Wendy DeBord

Talking about rice crispy treats and not just plain marshmellows: I'm glad you asked this. There's more to my reasons then most people will encounter and I didn't explain myself well. I'm making my own cookie cutters cutting copper strips and bending them. They aren't always smooth on your hands because I'm not rolling over the edge you hand makes contact with like comerically made cookie cutters. So cutting thru items that require alot pressure is hard on my hands. So I'm looking for the easiest way with what I'm using, which isn't probably what others are using. I also am not sodering my joins, instead I'm using duct tape.....so my joins aren't tough. Technically you should be able to use dark corn syrup in place of light corn syrup.......... it will effect your taste and possibly your color. But it might not be objectional.

Better late then never, welcome to the dicussion Ellencho. In the recipes dirrections, you are not supposed to let the cake cool down before wrapping them. Theres a reason for that. (I also just recently heard mention of a Chicagoland bakery doing this for their milk sponge cakes.) The reason: steam! When the steam is trapped the moisture from it goes back into the cake effecting the cakes texture. Freezing cakes and defrosting them also effects texture/moisture content....and your dirrected to freeze this cake with-in a few minutes of taking it out of the oven. I also purchased some of that chocolate extract out of curiosity from Williams Sonoma. I can't taste it baked in a cake. It doesn't replace the balance of vanilla so it's not an equal subsitute. So that's going to effect the taste of your cake too. The hardest part of testing out recipes is having everyone follow the ingredients and methods exactly. If you improvise, your not making the same item. BUT..........that's certainly fine and fun to do. Just remember your no longer comparing apples to apples.

Bochalla, you already gotten correct answers. I'm hoping that I can explain this one step further.......... There are MANY ways/methods to make caramel/to caramelize sugar: You can cook sugar alone in your pan to make caramel. Plain sugar goes thru a process while it's melting. Small amounts of melted sugar bind to still unmelted grains of sugar and it gathers into clumps. Those clumps can very hard clumps. If you continue heating the clumps of sugar the over all temp. will rise and the clumps will break down and melt. BUT sometimes those darn white clumps of unmelted sugar don't break down by themselves nicely. Sometimes they remain clumps and ruin your texture. So we've come up with other methods to help avoid that from happening. (this is what you saw in your pan, partically melted sugar that formed into dry clumps, if you had gone further you'd have achieved caramelization) JSkillings technique of slowly melting the sugar is a method that works for her and many others if done correctly. But some people struggle following that method until they master it. You can add a liquid to your sugar (it can be liquids other then water like fruit juices too) that will help the sugar grains dissolve more evenly so it's less likely to form clumps. But if you don't have enough liquid to sugar proportions the liquid really doesn't help you. It will go thru the same process described above. The liquid will evaporate out of your sugar too quickly and not aid it in dissolving. The sugar will become hard and dry as part of the melting process identical to melting sugar alone. The easiest way to melt sugar into caramel is to add more liquid. If you have more liquid your sugar will dissolve completely in the liquid. With enough liquid, it will not evaporate out of your sugar until the sugar has melted smoothly. This will take the sugar longer to reach the temp. where it turns into caramel, but the beauty of it is it doesn't make your sugar go thru that dry clumping stage. A "trick" I learned thru innumerous recipes for making caramel is that if you add lemon juice as the "liquid" into your granular sugar (just a few drops, enough so when you stir it into your grains of sugar before attempting to melt it, it will be a sand like texture just barely able to retain it's shape if pressed into a shape) the sugar doesn't develop into clumps while it melts. The lemon juice helps the sugar grains melt evenly. So it's quicker then using more liquid and more fail safe then not using liquid. This is the method I use almost all of the time, ignoring what the recipe in front of me says. If you going to finish cooking your caramelized sugar into a caramel syrup (of sorts) I've also learned thru practice that what ever liquid your using (cream, water, juice or broth) if you heat the liquid before you add it into your hot caramel the caramel syrup will be less likely to sieze in clumps...which can happen if you pour a cold liquid into a hot caramel. Another thing to look out for while making caramel is sugar crystalization, which got touched upon earilier. If grains of unmelted sugar cling to the sides of you pan and become intoduced into your melted sugar the melted sugar will grow crystals of sugar rapidly and you'll end up with a grainy texture. So you should wash down the sides of your pan and utensils while melting caramel so no sugar grains remain unmelted in your pot. A simple way to achieve this is to place something on top of your pot (like a lid or a bowl that fits snuggle on top) while the sugar is melting into caramel. The lid will for condensation to happen inside your pot and that condensation will wash down the sides of the pan for you.

Welcome to The eGullet Society For Arts & Letters Juiletagonzalezb! Do you follow that method for volume baking also? Or perhaps theres an easier way to make larger quantities in a professionally equiped kitchen?

Not yet..........just happy to survive Easter. I should get my order sometime this week from PCB.

Nolly, welcome to eGullet Society For Arts & Letters! Lesley C, is also a professional chef (as are many here) and she has a book to her credit too.

I pat them out in full sheet pans and then cut them out with a cookie cutter. It's easiest to cut them with-in an half-hour from making them, verses letting them completely set up, then cutting them out. I just looked thru my photos from yesterday and I can't believe I didn't get one shot of them! I did get shots of my plain marshmellow carrots. But my husband crashed our computor a couple weeks ago and I still haven't reloaded a photo program I need to shrink the pixels on photos so I can load them. It's on my list of things to do, but I won't have time for a while yet to do so. I will try to remember to do so later.

M. Lucia could you post that chocolate cake/pudding recipe please? I'd like to try it. I've been so swamped at work that I haven't been able to do the "light" thing justice. The teasers are portions from what's already on my dessert menu.

Yes, that was a very good post Ifujii and welcome to eGullet Society For Arts & Letters!!

In my area I've never seen a pink cake box.

Ohhhh I'm diggin that idea, Thanks! It could be extended into selling a "dessert sampler plate" too. My people wouldn't understand something decribed as a "Flight"......... I have 6 desserts on my menu plus frozen items. "But what I want is something wonderful and sweet to end a lovely meal, not something I'm going to have to atone for."..........That's exactly what I'm doing, a one or two bite sized teaser for $1.00 each. Many people who don't order dessert in a restaurant go home and nibble on something sweet, I do all the time. I still think 99.99% sales (see I compromised) is a reasonable target for a one fork full teaser. I've started collecting some recipes from Cooking Light......although I haven't baked any yet. Did you ever do any baking from them so you could reccomend a recipe or two?

Yes, I make rice crispy treats with Neils marshmellow recipe regularly for the kids at work, it works great. Don't forget to add the butter as the recipe on the Rice Crispy box does. I made some for Easter in the shape of carrots dyed orange and dipped the leaf area in green tinted white chocolate....and put them on sticks.

Neil, can you disclose any details about the 190 lb bunny? How'd he do it? etc.... Mel, it must be time to hire, hire, hire. I'm really happy for you!!

Are you just learning the very basics or are you meaning you want to study it?

I realized I couldn't put down exact calories, etc.. since I can't get each guy to cut a consistantly sized piece. Maybe you can help me...with a little issue I've gotten stuck on with the teasers. The way we have it worded people are typically only ordering 1 teaser per visit. I'd like to get them to buy more then one. Because we don't put pricing on our menus (and don't want to) and I have only about 4 words to describe what a "teaser" is............I haven't found the right wording. Right now I have it written: The Dessert Teaser Sample tasting of any one dessert

I keep thinking you over cooked your dough. I can't say that I cook my paste until I get a "light crust"..........that seems extreme to me. I do cook it for a couple minutes after I dump the flour in sort of like a roux..........but if your getting a "crust" then your frying your dough. I would guess that you'd have a hard time incorporating your eggs then. Did you? The piped out dough before it's baked should NOT have gone flat. It should have held it's shape for hours (maybe days), unbaked. If it went flat and you didn't have a struggle getting your eggs smoothly incorporated into your dough, then I suspect you added too much egg, That's the only plauseable answer. If a choux puff goes flat after baking it, that's usually because it was under baked and it deflated.

We can buy in all sorts of flavors in 'compounds' wholesale. They are like a puree but even more intense so a little can go a long way. You can get these in flavors you would find difficult to intensify on your own.............like say champange. The cool thing about them is they work in most recipes as is, with-out dilluting down your recipe, therefore no adjusts need to be made. There's many manufactures of compounds probably http://www.amoretti.com is the most well known source for them. I like dridopple brand compounds. If your not using any of these yet, I'm certain you'll like them Patrick.

We only charge $1.00 per teaser. I did find out the hard way about the quantity of splenda to sub. in place of sugar. I made a cheesecake and went a little short of the called for amount of spenda, thinking I was playing things safe. HA! I wound up cutting that batter with 8 batches of cheesecake with no sweetener. Definately, less is more with splenda. I will follow your example and mix my sugar subst.'s. I'm still stuck with 3 splenda cheesecakes in my freezer taking up space. Lesson learned!

I spray the back side of a sheet pan (and roll on the sheet pan so you can easily pick it up and chill it if my dough is too soft to cut right away) with Pan spray then place my parchment paper on it, it sticks like glue. Place the second layer of parchement on top of the cookie dough and roll. If you pan is very flexible double or triple the pans underneath the one your rolling. I find it helpful to pat the dough out roughly before rolling. Really sticky doughs might still stick to your parchement and sometimes it helps to release the parchement and replace it to sort of burp it.

I made the recipe you reccomended Patrick, with a few changes. First I did try the recipe with sb jello and I didn't like the fake flavoring the jello gives off. So I omited the jello and used a strawberry compound (to taste) and that worked out great. Also for my strawberry puree I reduced my puree to get a more consentrated sauce and that also kicked up the flavor. Everyone at work loves this THANK-YOU! I serve it simply with whipped cream and fresh berries.

Update: so far the dessert "teasers" have been a huge hit. "On the Lighter Side" has had mixed results. Diabetics like it because I'm using splenda but people dieting don't seem to like it because they aren't used to the compromise in taste sugar sub.s give.

I did look for the sb bread I mentioned over at Marthas site but it's not posted. It is referenced to her July/August 2004 issue. It is different then what you found Patrick........it doesn't use preserves it uses strawberry sauce to flavor.

My favorite joconde recipe (to date) comes from Dorie Greenspans book, Paris Sweets, page 140 its from the Opera Cake adapted from Dalloyau. Use a 425F oven. Spray your pan, line it, then spray your parchement paper. For 1 sheet pan. Whip together: 6 whites 2 tbsp. sugar Fold that into: Beaten 2 c. almond flour 2 c. xxxsugar 6 eggs that has 1/2 c, flour folded in then 3 tbsp. of melted butter folded in. Bake this until it's just barely done............about 5 minutes. It should just barely begin to take on color when it's done. Flip it out of your pan to cool so it doesn't continue baking. The cigarette Paste I use is from Micheal Roux's book, p. 28 7 tbsp. butter 1 c. xxxsugar 7 tbsp. whites 9 tbsp. flour Using food coloring or cocoa powder to color. Here's a thin petite four sponge that I like alot, it's very flexible: for 1 sheet pan. 14 oz. almond paste 12 yolks 7 oz. sugar 4 eggs 1 tsp. vanilla 1 tsp. salt zest of a lemon 5 oz. cake flour Soften paste with yolks, then add sugar don't add the rest of the ingredients unless your paste is smooth. Then continue. Bake 400f

You can make a crustless cheesecake and that's about what you'll have with your coconut and sugar. I like some sort of crust when eating a cheesecake solo as a textural contrast. You can grind up and use almost any cookie you make or buy (using butter to bind it), I agree that the coconut and lime would be fabulous. How about buying some coconut cookies and grinding them up? I would probably finish this type of cheesecake with some whipped cream on top as a garnish and that's where I'd put my toasted coconut or macadmia nuts.......... you could also make a contrasting fruit sauce for the plate-that would really make your dessert pop.

Bummer. I'm confused Bri, why are you using a madeleine sponge? The madeliene sponge I made from Bau is too fluffy to use as a liner in any application like this. I think you have to use a very thin and flexiable cake like a joconde or a petite four sponge. I've had times where my cigerette paste wasn't flexible too. But I think it comes down to the thickness of the application.....too thick is why it cracks. Well.....actually you can have joconde that isn't greatly flexible too. I get that if I over bake it a hair. You can't even walk away from the oven for how quickly joconde bakes. Thinking further...........if you like Bau's madeleine.........I LOVE the application of the banana puree with it he does. I bet you could do the same fruit puree in conjuction with joconde.....that would give the joconde more flavor.