Wendy DeBord

I make everything imaginable in the way of sweets, from plated desserts to take-out b-day cakes to truffles, centerpeices, sticky rolls and doughnuts. A lemon chiffon cake would be something I'd make for my bridge luncheon ladies, with some of Herme's lemon cream and berries.........they'd be pretty happy.

One of our office ladies made a strawberry cake from The Cake Doctor cookbook that wasn't bad. I know it involved a mix.......possibly a container of frozen sweetened strawberries too. I know that book is in all the bookstores if your interested.

I don't eat sweets in the morning (I know that might seem shocking, but......). I eat/ taste sweets all day long and when it comes to eating something by choice verses convenience, I crave savory. I often steal a couple strips of bacon from the warmer at work..........or I go with-out and have an omelet for earily lunch. If I had them around I too would go for a piece of cold pizza or a bagel with nova. My diet revolves too much around whats convenient. But if you want to talk about making breakfast pasties.........I LOVE making them and I think I've gotten fairly decent at making danish and such. My co-workers steal my danish off of the serving trays and my cart. That's the one item they all go bonkers over.

Sorry for the confusion. I don't use sour cream toppings because of that reason. BUT in general the way to use your freezer is for partically completed work. 99% of the time you can not finish your product and expect the toppings, glaze or chocolate to remain intact thru defrosting. I put on my finishes after the cake is defrosted. When you need just a couple slices at a time for ala carte it forces (well it doesn't force you, but we change to provide the best we can) you to work differently to maintain freshness. This is where I make individual desserts so I can take out desserts in very small quantities. It's much harder to take out of a freezer a couple slices of a cake then a couple individual desserts. Also the saving grace is how it's plated. Unlike a simple slice of cake plopped on a plate...........when it's served ala carte the line person should take a moment to nicely present that item with sauces, chocolate garnishes, sugar garnishes, tuiles or whatever you have. That presentation covers any small imperfections that happen going thru freezing and thawing. In the long run you do as I've described or you live with waste. A cheesecake held in a cooler by the line guys until it's gone won't be a good as a cheesecake held in the freezer and portions taken out every other day. It all kind of sucks............it's all about compromises and doing the best you can given the circumstances. In an ideal world one would do as Neil does at the hotel and assemble everything fresh everyday.

Well you've got the details all correct. I also go by feel and I bet most other professionals do. The only way to get things down to a science and have a recipe 'exact' regardless of who's making it, is by trial and taking good notes. Your right, it all depends upon your bread and your baking and no two people will do exactly the same. I work from the opposite side of the recipe. Instead of paying close attention to my bread I pay close attention to my base (cream, egg, vanilla etc..) to which I use several different breads depending upon my goals. I'm also not worried about having a little left over (or garbage) of either base or bread so I'm not attempting to hit the exact volumes. I'd rather hit the right consistancy in my pudding............and your right-depending upon the bread that day it might absorb more then the day before. You can go by either weight or volume........but the breads moisture and density will vary and that makes the amount of base needed a variable. I put a reasonable amount of bread cubes in my pan, then I pour over it, my base. Using my hands I press down on the bread a little to get it to absorb my base. Then I watch and see how that goes. I'll give it a half hour or so to soak up my base. If there's alot of liquid remaining that didn't get absorbed into my bread I add more bread. If the bread soaks up all my liquid and looks very firm, I add more base. That's the "by feel" portion of creating this. If you use the same bread and the same base repeatedly you will be able to figure out how much of each is perfect for your likings as your grandmother did. I hope this has been helpful to you. Your on the right track.

Lovely Fred! Rubber Chef, can you explain more......... You have over 100 types of colored cocoa butter for sale? Would you provide a link to them please, I must have missed them at your site? I've only seen maybe 10 different colors, from PCB. But if you have more I think that's very interesting. I've been using cocoa butter for air brushing my plates. The colors must be mixed with white cocoa butter (I got from PCB) to make them more opaque so they show on my plates. Do you have any colors that go on opaque?

Have you ever made truffles before or molded chocolates? I'm not sure how much info. your looking for exactly. There's several ways you can make these. Do you want white, milk, semi sweet or bittersweet chocolate as your base ganche? Is your chocolate semi sweet? Do you want that type of chocolate inside and outside? You can add peanut butter to any kind of chocolate ganche, they are compatible. If you add a good portion of peanut butter to white chocolate it will really become more of a peanut butter ganche then a white chocolate ganche. It really doesn't take alot of peanut butter to flavor your ganche and how strong you want to make each flavor is up to you. Do you want it mainly chocolate with just a hint of pb and strawberry? Or do you want it intensely pb & sb? I like molded truffles verses hand formed, dipped and coated in cocoa powder (but thats more involved then rolling them in cocoa, what do you want?). If I was to mold this flavor combo I would probably make a white chocolate peanut butter ganche and then pipe a dab of strawberry preserves for my strawberry accent. (I like to taste test my inside ganche with all my coating options before I choose which type of chocolate I'm going to en-robe it in. I might choose a semi sweet to contrast with the sweetness of the rest, but until I taste it I'm up in the air deciding.) You could also make a strawberry gelee instead of using preserves or use strawberry sauce in place of your cream in your ganche to express your flavor. So theres several ways you can achieve this flavor combo. Give us some more details about your skills and what your looking for and we can help you further.

Can you mention in what recipe and on what page that is?

To tell you the truth, I got side tracked totally and never did make it. I'm glad you brought this up because I have some free time now where I can give it a go.

I think it really does depend upon what your doing and totally how skilled the person is with the brush. It's not always so easy for people to get decent colors with these (you have to know how to blend/mix colors)......it takes a fair amount of practice to get good. But in the hands of someone skilled they really can be neat. What are you thinking about using this on?

If it has a little cup verses a bottle that attaches.......it does feed thru the air brush.

Just wanted to say, I'm throughly impressed and delighted to read that Rubber Chef is concerned and now aware of it's (hopefully temporary) delays. Hat's off to you for stepping forward!

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If you've spent your life working in a kitchen you know the struggles we have getting paid respectively for our skills. A persons appearance does effect perceived value, preconceived notions of an industry. Granted there are highly respected individuals in many highly respectable professions that dress against the preconceived "norm" and they get away with it with-out anyone passing judgment on their appearance. They are our eccentric doctors, lawyers, computer geeks, etc... But you have to admit if everyone in the whole profession/in all professions were to dress similarly it would impact the image of that profession. It's casual Friday going too far...............and in time companies have reeled in employees finding that too casual of attire can lead to casual work. I can understand Mario taking a unique stand and wearing his "style" as a statement, he is the leader/star of the show. But I think it takes away from his impact/eccentricity to have his staff wearing what ever they want too.

If you were to make that tart again I would like to suggest these few changes: You can definately do as Chiantiglace mentioned, steeping your zest in your cream for a little while. Also you can take your zest and cusinart it with your sugar to make a citrus sugar. I find that to give me alot of impact (it really releases the oils from the zest). Also you can buy citrus oils (orange, lemon, lime tangerine)...........and a little dash of that is a fabulous flavor enhancer (in anything with citrus over tones). Last, if there is a next time, I also think you'd be happier if you cut back on the amount of fruit you added. I'd stick to the recipe because the extra moisture the citrus wedges put into your custard, will impact it.

Funny Jason, I had the same thoughts about the clothing. I think the formality of our uniforms belong ON in a professional kitchen. I don't think it's advances our professions respectiblity to blur the lines between home attire and professional attire.

A tip for making anglaise: bring your cream and sugar up to a boil, then temper into the yolks and return it to your pot. Having your cream that hot when you've tempered your eggs means that in moments your anglaise will be done. It's really about 4 quick stirs around the pot and it's done. Sometimes if your watching a thermometer for temp. it will hit it so fast that by the time you react and get your anglaise out of the pot, it's too late you've scrambled your eggs on the bottom. Instead if you know how long it takes (just a couple stirs) and notice the mixture is getting hotter you can stop and strain your anglaise with perfect timing. I also strain mine into a bowl set in a ice water bath and give it a couple stirs, to quickly lower it's temp.. and prevent any scrambling (which can happen even after you have your eggs out of your pot).

You don't mention what brand of airbrush it is. If the liquid doesn't feed thru the brush itself you can spray just about anything liquid thru it. You definately can spray oil based colors thru a wagner paint gun (which of course isn't very fine like an air brush). I don't know, I think you should check out some art websites and see if you can find more info. on what you can spray thru that brush. I sort of think you can spray oil based paint thru one. I wouldn't dilute an oil based product with h2o though, can't you just use more oil?

Of course I was tuned in to tonights show, and I enjoyed it very much! It was great to actually see Michael move (instead of still photo shots in magazines) and hear him talk. I know that might sound strange but having read his words for so long with no voice........it was exciting for me to see him come to life. Just some personal thoughts on this show: I noticed the judges repeatedly commented that they didn't taste the chocolate or coconut in Mario's items so I thought that was going to count against him more. Verbally I thought they seemed to praise Michaels work more (at least thats how it seemed edited to me).........and then the score turned that around. What a supprise. Sorry you West coasters! It's not just who wins, it's how they played the game.

I'd have to examine things more closely, but on first glance some of their photos look exactly like ones I've seen published. Weird.

That's the part I've never understood about those types of crepe makers. Your batter would have to cook/set up before you could spread it. And spread it out with a utensil........that's not easy. That's why you lift your crepe pan off the heat and swirl the batter in one quick movement. How do they make them at the hotel Neil?

O.k. we have a little confusion going on here. I hope I can clear things up. On the pro. side: we make pastry cream day in and day out, it's really like tieing your shoes for us. It's that basic to a professional. We do it in our sleep while juggling two dishwashers and tempering chocolate. BUT this is a forum for professionals and amateurs, and quite honestly we all greatly enjoy all questions, thats why we are here. I hope no one ever feels uneasy about asking any question!!!!!! With most baking recipes there are many similar and never two exactly the same recipes.... and many small differences in techniques you can use.........but in the end we all pretty much wind up with the same thing. You do not have to strain pastry cream for it to work. Some people find the most remote piece of cooked egg terribly unprofessional, some people can't begin to find the time to strain every item they make using eggs. To each his own. I've never noticed a recipe telling you to strain pastry cream, but heck I own Sherry's book, I just never noticed that step because I knew otherwise. Yes, there are easier and harder ways to strain dense food. Again, personal preference. I don't like playing with cheesecloth I like a strainer or a chinois and a ladle to push thru verses a spatula or a whisk. Ditto on doing this while the item is still hot once it cools it's way harder to do. But then it all gives you the same thing in the end, and well in time, you might find it interesting to try different techniques, it's supprising and educational sometimes. Lumps............hum, I find them more likely to form in the beginning of your thickening stage. If your not mixing it well by then, it will take more effort to break those down then just simple light stirring. Using a whisk to stir in a straight sided pot doesn't work. The round whisk can't hit the corners, so your corners are over cooking and ruining your sauce. Instead, buy a heat proof rubber spatula and use that in conjuction with your whisk to scrape all surfaces of your pan while your cooking. That wine bottle trick with anglaise sauce isn't going to work, period. You can't untighten your over cooked egg. You can modify the sauce. You could add some pastry cream or melted ice cream to it too.You can burr whip the heck out of it and break up every molecule of over cooked egg. But it still isn't the same, theres a huge difference. That's one sauce I don't believe in fixing, do it right or don't do it at all. Back to pastry cream. I've tried tons of recipes looking for the perfect pastry cream. I always come back to a recipe I got from my Mother, it's 2 cups sugar, 1 cup flour, stir together, add 5 cups of whole milk, bring up close to boil, temper in 8 yolks, cook until thick (boiling) add vanilla and butter to taste. I find that recipes using cornstarch as my thickener are firmer to begin with (while still hot after just making it) but they break down faster in the cooler then using Mom's recipe with the flour. Adding a couple whole eggs is fine, but I can't tell you theres much of a difference in the end. The recipes I've used with whole eggs also had cornstarch as their thickeners and that just doesn't please me. The best pastry cream with cornstarch I've found is the one in the new CIA pastry book. P.S. And heres a shocker: I use an aluminum pot to cook my pastry cream and all sauces in (that's all they own at work) and I've YET to see any sign of a chemical reaction, taste or greening of my egg. I wouldn't have believed that was true until I was forced into it. Books and people aren't always right. Gotta leave room for your own opinion.

Sorry.....well I did say it's possible to do this with chocolate chips.....to tell you the truth I'm not so sure the average person can tell the diffence between high end chocolate and chocolate chips. Would your client be willing to reheat this at all? Can you give it to them in a thermos or other insolated container? If not, then just make your ganche/fondue thin so that even when it chills down it won't turn into a solid mass. Sort of like a hershey's syrup type consistancy.

Welcome Cacao!

reesek if your making a chocolate fondue/ganche it does not need to "set up" at all. Making this should only take a moment. You heat your cream then pour it into your chocolate and liquour, stir and your done. If you make this hours in advance, you must keep it warm or it will begin to firm up/cool down. Instead have all your dipping items ready before your guests come and put together your ganche between 9:00 and 10:00 if thats when you think they'll eat it. 1 to 2 oz. per person does seem skimpy to me. You don't want people to have to scrape the bottom of your pot to get to the fondue. I would make enough to fill my pot, then if there are left overs come on back here and we can give you ideas on how to use up the remains. You don't want to use chocolate chips for this, they contain wax that prevents them from melting smoothly (although you can technically can use chips for this, I highly suggest you don't). Instead, you want to use a couveture........a good quality chocolate. How much corn syrup......... probably 1/2 cup (or less) depending upon how much volume you have. I'm guessing based on a standard home fondue set.