipped cream or anglaise sauce) as a contrast to whatever flavors are going on in a dessert. I find I want to come back to something vanilla as a palate cleanser in most desserts so the brightest flavor can be highlighted instead of using too many other flavors that compete with it. I also use alot of Fleur de sel on my desserts. Sweet great highlighted by salt. Hope that answered your question?

I'd be happy to own more regular round cake pans................gosh no, we don't have any shaped pans that's not in the budget. Once upon a time my Mom used them (my Mom was a pastry chef/caterer) and I decorated the baked cakes. I find them actually harder to use and do a decent job then cutting the cakes myself. I know other decorators would tell you the same thing.

You noticed! Actually I have more chocolate books that don't fit on that shelf. I had to scatter those.

I absolutely do! I live it day and night, even my days off often involve something work related.

Exactly my question! How did you make the ears? Royal icing? The carrots at the back? The large Easter egg is awesome! Styrofoam? ← The ears are made from gum paste. It's a edible pastry dough that dries hard..........but it's not something you'd want to eat. I made those at home the night before, so I had no idea what size to make them. I had to cut the cakes to match the ears which is backwards working. The large egg is completely edible! It's molded sugar. All the items in and on it our edible. The rabbits are made from gum paste and the carrots are made out of royal icing. The butterflies are also gum paste and the flowers piped on the exterior of the egg are all done in royal icing. I'm glad you like it! Thanks.

Yes, they are all cake, with a couple of drinking straws used for support dowels.

Yes, if you pay we have several different types of memberships and one is just dining privilages. The origin of my old user name...........it was my cat that passed aways name. Oh I sure do own Simply Sensational Desserts! It's another Great book!!! I've made almost everything in that one. Maybe I missed uploading a shot or two from my book shelfs (I did find the problem I was having yesterday with photos, my Kodak software has got a problem and it is freezing on me). Opinions, YES SIR, I LOVE Payard, his work is brilliant. I must add I only know his published work (his recipes I've baked), I've never eaten anything he's actually made.

Hi, I'm back. I will admit I'm pretty tired..........I stayed up about 4 hours past my normal bed time last night to post. I'd say I put in 6 hours yesterday on the computor, total. BUT I'm having fun because it seems like others are interested.....and that makes it worthwhile! I began my morning like every morning, a fake mug of cappuccino and nothing else. Work was real work this morning, a huge hussle and stress to meet deadlines. I had baked off my cakes and slapped them together with lemon mousse right before I left last night. I put them in the freeze overnight (as usual), that's my method of handling cakes.......it's much easier when their frozen. We had a party for 100 due at noon plus I was stressing over getting my ala carte items done. Under my own pressure, because what I had in the cooler was old and I didn't want anyone to buy it. I needed 6 cakes to get my servings for the lunch party......then I made two extra because I'll need them for Sundays brunch, I froze them. (sorry, the lighting from this angle in my room apparently isn't good) Soooooooooooooooo, it's a bit shocking huh? Yes, we sell sliced cake. Nothing fancy on this party. Hey, it's all about money and they wanted cheap so I was dirrected to give them cheap. Told you all how average this job is. Notice our plates........they are horrible. THICK white salad plates, our banquet dinner plates are the same. Nothing could ever look elegant on them! So I rarely try to take an elegant approach using them. After that was done I dived into my ala carte work. I didn't have anything to eat until 2:00 p.m. when I finished. Beleive me I was hungry. I did nibble on a few bits/scraps here and there, but nothing much, really just tasting for things to be right on. Sweets weren't turning my crank today. I think I inhaled too much xxxsugar while making frosting for the lemon mist cakes cause I lost my appetite from then on.......well, until my stomach screamed at me. The next set of photos is a continuation of my ala carte desserts that I showed you yesterday in my blog. First up is my Savannah cake (it's the angelfood cake and light custard): This is just after unmolding, their still frozen. I ran out of pans yesterday (that's a painful reality of how under-equiped we always are in the pastry kitchen) and had to find my bread pans to mold this in. This will get served with raspberry sauce with whole raspberries in it. The reason being, we never have fresh raspberries (or at least it's only on huge club events that we do), so it's frozen or nothing. Next dessert is the tiramisu tart. I'm not happy at all with how I had to finish this. I had planned on spraying it with chocolate, but I forgot to freeze it so I could spray it. Instead I gave it a dusting of cocoa powder, heavy dusting because it will fade in the cooler. This is the keylime cake. I threw this together using left over items from my freezer and "wong it". It's a green joconde (cake) wrapped around the outside. Then it's got a layer of keylime mousse, layer of white chocolate ganche, layer of lemon chiffon cake, layer of strawberry mousse, more ganche and then topped with white chocolate coated corn flakes. After it was completed I inbeded more white chocolate corn flakes into the bottom for it's crust. I like contrasting textures and a little crunch with a cake goes well. Next: my brownie cake/torte (I forget at the moment how i wrote it up). Since this is geared toward kids and non-dessert eaters I got a little playful........I haven't put a marishio cherry on a dessert in.........forever. But I started thinking about Pierre Herme's "cherry on the top cake" and I, well, just had fun. Around the bottom edge is pressed on chocolate covered rice crispies. The white design on top is white cocoa butter airbrushed on (I would have liked to have used color, but I know my clients would be scared to try it then). This is something I've talked about may times in the P & B Forum. It's more commonly done on chocolates but I airbrush on anything and everything. The photo of my airbrush is to show you it's broken! I suppose that won't matter to anyone but me.......it's spitting instead of spraying. Last, should be my Chef's Special the peanut butter pie: pretty basic for the timid. (pooh, I forgot to upload it, I'll post it later). I should mention something about our plating. The day and night salad guys plate the desserts, I don't. They have several homemade sauces to choose from for plating and also fresh fruit (strawberries, grapes, pineapple, oranges, etc.. but nothing exoctic cause we're cheap). I attempted to make individual desserts for ala carte as is the norm in all decent dinning. BUT when I did that, nothing sold! I believe it scared them because my clients are middle income dinners, not foodies, not well traveled, not upper class They also can imediately recognize when the emperior has no clothing on, their a tough crowd that way. So I've accepted that as I accept doing the type of work they want, that's my job. You can't really judge a person by their job and I hope you won't count that against my abilities. I can certainly do fine dinning.......but this isn't the job that is fine dinning. I'm a firm believer in giving people what they want so long as I can do it as well as I can. Our ala carte desserts do get plated on a nice plate. I'll upload a photo of those later. I have to appologize...........I had written I'd make napoleons for my ladies lunch tommarrow but I really do need to make something that can be done even quicker. All of the sudden I've got a TON of work and I've got to do my job first before this type of extra ciricular activity. Oh I lost my place..........Yes, so after making those ala carte desserts I finally sat down to lunch. I asked for a hamburger, rare.....again no garnish. I'm running out of fruit2o's so it looks like it's grape again! I buy them at Sam's Club and they didn't have the case I normally buy, boo on them. After lunch I had many other things to work on which I couldn't stop to photograph, sorry. But I did get a couple shots of making my bliz danish dough. Well it's not "mine". I really like the danish recipe from "Baking With Julia" written by Dorie Greenspan and everyone at work loves it so much I rarely can make any other breakfast pastry. I made 8 double batches. This is how I go about doing this recipe in bulk. I was thinking today it's time to make this in the mixer like I do my pie dough, the cusinart thing I do have down to an art time wise but it's silly. I measure out all my wet ingredients, then all my dry. Then I mix together and retart it overnight in the cooler. I'll roll these out tommarrow.

I've been collecting for several years now and I do have more "better books" then any book store around. I really enjoy my books.....I'm sort of a book-a-cholic. Any book published on Herme's work or by him and Dorie Greenspans books are really knock outs. I do use ALOT of recipes I've gathered from Chocolatier magazine and Pastry Art & Design..........and recipes I've gotten from people here at eG.