Wendy DeBord

The lorann line is marginal, peach is a hard flavor for the best companies to reproduce. What do you want to put the peach flavoring into? In my experience you can't get a great peach flavor from anything but a real peach. The only way I know of to kick up peach, is using a compound or buying a puree which is very intense.

Patrick, with how serious of a baker you are and are becoming I highly suggest you consider investing in some compounds and the Boyajian line of oils. I really think you'll go crazy for what you can achieve with these better products. The stuff in the grocery stores is night and day different then what a good compound or oil can give to your product. I used orange compound in the carrots I did and it was really good tasting. I also used your strawberry cake recipe and used strawberry compound in place of the jello and the flavor is great, I know you'd love it!............ I know it's not always easy to buy everything you want.........but I really think you'd get excited over what you can do with those items.

Welcome to The eGullet Society For Arts & Letters Justcake! So I had to figure out who you are too...........hum, you were already bookmarked as one of my favorite sites. Your technique is flawless. Can I ask you, what method do you prefer to use to get your frosting so perfectly smooth?

I've been kind of wondering if your children eat everything you've shown or if they're like children in my country that pick thru their food? (This from a women who doesn't have children of her own) Children in the States seem to go thru stages of what they'll try and like. For instance I've know children that will only eat a small handful of items: like cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, french fries, crackers or cookies. Their taste buds reject stronger tasting foods or items that take effort to chew. Then in time they grow into eating more. The food you've shown you feed your family amazes me. Do Japanesse children go thru these difficult eating stages..........or is your relationship to food and it's costs prevent children from being so picky?

If she had a problem with $8.00 lb then it's best she walk, completely. She can't supply her own trained staff to make these (doesn't that seem strange, restaurants are total penny pinchers)..........then she knows that it takes some skill and skill costs money to hire.....and Sat. she doesn't have the time to make them either. I think once she thinks about this, she'll come back to you. I don't want to contradict Neil but I don't deliberately temper my chocolate for dipping strawberries (although I always add seed chocolate to my melted pot). Once the chocolate hits the cold strawberries it's set in seconds literally. I typically add a garnish like chocolate curls or chopped pistachios on my sb's too.........so you can hide imperfect chocolate if that inadvertently happens. If you wrap them in a tray bag right away you won't get condensation either.

I baked off some thin shortbread cookies today to set these on. I noticed that the cookie cutter I used was 1.5" and the petite four is just a hair smaller than that.....so, it's really a nice size. I'm going to really like this method........everything about it is better then the individual molds. You get really clean edges, tight seams from edge to edge, it's easy to unmold and cut, they take up less space in my freezer then similar, storing them whole helps keep them fresher because I have less exposed surface, etc.... I have to admit I need to do a little research on finishing these garnish wise. My job never has small berries on hand so I'll have to cut other fruits. I piped on some whipped cream and put a chocolate cigerette on one today just to get a look at the finished product...........that just didn't do it! It's going to take some detailed garnish to pull these off well. Plus I want to introduce more then cake filled with mousse on top of a shortbread cookie...........it calls for more texture to me.

Thank-you so much Kris for indulging me. Your life seems so different and then you show that cute photo of your son on the slide and your life seems so much more similar to mine. All aspects of your life fascinate me........ I've never even been across a ocean, so I'm very nieve. Your refridgerators' insides look alot like mine. I'm not certain why, but I was expecting it to be loaded with vegetables and nothing I'd recognize. When you mention getting paid once a month and having to budget out your spending....over all, do you consider your grocery costs to be a large drain on your income or is it minor?.....comparing it to an American way of life. I guess I'm asking if food is very expensive? I so envy your access to good seafood. I can't get fresh fish in stores near me and bad seafood is still more expensive then beef, pork and chicken. Do you eat shellfish like lobster, crab and shrimp on any regular basis? If so hows the price on those seafood items compared to fish? Thank-you so much for teaching me. P.S. I have too many questions, sorry.

Kris, I just read thru a previous blog you did on the New Year. It was WONDERFUL! I really enjoyed seeing your photographs....more then words can tell you. There were a couple issues that amazed and confused me. You don't have a dryer, oh my, so when the weather is bad what do you do? ........just put off doing laundry...but with 3 children that must be hard? Do you have private yards in which to hang your clothes? Also I'm confused by some of the photos of your food before cooking. It appears like alot of items are dried and come in packages, is that correct? I'm just assuming that because of the packaging looks like what I see in the asian grocery isles of my grocery stores....but maybe Japan has different packaging then in the States? Do you shop often? Is there any chance I could talk you into photographing what's in your refridgerator? I don't mean to be a snoop, it's just a basic curiosity (I'm like a kid that way, sorry), wondering how yours looks compared to mine........

This is very interesting Torakris! Stupid as this sounds I've never seen an example of "normal" daily life in Japan, only what's on tv as my window to the world so this is my introduction, thank-you. I love the concept of the children gathering and walking together.........I think it's brilliant and I wish my neighbors would learn of this and impliment it. In my part of the world people only look out for themselves so it's nice to see people come together. Do they do this for security or to be helpful? I have never managed to talk my husband into Japanese dining and I have been to scared to go it alone. So please forgive me I know next to nothing about your food. But I'm very curious/interested! The photo of the bento lunch, is that for 1 person? Also the homemade sausages have me stumped..........are the homemakers actually making meat sausages? Also do you send any sauces with for dipping? P.S. Your children are adorable!

Welcome to The eGullet Society For Arts & Letters Kelli!! I have assorted colors for chocolate, so I used colored white chocolate both to outline the flowers and to dip the greens of the carrots in.

Wait...........don't feel too bad........cause you've written some of my very favorite recipes! One blooper in a sea of auesome recipes is one hell of a track record!!!! In my trials (and I go thru tons of recipes) so far your neck and neck with P. Herrme for perfect home runs on every recipe. I made two of your Far Breton cakes last Sat. at work. Our staff devoured one cake behind my back and two people were begging me to make them their own cake to take home.

I did my joconde the day before filling and so I froze them to keep overnight. With a frozen cake everything put in it wants to stick/freeze to it. Once the cakes warmed up to room temp. it was much easier to fill. I did use mousses, that were freshly made and not set at all (Herme mousses). You'd have to have something even thinner to put in your center if you wanted to pour. Either pouring or using a pastry bag, your bound to get air pockets that will require tapping out.

You can use it to brown meringue on tartlets. You can unmold items molded in metal pans with-out dipping them in water that makes a mess.

I finally got my photo editing program re-installed. Sorry it took me so long to get to it. Finally, I can share photos of what I've been trying to discribe. This is how my order appeared as I opened the box. Notice the acetate sheets enclosed to help you insert your jonconde into the tube. This is my first febble attempt at inserting...when I attempted to use foil in the center of my joconde. This is what works. I'm sorry the photo isn't easier to understand (I can re-shoot some photos next time I fill these if you want?). The tube is to your right and the cake on the acetate sheet is to the left. As I insert the cake into the tube I've used the 1/2" over hang of the acetate to continue wrapping around the cake. The acetate sheets they send are 4.5" wide and when you cut your cake to exactly 4" wide the seems match up very well, tightly. Heres some more photos: I hope this helps. Have you had a chance to try this again Brian?

Good Job, Thornado! I bet everyone had a great time!

I make sorbets with-out a ice cream maker. You can definately make them earilier in the week. If they begin to get hard or soft or wierd (whatever way) put them in the blender as suggested and they turn out great.

National press is amazing!!! This isn't average or normal. Congratulations Mel!!

That's all I'm doing (any everyone else is doing), that's the whole point of contibuting online in this type of public forum. These types of threads aren't private diarys. We do feel pride and emotion for each other here as a group..........in alot of ways I feel very connected to everyone here. I feel like we are sitting down and sharing close thoughts and experiences like a group sitting down to have a drink together. Sometimes I have addressed Mel specificly in my words, sometimes I've just attempted to share what I've learned with anyone and everyone that might be reading. Don't forget we have people drop by whom are dreaming of opening a bakery. I want them to walk away seeing all sides of professional baking and ownership. We're here to educate, to serve a purpose.

Yes, yeild is 1 sheet pan for the joconde and petite four spounge. The paste yeilds 2 trays as posted. Yesterday when I made these I did x2 on the cigarette paste and it yeilded 5 sheet trays worth of paste to decorate with. The joconde I did x3 and I got 4 sheets out of it.......instead of the 3 that would be typical..........but I make my joconde THIN. Filling the tubes today started off as messy! ..........until I got better/wise filling them. It would have been nice to have someones assistance, but oh well. I found using a pastry bag and tapping the tubes on the counter worked the best filling them. The pain is you get air pockets and you have to really tap them out. I also found squeezing the tubes a little sort of burbs them too. This is something I'm sure everyone will get faster at as they become more agile and familar with the tubes. It's definately better then those individual plastic molds. Less mess and clean up too. I did take a couple photos but I can't load any until Monday because I have a software issue.

I recieved my order from PCB yesterday. I think that's pretty good service, about 1 week. Plus they gave me a freebie, a little puzzle chocolate mold. I began "playing" with my new toys today....so heres more details about the tubes. They come 10 tubes for each order. Each is like 23" long so the store nicely on a 24" sheet pan. I forgot to measure the diameter of the tubes today (I'll come back and tell you tommarow), I think they are 2" at the most (10 tubes fit easily on one sheet pan with space for more). They do come with plastic sheets (aprox. 100 sheets per order) and end caps. The plastic sheets are 4.5" wide and then you cut your joconde to exactly 4". They also send a diagram written in English but it's not quite as basic as if an American wrote it. Basicly, I figured things out as I went. Also I purchased their catalog ($5.00) and again the English isn't perfect to follow, but the instructions in the back of the catalog on how to use their products pretty much equaled a photo essay on several modern pastry techniques. I found that worth the five dollars! There were a few false starts. At one point I rolled up a piece of foil to wrap my joconde around while I placed it in the tube (scared I couldn't get the joconde into a cilander shape with-out it colapsing in. But that was a mess. The foil stuck to the inside of the joconde and I couldn't get it out. I did have an issue when I first began with having my joconde just right moisture wise. The first sheet I worked with was too dry from baking (just came out of the oven) and I had it too thin. I did brush it with simple syrup where it was firm.........but thats when I was using foil to wrap it around, and the whole thing was a mess. From to dry to then too moist............ and cracking, yuk. I quickly learned, it's very important that your joconde be just the right moisture/flexiblity with these small tubes. What worked for me was I had freshly baked cakes and I depanned them right away. Peeled off the silpats, inverted them right side up on parchement paper. That worked great. It kept the unpatterned side moist and the pattern side dry so I could move around my cut sheets. I then placed the joconde to the edge of a plastic sheet leaving the 1/2" extra over hang on one side. Using the side of a sheet pan I leaned my cake up against it while I formed the first couple inches into a circle to fit into the tube. This worked!! The cake held shape fine. Inserting it into the tube was also fine once you get the first 1" in. The cake held fine once I had the first couple inches into a circular shape, no colapsing....so my first fears and wanting a foil center support was wrong. I got an amazingly tight exact fit where my seams met, that was great. That's all I got done today. I'll tell you about filling them if I run into any problems. I hope that helped Brian.......and anyone else interested in this.

Don't make a mistake of what I'm saying as that I'm not a hardass too. You have to be in this business. I'm a pretty tough cookie!!! Sometimes I laugh to myself when I read what someone else has posted as a "hard" day. Everyone hates a whiner! But I'm sitting here at my desk writing, sharing my honest open hearted thoughts, based on my experience. I did that 24/7 thing for 10 years in the catering business..........sure I can brag about stuff too.........but what does it really mean in the end? nothing......... Teds right!

I think we all tell ourselves that, that is what we all are doing. BUT I think only age/experience having done so can help you see the really bigger picture that Ted and Confiseur are eluding to....and there is a bigger picture Chanti.........I promise one day as you grow older (age wise) you'll see it too. Life passes you by so fast. Grab a hold of it and play too. Goals aren't always achieved, people don't always get recognized, making money doesn't equal happiness or success. Pat yourself on the back, reward yourself, realize that what other people think isn't as satisfing as what you think of yourself and how you lived your life. Don't you want to be remembered as who you were and how you shared with others, more then what you achieved, what you sacrificed?....maybe it's just me.

Oh I forgot to add, everyones raves over his chocolate mousse drove me to make this the other day. WOW, I was suprised to find that his mousse really was worth raving over! I had thought.........how different can it be? I've made chocolate mousses from his professional book and it's not "diffferent".............but this will now become my standard quick mousse recipe. I worked this recipe a bit different in that I cooked my yolks in my milk like an anglaise, since I wasn't using pasturized yolks. I do use mousse as a filling and never serve it in a bowl as is. So I'm going to add gelatin to the anglaise next time so it holds firmer in my cakes and tortes. You can definately put my name on the list of people raving over that mousse!! (now I need to find an excuse to make the korova cookies)

Oh my god...........I made that recipe a long while ago. BUT I thought it was strange that a rice pudding didn't have any yolks to bind it sooooooooooooI added extra yolks! ........before waiting to see how it would set up. MAN was it thick!! I forget exactly what I did to lighten it...........but I think I cut it with some chocolate mousse. I recall being so excited about the caramelized rice crispies and no one else at work seemed to be. Everyone wound up liking this pudding but I only had dark raisins and that weirded them all out. Several months later my chef requested I make this again sans raisins. Welcome Thornado!!

I wish I had the answer Brian. I can't seem to find a perfectly consistant answer myself. I've tried all the methods, including The Bakers Dozen cornstarch method...........none seem to work always. Just bringing your meringue to the crust to seal it doesn't prevent weaping. Nor does putting it on a hot or cold filling solve this issue. Placing cake crumbs between your meringue and filling to absorb the weaping can work, but alters your product too much for my taste....and just leaves you with a soggie wierd layer between the two. The best solution I've had is using meringue powder instead of fresh whites. Some of the comerical meringue powders taste better then others, so you have to shop around. I've got some right now that's pretty close to dried whites with no sugar added. I add xxxsugar to taste and often I add vanilla too.