Wendy DeBord

If I'm thinking of the same dessert, I use the lemon Chiboust recipe from that pastillage nightmare regularly, it's terrific. I think it's from Norman Love, no? Duckduck, I had the need to do the standing cones when I first bought these books and also didn't have any molds. You can use acetate sheets in place of the cones. You just roll them up into a cone (like you do for a pastry bag, first cut them into a triangle) and put a piece of tape on the sides to hold them. The hardest part is finding something to set them in so they don't fall over. I used a foil lined pan and punched holes in that to support them. Anyway, it is fun....people aways are wow'ed by them. When you get to the part of standing them on your plates.........I found it very helpful and extremely quick to set up if I refridgerated my plates first. Then you use the tiniest dab of warm chocolate as your "glue" and they bond instantly on the cold plate.

Welcome to The eGullet Society for Arts & Letters Chantal! I love to try recipes like that, that have already gone thru alot of testing and competitions and won. I'll definately give it a try asap. Thanks for posting!

The recipe at Leites is exactly what I use too, from a family recipe. One tip I'll give you is to make darn sure you don't over bake this cake. It's not a naturally moist cake on it's own. Also, don't expect it to taste chocolatey, it's a rather plain tasting cake. I'm not from the South (mid-west) but in our families tradition a red cake has that cooked frosting recipe at Leites, not a cream cheese based frosting. Although I have seen many others that swear by the cream cheese frosting. So there is a little confusion over what's "correct". Good Luck, I'm sure if you follow that recipe your cake will be just what your looking for.

I just wanted to briefly add this: Not all heavy creams are equal. I find that even with the same manufactor the butter fat content varies from one batch to the next. So you could get a good or bad example of heavy cream or ultra pasturized heavy cream, which could alter your results.

Any chance you could post a link to Cuqui's, please?

I'm glad you brought this up Kerry! Good tv this weekend!!

I really think you have to go thru each option and see for yourself the differences or lack of differences. Don't take everyones word for it, it's very easy to find out for yourself. I didn't realize that 'method' was hotly debated on making ganche. I think I have made ganche everyway imaginable, absorbing everyones advice over the years. The only step I have seen a real difference in is one Steve Klc mentioned/taught a few years back here at eG. His process involves adding the chocolate to the cream, verses the cream into the chocolate. I certainly can't give you the technical reasoning why this works better, but you can visually see the difference in your bowl/pot. The emulsion is thicker when done this way. I use my immersion blender in ganche and to temper my chocolate. It works great for me. I know not to bring air down from the surface into my chocolate. When I'm tasting ganches and choosing what I like best in a ganche to reproduce it myself, I'm picking the texture I like best. I like a soft ganche, one that melts in your mouth easily/quickly. To achieve the perfect ganche and it's texture.... the most important things are the formula and the brand of chocolate your using. Unless you do something really unusual mixing your ganche, the texture of your finished ganche pretty much will be a result of your ingredients. You can't taste or feel the difference of someone who stirred their ganche with a spatula over a whisk if the person making the ganche got a proper emulsion.

I haven't ever studied the fan setting specificly. I'm speaking from my own experiences with my product. I look at the fan differently. I see it as a blast of heat that hurrys the moisture evaporation from the product....creating steam. The steam happens quicker with the fan on high, pushing the dough upward/outward, like a mini explosion.

I use cheap table salt in all my baking recipes. I do think you have to be cautious about the grain size so it does dissolve properly. But when I want a kick of salt to ying/yang with the sweetness of a dessert I reach for large grained salt so it won't dissolve before it reaches the persons mouth. Currently I'm using Fleur de sel and I sprinkle it on top of my finished product. When I put it in the center of items it dissolves too much and it takes away the crunch impact.

I have these books too. For the most part, they sat on my book shelfs for years collecting dust. I remember complaining about them, thinking they weren't practical. Like, who would ever have the time to make these items with those presentations. Then..........this might sound strange, but I sort of grew into them. I reached a level in my baking that I wasn't distracted by the over the top photos. I went back to the books seeking out the recipes of these experts that were published in the books. Admitedly, I really didn't know who all these pastry chefs were when I bought the books. As I became more familar with the people in the industry I realized they had published some really good chefs and I wanted to study their work and learn from them. So far I've had excellent results with all the recipes I've tried! With this caution: I don't always follow recipes literally. I make my own judgements on every point. I season according to my own tastes and ingredients available. For many cake components I'll sub in a recipe I have that I already know is excellent (and often I'll have a cake or two in my freeze ready to use). Part of my growth too was learning that I didn't need the molds/forms that they all used. You can make the components in any size batch and proportion it out into your own dessert however you want. For example, I might take a individual dessert and turn it into a torte or I might take a torte from Pierre Herme's professional book and turn it into an individually sized dessert. I'm open if you want to get into specific recipes.

You are sauteing your apples before baking them in a custard based mixture, right? Apples contain moisture that will leach out of them when heat is applied. The moisture/water floating around your apple slice will prevent the custard/cheesecake from adhearing to the apple slice. This happens regardless of the type of apple you have. The type of apple you have will only effect texture and sweetness of the apple, they all contain moisture unless it's a dried apple slice. What I would make to answer this request: I'd make either a puff pastry crust or a pie dough crust so that the 'crust' will be as flakey as possible in comparision to the custard filling. I prebake the crust until golden and cool. Then I'd saute my apple slices in butter adding brown or white sugar to sweeten, cinnamon, nutmeg and a splash of vanilla paste for accent. Put my drained apple slices on the bottom of my prebaked tart shell and pour a custard over them and bake. This type of custard I would choose would be similar to a quiche batter, so it slices perfectly. It begins rather loose and bakes up beautifully. Recently, I saw a recipe from Dorie Greenspan (in Bon Apetite magazine) that I've been dying to try. I'm just back from vacation and I can't recall what the recipe title was. Perhaps she will see this and share? Otherwise I can dig thru my files to locate it. Also, she (Dorie) published a wonderful tart that would be perfect for this request in her "Paris Sweets Great Desserts form the City's Best Pastry Shops" book credited to Pierre Herme' called Parisian Flan. I've made it and it's wonderful, of course. I can HIGHLY reccomend this book! It's another home run for Dorie.....a must own book.

If you make all the lemon curd recipes we all offered, you'd discover that it was the recipes that made the curd taste metalic or not. It has nothing to do with the pan (believe it or not). If you have time, go back to the beginning of this thread and read all the results we had, it's a good read I think. The finecooking recipe (I hope I'm remembering correctly) turned out to have a non-metalic taste compared to others and the only differences lay in ingredient quantities. I still don't know the exact reason behind the metalic taste of some curd recipes and I wish I did have the answer.

From my own personal experiences I agree with the no boil point. You do not need to bring your cream up to a boil at all, yet alone try to condense it by evaporating out moisture. I went for years and years and never could understand what someone was talking about when they said their ganche "broke" or was "grainy". That never ever happened to me. I found out what they meant when I changed jobs and used a different brand of chocolate. Then bam, I found out. A couple issues to address from previous posts, in my experience and opinion: It doesn't make any difference which dirrection you stir. If you wait before stirring or not, depending upon your ingedients. You can add your cream to your chocolate or your chocolate to the cream. Ingredients can vary greatly and don't have to include cream, butter or sugar......the only ingredient it must include is chocolate. There are several factors that lead to a poor ganche/or to a great ganche. In "Fine Chocolates Great Experience", Jean-Pierre Wybauw writes about ganche, "The chocolate not only acts as a flavoring but, more importantly, determines the texture. Because of its high cocoa butter content it is best to use high-fat chocolate (couverture). For a high quality ganche a total fat content of approximately 40% is reccomended. That is why cream is used as a liquid in most ganches, although other liquids, such as infusions, coffee and liqueurs may also be used. In these cases the fat content must be complemented by adding butter or vegetable fat." He specificly addresses curdling and writes, "Is the seperation of an emulsion from two liquid substances that do not form a solution. The most typical example is oil and water (mayonnaise). Causes: Incorrect balance of ingredients Incorrect mixing temperatures Chocolate ph too low Remedies: (depending on recipe) Homogenise with blender Add emulsifier (in some cases a little lecithin helps) Add a thickener Allow to solidify slightly, then stir vigorously (possibly in beater/mixer)" I found from personal experience that even though I was using high qualtity couvetures the brand of couveture made a huge difference when using the same exact recipe made with the same exact method...........and the fat content in my heavy cream varied from batch to batch from the same dairy so that was another factor. I can make a ganche with one brand of chocolate using cream, butter, sugar and chocolate and have it turn out perfect. If I use another brand of chocolate with those exact ingredients and proportions, it won't come together at all. That other brand goes weird on me when I use sugar and butter. I credit that fact to the differences in labeling of chocolates. I hope I'm not adding confusion to this topic but Wybauw also sites that a non pre-crystalized ganche, "may curdle more quickly" and "All ganches must be precrystallised in order to produce fat cystallisation that is as fine and as smooth as possible."

It's just finding the right combo of time and temp., but you should be able to achieve your goals in a convection oven. Definately use the lower fan setting, you probably need to turn the heat down. Are you comfortable and aware of how to adjust your baking in a convection oven? This may sound strange, but it's true. When you use a convection oven you need to adjust your temp. down from what you'd normally set it at in a conventional oven. Like most of us, you probably bake the majority of your items at 350F (or there abouts). In a perfectly cabilbrated, brand new oven, working perfectly convection oven.........to achieve the same results as I do in a conventional oven- I set my dial 50 degrees lower then what I want. Due to the fan cirulating the air, items bake quicker, the air moving makes it hotter in your oven. In fact every oven is a little different (every perfectly calibrated oven). The convection ovens I use on my current job I set the dial on 275F and that equals baking in a 350f oven. You will have to experiement with your particular ovens to find the right temp.. I started by dialing down 50 degrees as I suggested to you. I baked a couple items I'm very familar with and watched how they baked and how long they baked and realized it was still baking too hot, that's how I found 275F was my right temp. to equal 350F conventional. Sooooo this is a bit confusing and not something that anyone tells you about the differences in oven types. The non pastry chefs I work with and the oven repairman don't understand this when I explain it. It's not that logical.....how can a calibrated oven temp. be off? The oven itself isn't off, that's just how it works. To bake to your best advantage you have to over ride what the dial says and use your best judgement by how your items bake. Sometimes it takes weeks of baking to find which degree equals your 350F, so you'll need to keep an eye more closely on your baking until your certain you've got it. When you need a higher or lower setting then your 350F adjust your dial again according to your oven.....it doesn't matter what the dial says. As in my example, my oven for a 400F working temp. I set my dial on 325F. The high fan setting is something I don't use alot. I mainly use it for items that I want a huge rise out of, like puff pastry or choux paste. You'll probably find that you need to ancor down your corners when you use the high fan setting or your parchment paper will fold over your items, ruining them.

Wonderful work Sharon, thank-you for sharing! I also own the basketweave textured rolling pin. I like it and think it's pretty fun, although I wish I used it more often then I do. I've never tried the impression mats........wouldn't it be harder to enlarge the pattern then the rolling pin? Can you see clearly how your edges line up? Sharon, I don't follow your last cake example. Where is the impression? Is it the butterflies on the bottom on second to the top layer..... and then you've colored them in? Also, can I ask about your 3D butterflies? They look almost transparent, are they made of rice paper or something else? ..........very nice............

Something to look forward to: I've been informed by Kerry Vincent that the 2004 Oklahoma State Sugar Art Show will be re-aired on FoodTV during Wedding Week in June 2005. She believes it will be shown several times during the course of that week which will be dedicated to wedding issues. No airtimes are known yet. Another great show for decorators: There will be reruns of the first event 'The Matchmaker'-under the name of 'Here Comes the Cake' airtimes are March 12, 2005 8:00 p.m. ET/PT, 12:00 a.m. ET/PT and March 13th, 2005 at 4:00 p.m. ET/PT. Also, I hope you all do check out our Calendar regularly. I just posted info. on an event Kerry is sponsoring in April. Look here.

I used to particapate in open fairs (of sorts) when I was a working artist. My experience was they varied GREATLY in sales and parts of the Country! The predictor for me was the numbers of people that attend the event. Any event that boasted huged numbers like 100,000 people or more during the event always gave me huge sales because it was in proportion to the number of people attending. If this is a busy market, make certain you go in with enough product and helpers to be professional. Another factor was who's new. Whom ever is "new" in a long standing event will get alot of activity as people check them out. But that fades after a while. So you may have a HUGE first show in sales and then die down over time. That kept you always seeking new venues. Appearances are everything too (just like your bakery). You gotta look great and most importantly act upbeat and open. Nothings worse then a sales person moping around or ignoring people....so don't send a dummy to represent you. The amount of money charged to particapate in events usually WAS a predictor in how much money you'd make at an event. Shows that charged huge enterance fees actually gave me huge profits and therefore I thought particpating with them was well worth the huge fees (sometimes the fees were painfully huge but I made huge amounts of money in relation). Events that charged small enterence fees gave small returns. Regardless of where these events were held (a wealthy area or middle income) or if it was a big or small sized event. In the end the promoters did know their events and they did know how much to charge for enterance fees based on how active sales have always been at their events. You don't always have to have a huge crowd of people to make alot of sales.........if the people like your product you'll make money. Sometimes you just jived in a location with those people. I really had a great time particpating in these open air events the atmosphere is fun!!! It could turn out to be a wonderful outlet for your Mel. If you can, don't sign a long term contract for the space until you've done it a few times. Good Luck and don't forget to take lots of photos for us to see, please?!

I printed that out Neil and I can't wait to use it, thank-you. I've seen similar recipes using dark chocolate and it never accured to me to do the same with white, that's pretty cool.

Thank-you Zilla and others. Two votes on one recipe is worthy a try. I'll be making the Godiva recipe tomarrow morning using all almonds (maybe a small amount of hazelnuts too) and anise oil in place of the Godiva. I'll report back with how it worked out for me, thanks again.

Perhaps this thread will also be helpful: How to post photos

I find myself in the need to have a killer anise biscotti recipe. My manager wants to include this cookie in every order of capuccino, asap. Can anyone share a recipe they've made and are certain is excellent, please? I have no time to experiment right now. Thank-you in advance.

Annie, did you forget to shock the cake by putting it in the freezer right after taking it out of the oven.......if so, that might throw things off. I think it tastes better after it's been frozen. If you underbake it and freeze it, it becomes gooey....so don't underbake this cake. Also I've been playing with this cake a bit lately...and discovered the temp. makes a HUGE difference as you noticed with the doming or not!! The lower your temp. and the more level your cake. Hotter heat = huge domes. Even though I level my cakes too I was baking at 350F (because of everything else I bake in the same oven at the same time) and throwing out alot of domed cake. I'm now going thru the pains of lowering my oven temp. for this cake. It's totally worth it and I'm no longer needing to level it. For my wedding cakes it's easiest to measure the amount of batter in each pan so their even, bake at a low heat and get cakes I don't have to level.

Hum, having made this recipe before from his book, I have to ask if it looked grainy or it tasted grainy. Because this recipe does produce a grainy sort of look to it. That's different from the texture being grainy because tiny bits of chocolate froze up as you were mixing. To the best of my knowledge and experience I find that to be true with most white chocolate mousse recipes if they only contain heavy cream, eggs and white chocolate they all seem a bit lumpy/grainy. The white chocolate doesn't smooth out the same as dark chocolate does in this combo of ingredients. To get a smoother and in my opinion better white chocolate mousse beginning with an anglaise, pastry cream or a bavarain and using gelatin to set makes for a better white chocolate mousse. I've yet to make a "simple" white chocolate mousse that I loved.

I totally ditto that Patrick. This cake hasn't got a spring to it to test for. The spring test only works for certain types of cakes. As an example, you can't use the spring test for a flourless chocolate cake or a cheesecake.

I think some of the problem is educating the consumer. I think most people think dessert equals something very high in calories, they'd rather get a larger steak. Which one is better for you? If they had some nutritional facts available on one item they could weigh things out in their head. And for those that think it's a waste to eat a dessert with reduced fat, well I won't have nutrition facts on those desserts to be highlighted. I'm not so much looking to gain the dieter as my client, I really want to get the people with special needs. So I'm looking to do things that fit their needs and if it's also low in cal. thats great too. If I can hit the low in carb crowd.... to the best of my understanding that will also help/forfill the diabetic crowd. In the Mid-West it's hard to get people to share items. They don't order that way. The "dessert teaser" is a good name. I've looking for a good name and way to describe it on my menu. Thanks! Really, all this can backfire.....who know's how people will respond or if they will. Now the last couple days of the month (dues time) our dinning numbers are way up. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.