Wendy DeBord

Welcome Markrock! I wanted to suggest that if your in a hurry to make a career change there are several good schools that teach pastry. Going to a school will excellorate your careeer change over. If your not interested in going to culinary school many people here have already given their advice about learning on the job. I highly suggest you take a little time to read thru all the great advice and knowledge shared here at e-gullet-it could save you years of frustration. We've talked many times about career changing right here in the pastry department. Look thru our pages and pages of info. it's cheaper then buying a couple books and probably more packed with info. then most libraries. You can post on a older topic to bring it back up if your looking for some personal feedback. Everyone has to start somewhere.......and eg has great people to help advise you. Good Luck, I hope to hear more from you.

What uniform? Could you explain what specificly your looking for?

I read Dorie Greenspans description/introduction to madeleines in her Paris Sweets book this evening. She got my brain working a little when she mentioned the recipe she published is flexible enough to be used as a base and you could be creative with it. Then I looked at Bellouets Petite Four book and the light went on. O.k. these don't have to be little lemon cakes, these can be anything I want little cakes. I particularly liked a combo of flavors Bellouet does where he pipes a second flavor into the center of the first. Hum........like everything else there aren't really any rules.....oh yah. So when does it not become a madeleine? I have to buy more pans for convience...........I'm leaning toward the flexipans unless someone here stops me. So they appear shinier, might they retain their moisture better? And Dorie mentioned giving your madeleine a soaking after they are baked-I'm digging that!

My personal opinion.............All great safety points. Yes these machines can be dangerous, so can alot of other tools we work with. And yes I understand why shields are installed and I don't advocate anyone disabling saftey features on any equipment. What you do in your own personal kitchen is your own business as far as I'm concerned. I wonder when are they going to put a saftey feature on those blow torches we use day in and day out, and that oven oh and the frier, etc....? I believe we all need to exercise common sense. We all know that theres alot of dangers in kitchens. People need to pay attention to what they are doing and when they personally screw up take some accountablity for their own actions. ..........again just my personal opinion.

This makes me think of apricot kernels. Isn't that the cheaper version of almond paste sold by large baking manufactors?

While at Starbucks today I noticed they are selling a little 3 pack of madeleines (I didn't see the price) but I thought it was interesting. Interesting because having a big chain introduce to tons of people to new products like "madeleines" only helps me sell them too. The more exposure people have to baked goods the better. Anyway..........I'm curious about pan release with madeleines. I recall having problems in the past and I'd love to avoid problems as I venture into serious madeliene baking. I recall following dirrections about coating the pan with clarified butter and I also recall those sticking in the pan. Perhaps each recipe differs in it's sticking......but I recall having success with using hot pans. I'd heat them in the oven, pull them out, spray them with pan spray and bake and those released very cleanly. Have any of you really spent some time playing with this issue and resolving it for you? Do you have one method that works with certain pans or certain formulas and other methods for other recipes and pans? Also are you prefering these little cakes plain or do you do anything to dress them up, if so what?.............or is there something you love them paired with?

Yes they are a pain. I believe if you disable them it voids your warantee...........so you might want to double check before you make any alterations. I just remembered.........I was working in a place that had a brand new 20 qt hobart (this spring) and I accidentally discovered that the shield snaps into the metal band. Look underneath- there is some white plastic those are actually clips and you can knock the shield off it's ring. It takes a fair amount of force to knock it down (if you drop your mixer like I accidentally did-that will do it, HA). You'll still have to play with the ring to engage it, so your mixer will start, but at least the shield will be out of your way. HTH

When I portion out pie dough I always pat/press it into rounds. Whenever your rolling out any dough its easiest to start with your dough patted into that shape so all your doing is following the shape as you roll. It's much harder to start with a round piece of dough and shape it into a rectangle ....... Rolling out your dough..........hum, it's possible that your over-thinking this(worrying too much) and freezing up instead of relaxing and rolling. Try to forget about the 45 degree turning for now. Instead think of each pass as flattening this round disk. It's going to stay in a round shape if your exerting even pressure and turning it as you flatten it. You want to check and see if your dough has accidently stuck to the table- so I lift up my dough and give it a little spin/turn and I probably toss a little more flour underneath it for insurance. I roll out again, lift and turn dough, roll again, lift and turn dough. etc... My crusts aren't always perfectly round, in fact thats pretty rare. Your in control, forcing your dough into this round shape. If it starts to go a stray don't be scared to cut off an area and patch in. Oh, also I find some rolling pins much harder (taking more skill to use then others) to use. I prefer a large heavy pin with ballbearing handles. I feel the pin does all the work I'm just there to guide it. The non handle shaped ones (many hosts on foodtv like to show off using these) are MUCH harder to use, or learn to use. It requires you to have even pressure and very coordinated left and right hands/arms. Frankly I think these pins became popular only because of foodtv. In days gone by people didn't have rolling pin choices. I'd guess someone picked up a round stick and made it work. Personally I think man invented a pin with ball bearings in the handle to make the work easier.........I don't care how fashionable a tapered pin is, I choose ease over fashion. When it comes to defrosting a flat/thinner object seems to defrost quicker then a ball.........and since I'm probably going to roll my dough into a round, it's easiest to freeze my dough in flattened rounds. Baking from a frozen state. I know.......the first time someone showed me this I thought it was crazy. I thought, your ruining this fresh fruit! But if you think about it, the act of cooking fruit changes it's texture, and freezing it then baking really doesn't do harm. Consider all those frozen ready to bake pies at the grocery store.........it works pretty well doesn't it? You'll have to try this to really believe me....you'll see your fruit won't over bake. Typically it just has time to come up to a boil (with-in the crust) and thicken. Instead with fresh unfrozen fruit, your fruit comes to a boil much quicker in your crust and boils for much longer until your crust is done. I bake at 375F straight from the freezer. Sometimes (at work) I might have frozen fruit, (like blueberriies) but typically it's not. I do everything the same- I roll out my crust, fill my shell with fruit, roll out top crust, wet edges, crimp together then place it in the freezer. I even egg wash or milk wash on the frozen pie before I bake it as I would with a non-frozen pie. I personally love clear pyrex pans. I still need to check the bottom of my pies. It seems no matter how much experience I have nothing beats a visual check.......sometimes I'm wrong and my crust isn't set. So being able to see the bottom-to me is wonderful, a great tool. I don't care about brands like 'pyrex' it the clear see thru bottom that thrills me. They also bake from a frozen state with-out breaking. (p.s. at this rate I think were covering my crust article better on this thread then I did writing it alone with-out feed back. You've gotten some great advice here from everyone!!!) Oops I thought of something else, I spray my pyrex pan with pan spray before placing my dough in it. You have to use a pan spray that doesn't contain water only fat, water makes things stick.......I don't know why they sell any pan spray with water, but they do. Anyway I think it does too things for me. 1. it prevents the finished pie crust from sticking in the pan. 2. the thin-thin layer of fat between my crust and my pan seems to help crisp my crust bottom better then with-out it. (Think of it as frying if you want...but it's not that much extra fat)

Any additional info. would be great........take your time, but please don't forget about us, I'll be waiting. Thanks. A stupid side note.......I needed a couple items and my chef desided to order from our albert uster rep-finally. So he calls the rep. who's naturely-in Vegas at the show. So my Chef says to me, "how come you didn't go to that?". I was shocked....and ribbed him, I didn't think there'd be a chance in hell I could take off then. But I'm going to remember his comment for next year!

I haven't baked madeleines in years. At work, next months specials are French-so I chose madeleines as one of my specials. I knew you guys were talking about them so I thought I'd explore them further with your help. BUT so far no ones' post a recipe and I don't own any of the mentioned books. Any chance some of you would post the actual recipes, please???? I never refridgerated my madeleines before baking previously and sometimes I'd get the huge hump and sometimes not. I never knew you wanted the hump. We used to pair two together putting preserves between them and the humps were in the way so if they had them I'd slice them off. I'm definately interested in learning more about these little cakes. How about flavors..........so far I've only made lemon, cinnamon and chocolate. What other flavors have you seen?

Maxmillan-you don't need a cold rolling pin, room temp. is just fine. It only takes me seconds to roll out a crust. I also don't use ice water, just cold tap water. The only thing that must be cold is your fat. I mix this up so quickly it doesn't get warm. Just for the record I use 12 oz of dough for each pie layer.........since I make large batches I scale them out before freezing. I've never owned a pastry blender, I'd guess you could over mix with this utensil. You can just cut up your butter on the counter like you do for other cooking processes (into tbsp's). Toss the butter chunks into your flour, then mix together with your hands. I break apart big clumps with my fingers and it's done........thats all there is to it. I like the idea of having pie crust premixed and on hand but I have to think that it's ultimately not a good idea. Your flour will absord more moisture from the refidgerator and odors. This will play with how much water you'll need to hydrate your flour. I'd rather see you mix it all up at once, portion out and freeze your extras. I've heard of people using all different types of fat.......I don't see why not. If you like that taste go for it. Tender crusts have less gluten worked up, so they've been lightly handled. I'm not exactly certain what creates them.......it could be a couple factors.........could be a mealy crust which is closer to a short crust (like a shortbread cookie where your fat is binding your flour together). Yesterday I had to whip together a couple apple pies (it's on my menu at work, one of my monthly specials and I didn't have any left in my freezer) and I didn't have time to chill them before baking. They looked beautiful going into the oven. Nicely domed with a generous amount of filling. My dough was still cold (I work pretty quick). Anyway after baking them as I always bake my pies.........I pulled them out of the oven-they looked great nice and full. THEN once they chilled out completely my filling did the great sink, pulling away from the top crust. It had been a long while since I'd baked a fruit pie I didn't pre-freeze and this only did another big confirmation for me: bake your fruit pies from a fozen state-the fruit won't over cook this way........it gives the best results. Baking a fresh fruit pie over cooks your filling before the crust is done. Oh.........also rolling between wax paper or parchement paper is a great tool/trick. I do so with all my rolled cookie doughs. But for pie, I tend to think your being to careful..which leads to over worked crusts. Roll it out in as much flour as you need, then take a dry pastry brush and brush the excess flour off of it before placing it in your pan. Your crust isn't going to absorb that much flour-unless your crust is too wet and soft to begin with. Project made another great point- your fat won't be all in consistant sizes. Pea size is what you aim for, but a few bits larger and smaller is fine.....it will look mostly like a bowl of flour with lumps of butter in it. It isn't a evenly consistant-don't even try to get it that way.

I can't really disagree with anything you wrote Project, thats all great advice! A traditional pie crust is just as you posted, flour, salt, shortening, water. Adding or subsituting anything else turns it into an enriched pie dough verses a traditional. Shortening is a cheap readily available fat-but it doesn't have flavor. This is the one thing I disagree with you on........using butter will give you a better tasting crust then all shortening. I think I need to clairfy one point. When I use a mixer to make my dough I'm making a huge batch in a 40 qt mixer. It's been so long since I've made 1 crust....yes I agree mixing by hand would be best. Use a rubber spatula when you add your water, so you won't over work it. Just toss it around in the bowl until it's starts to form together. Dump it out on your table and bring it together into one mass with your hands and your done. The whole process of making pie dough involves knowing what to look for and then stopping. I think most mistakes happen because people want to do too good of a job, putting in more effort then needed. Adding the right amount of water to bind is definately the next biggest stumbling block. Following your recipe isn't always accurate, in that flour reacts differently daily according to the humidity in it. Somedays you need more then a recipe states-some days less, dear ole grandma went by looks and feel... and to do a good job you should too. Having the right amount of moisture also makes a huge difference in how easy or hard you dough is to roll out. If you don't have enough water your dough will break as you roll it, it also takes a fair amount of effort and to flatten it as you roll. Where as a dough with the right amount of hydration rolls out easy. The thing about rolling is you have to factor in the temp. of your dough. If your dough is perfectly hydrated you might give it 5 minutes (or less) to warm up from the cooler.......then it should roll with perfect ease. If you give your dough a little time to warm up from the cooler and your dough cracks or is hard to roll or rips at the edges as you roll it, your dough is too dry. If it's too dry or too wet you really can't correct it without over working it, so start over. If it was too wet, it would warm up quickly and flatten with little pressure exerted. So Bloviatrix....if your able to roll out other items and just your pie dough is giving you problems......most likely your dough is too dry. Second possibility is it's too cold-but it would have to be damn cold to cause you any real struggle. As Project wrote chilling your dough before rolling it isn't exactly necessary..........but just like using butter instead of all shortening it can improve your experience. Keeping it chilled is just extra insurance so your fat doesn't warm up and incorporate too much into your flour. Thats why you are instructed to use ice water too, but technically you could use any temp. water and it will work......but cold protects the fat particals from blending. Rechilling a formed pie before you place it in the oven rechills the fat so when it goes into your oven the outter most surface starts to set in place before the inner. This helps hold crimps in place and prevent them from sagging. I think making pies is definately more difficult then many baked goods. Unlike other baked goods it's temp. and humidity sensitive and you have to make your own judgements along the way that a recipe can't factor in for you. That's why grandmas always made the best pies-experience. I think it you really want to master this in a shorter time period then grandma had you should do some experimenting in your own kitchen. Make 4 crusts at the same time and to each add a different amount of water-see what happens, how differently they roll and handle. Same thing with your fat, experiment in side by side trials. Try all shortening, 50/50 butter and shortening, then all butter........see what tastes best. Do the same trail with how much you incorporate your fat into your flour. Unlike many baked goods doing trials with pie crusts doesn't take alot of time. In one afternoon you can teach yourself alot. If your worried about waste, pie dough freezes beautifully for extended time periods and it can be used in savory cooking too.

I ditto that Ted. Boy do I wish I had some of/any of those items for work! I can't really tell how the theme played into these items Chocophile.........I'd love to know what each item was though-that might help. Do you know what was what? It's interesting the range of styles shown. I believe I see a mint leave, thats unusual in a world competition isn't it????????? From that to the Belguims plating.......wow! I think the best part of the US's plating was the plate itself, I think our design was weak compared to others. Seems to me the next thing/step is the contestants making their own plates out of edible material. This contest seems like theres just too much leaning on the purchased glassware....in my humble opinion. Yes, I love it and wish I owned all of it, but if you take the glass out of your judging I think these are less spectacular then past contests. No?

Oh yes I would believe that......I've had people change themes on me too.

Thank-you for taking the time to share your experience with us. It's greatly appreciated by those of us not able to attend.

The bigger your particals of fat are the flakier it will be. If you over mix your fat into your flour you'll get a mealy crust (which was mentioned already). If your mixture is the consistancy of corn meal or close to it, you've over mixed and have created a mealy crust. A mealy crust doesn't have the air pockets which make up a flaky crust......so it works best on the bottom layer when baking a wet fruit pie....putting a flakey crust on top. The flake comes from the release of steam and the fat melting out leaving distinct air pockets. Thats why it crumbles so easily. Flake also happens with kneading/turning/folding over like when you make danish doughs or other laminated doughs. I've never folded my pie dough to increase flakiness. But when I rework scraps that's what happens technically and I think those pieces are heavier and less flakie.....I'd need to experiment to see. My prefered recipe uses vinager, I think it tenderizes the gluten more the lemon juice also (as was previously suggested). I use apple cider vinager, which you don't taste after it's baked. I also use all butter. I used to use 50/50 butter with crisco. But once you learn how to not over handle the butter you'll get just as flakie of a crust, but it tastes better with-out the shortening (shortening has no taste). I mix my crusts in a stand mixer. I used to use the cusinart buI now think the mixer works better because it works less. I also bake my fruit pies from a frozen state. By the time the fruit in the center gets hot enough to thicken, your crust will be crisped. Theres really no diference between what a fresh fruit pies fruit turns out like then a fresh fruit frozen then baked. Either way the fruit becomes soft. When the fruit is frozen going into the oven it takes longer to defrost insultating it from heat until the crust catches up......so you fruit will actually seem fresher this way. I wrote a class on making pies crusts for eg........it should be posted soon.

So how are you doing? Have you tried making them yet?

I completely agree and ditto your post. It's completely insulting and I think anyone who does so or asks to do so is acting rudely to the establishment. If you don't like their products buy them else where. It's a place of business not your own home. To ask for an exception is rather egocentric......... and if your a 'regular customer' its even more insulting in my opinion. Even though I'm a pastry chef that doesn't influence my stand on this issue. I both enjoy special requests and not having to forfill special requests. I would never dream of bringing my own food into a restaurant and then asking them to serve it to me, please..... are you crazy. I would never dream of bringing my own wine either, there is no difference.

I'll jump on the pile of answers you've recieved.........(everyone answered your question) I'm just hoping to restate and bring it all together for you. 1. Puff pastry always shrinks. It's not you or the brand you purchased. 2. Make it larger and trim it after it's baked for exact size. 3. Give the dough a couple minutes after you've rolled it, before you cut it-because the gluten often tightens back up (it does in most doughs). After cutting you re-chill before baking p.p. 4. You can weight down puff pastry to limit how high it rises and even control it's height. You can weight it down with baking sheets placed on top of it or just about anything.....just consider the dough will rise up in any spot thats not evenly weighted down. When it's weighted down you don't have to dock it-but you do have to give it alot of weight on top because the escaping steam will raise up your weights. 5. Brushing or spraying the pastry with corn syrup after it's partically baked, yet not finished.......puts a thin caramel seal over the dough helping lock out moisture which is p.p enemy. Adding a little h2o to your corn syrup and heating it up, thins out the corn syrup so it's easier to apply. I prefer to spray it on rather then brush because it hits all sufaces/crevices better. You can also use dark corn syrup, maple syrups. glucose........any similar product will work to seal your dough. I do disagree with cutting your pastry while it's warm and not totally set. To do so successfully you've really got to have a light hand and sharp knive. The pastry tends to mash down and it's hard to slice cleanly. I believe it's easier to trim after it's completely baked and cooled.

Dee, it's all just a educated guess. Theres many ways to make the same thing........you just have to jump in and try. Over time you'll learn what works best for you. Any cake can be made any size to fit the number of servings you need. Even so, the truth is you begin to use your judgement as you cut the cake increasing or decreasing your serving size so you have enough or not too much left over. Colette Peters really is outstanding and I highly reccomend all of her books. There are many other decorators who also do sculpted cakes and have great books too. Scraps.......well the first couple years you eat them yourself as your working, heck I still do frequently. Then when you get sick of them and you've gained wieght you learn to throw them out or pass them onto someone else who's hungry. Sure there are things you can do with your scraps like triffles or rum balls, but thats just another chore..... it depends upon how often you do this and how many scraps you have to constantly deal with. Jump in and try doing sculpted cakes, they always get great reactions from your viewers and I think their alot of fun..........and not that hard to do!

Oh goodness, gardening takes time and some skill. Then putting items up for the winter=lots of time. I greatly enjoy the whole process. It's very gratifying. It all depends upon where you live and your life style........berries take room to grow and the hardest part (for me) is finding the free time at the peak time of harvest to can..... my life revolves around my work schedule of which I have little control during our busy season. You really have to work hard to time out your plantings so your crops aren't all peeking at the same time. And even so-they ignore your efforts and everything seems to ripen the same week. Truthfully it became a negative experience over the years for me. I'd rarely get my jars back. We'd get sick of the items with-in a couple months and I'd wind up throwing out my efforts just to empty the jars so I could cann the next season. It became a chore just giving items out. My parents warned me before I borrowed their jars that it becomes a chore over time..........of course I ignored their warning- it's fun and forfilling during the time your enjoying it and I'm glad I took the time to do so.

O.k. thanks for reasuring me of my recipe choice. I don't have time to try this out or any other recipe so it's a one shot deal. I've got my fingers crossed RBL will come thru for me on this item.

I probably would have chosen a different purse design for these reasons. These are very thin and all the detail that's going to make them look real happens on the sides- in a thin area. I also think to pull off those wallets they'll look best standing up, not laying down-which gives you an extra factor to figure out. But that's just my opinion of what I'd do, how I'd design my 3 objects together. I look for really obvious details that signal what an item is, like a handle or a strap on a purse......in this case I'd say your making a wallet and not a purse. I'm guilty of just visually figuring out how to make something. I'm not sure I've ever followed written instructions.........so I might not be able to describe this as well as others who freqeuntly use instructions. So I hope the following helps......... Anyway.........I begin with a sheet cake or part of one. Since these are very small you won't need much, about 3"x4". I'd choose a pound cake for this because their dense and easy to cut and shape-plus they hold with-out spoiling for several days. If you did the red wallet you would need to shape your cake to bevel down the bottom, then round off your corners. I'd frost one side of the shaped cake thinnly with buttercream, then set it down onto my rectangularly shaped rolled out piece of red fondant. I'd cut the fondant around the edges of my cake aprox. 1/4". Then I'd frost the other side of the cake which is now face up. Gently I'd flip the cake over using the whole length of the piece of fondant and repeat cutting out 1/4" edge around the whole wallet. It should be sort of similar to a book cover. (it's hard to see the details clearly) But as I covered the cake with fondant I'd bend over my edges which I left 1/4" long to come into the sides where the zipper will fit into. I'd trim those nicely with a pair of sissors to perfect the width of this edge. With a rolling tool thats toothed (like what seamstresses use) you then follow the outline of the purses edges to make it appear like stitching, the stitching on the outside border. Then you need to put a zipper in. Have you ever seen a zipper at a fabric store? You need extra material on both sides to tuck into your border. Using the same or similar toothed roller- press in the lines where the seams would be on a zippers sides. Faking in the actual zipper is hard to do free hand.....finding the right tool to do the job will help, but you could still you that same toothed roller. Place you zipper on a dowel to raise up the metal zipper part while you do the faux metal part of the zipper. Then you insert your zipper into the center open area. Use a metal spatula or similar knive (with-out a sharp edge) and use that to lift out your fabric edge and tuck your zipper under it. Then fold the material back into place. You'll need to do another fake seem using your toothed roller so the zipper looks sewn into the leather. Making the pull/handle, is just cutting out a small piece of fondant to size, use your toothed roller to fake in seems, attach it, then paint the metal hook with metalic edible dust thinned with vodka or clear vanilla extract. For the logo.......I can't really see it well. From what I see, I'd cut out a piece of red fondant in the triangular shape. Then I'd do the lettering in royal icing and outline the triangle, and give it a day or two to dry. I'd then go back and paint my royal icing with the same metalic dust you used on the zipper. Then I'd use royal icing to attach the logo to the top of the wallet. For the shoe box, I like the idea of using a peice of styrofoam to fake the top of the box so the lid looks like it's over the box beneath it. I'd use fondant or chocolate plastic to cover the styrofoam. You'll need to put a thin layer of frosting or something to adhear the fondant to the styrofoam. I think the major factor that will pull this off is how you place your objects on your base cake. Have you ever looked at any of the top cake designers websites? They typically don't place items safely completely with-in the base cake. Instead they might let the edge of a shoe box hang over the side of the base cake. It's not as hard to do as you might guess. It's just using your cake supports and having your top item on a sterdy board. Same thing with the wallet. It would very realistic if it was standing and leaning on the box verses laying flat on your base cake. Well I hope this helped and didn't discourage you. Sometimes you just have to do something to learn how to do it better the next time. Everyone has their own ideas about design and what they would do....I hope you'll take my suggestions just as my opinion, I'm not trying to tell you what your doing is right or wrong.....only how I face the challenge. I hope you have fun!

I can only recall what I used to do and wish I had your lovely raspberries. This year is my first year with-out a edible garden. I didn't even have time to plant any annuals in my flower urn in the front of my home. It's been all work for me this summer. Raspberry is definately one of my favorite fruits and it combines with many other flavors nicely. I adore rasp. sorbet.....I could drink rasp. puree for a treat. Lucky you!!!!!! Sometimes when we'd ride on the bike path we'd run across wild rasp. bushes-that was alway a treat.....typically the bees get more then I'm willing to fight them over.

I'm not that well versed in fudge but if I'm understanding you correctly the type of recipe Fifi posted should be what your looking for. Off the top of my head theres two kinds of fudge. One type is cooked to temp. let cool to another temp. then beaten to the right texture and left to set. This type gives you a more of a granula firmish type of fudge. I'd also describe it as classic fudge. Then there are quick recipes, like what Fifi posted. They usually combine marshmellow or fluff with chocolate and your basicly just looking to melt the ingredients together (not cooking to a specific temp.) stir and pour in the pan to set. These are typically smooth soft fudges. I believe you can find decent recipes for both these styles of fudge online at major chocolate companies web sites. I know both Hersheys and Nestles have published these recipes. As for add ins...............well that can could become an endless pairing contest. You could use dried fruits (cut into bits if their large), any salted nut, coconut, rice crispies or any cereals, granola, bits of candy bars, bits of cookies, sprinkle coarse sea salt on top, extracts, oils, emulsions, pistachio paste, almond paste, liquours, etc........