Wendy DeBord

All chiffon cake recipes are not identical. I've baked ones that were very light and fragile that couldn't take the pressure when you sliced into them. Then I've baked ones where they were structurely strong enough to be de-paned while warm and soaked with syrup with-out loosing any volume/height. It all depends on the structure of the particular chiffon. I think most people will agree that it's best to cool them adheared to the pan. Upside down cooling.......ah......it can't hurt if your not sure how strong your chiffons structure is.

Welcome to the eGullet Society For Arts & Letters Chef Mason. I was wondering if you'd mind telling us/me how you got involved in pastry? Did you ever work on the hot side?

I'm so thrilled to read this info.. I've inquired several times in Asian restaurants on their brand of soy sauce and all of them tell me Kikkomans...........but what I get at restaurants is nothing like what I get at the grocery store. I've tried a couple types of kikkoman and several other brands, all to be dissapointed. AH HA! Finally the answer. Please tell me that the American bottled version is harsher/stronger? That's what I notice........

I did similar once..........I made flourless chocolate cake then put slices of ganache 'cheese' to cover the top. For the cheese/ganache I used melted white chocolate and just added a little heavy ceam to keep it from returning to a solid chocolate once it chilled. So I poured the thick ganache into a sprayed and lined cake pan the same diameter as my flourless cake. Let it set up a bit, then with varying sized round cookie cutters cut out circles to represent swiss cheese. Then when it was almost set I inverted it out of the pan and placed it on my flourless cake....and cut the whole thing into wedges...........placed my mice on it, etc...

Welcome Lynne! I go with .25 oz to equal one package of gelatin.

Add my name to the list of people enjoying learning about your job and life Tim. I have a couple silly questions, if you don't mind.....? Do you get any type of allowance for books or taking culinary classes? Do your order any exotic or fresh (maybe truffles) items thru proveyors or online sources? If so, who do you like and what do you buy? What do you do with your down time during your work day? For example can you watch TV or read a book while something is braising? Is their home open for you (like can you sit outside for your lunch or go swimming during your shift) or do you remain in the kitchen mostly? Do you have a wide variety of plates/china to serve from? Do you ever get to buy/choose them? Do you set the table artisticly when they have company? Like choosing the linens and flowers to match what your serving, etc....? Do you have to do all your own dishes or do you have assistance? thank-you for sharing

I suggest taking a look at a thread we had a few months back on mini pastries, look here. If you can see how what we were talking about fits your topic/thread you could be set free and see the millions of possiblities there are. But...........I sure can understand having brain freeze, and I really enjoy hearing what other people think up soooooo I'll take a couple stabs at ideas for you: I add fresh, poached, dried or canned fruits to my layers. From strawberries to apples to grapes, etc... You can also do other add-ins like chopped nuts, chocolate bits, coconut, etc... You could flavor your pastry cream with alchols, fruit purees, nut pastes (like you did with nutella), extracts and oils, etc... You could also put a different flavor on each layer of one napoleon. Last night on Sugar Rush he made a napoleon with one layer pistachio, one layer chocolate and one layer strawberry. Example: chocolate, peanut butter and banana or cinnamon, apples and lemon or pecan, cinnamon and bourbon, etc.... You could take a look at a thread I started here on flavor combinations if you need some flavor combo ideas. As suggested previously, you don't have to be a slave to using classic pastry cream. You could use mousse or a bavarain as a filling or a combo of fillings. How about one layer of a rich buttercream, ganche or a jellie among your pastry cream.....

Yes, I'm a pastry Chef. I live out in the burbs of Chicago and rarely travel and even less rarely do I eat at fine dinning restaurants. Sooooo your work has been highly educational to me, it's a chance to see what others are doing with a real review on it's taste. I absorb as much as I can thru books and magazines..........but your work fills in the voids, shows me the real life plated dessert as if I had been there myself.

Great!!! Then we've helped! Keep us abreast of how things go, good or bad, o.k.?

Its good to learn of more details. I can only guess about things you haven't yet mentioned about this adventure. You and she already understand the following: There's basicly two ways to make money in the pastry business. One is by doing exceptional high quality and priced custom work. The other is by doing volume. Same thing applies to catering....two ways to make a profitable business..........volume or unique high quality with a price to match. The wholesalers (verses a small retail shop) have the market when it comes to volume and low pricing. You can't compete with them and make a profit with-out having a huge investment in volume producing equipment and staff. You can get some of their accounts, cause there's always businesses looking for better quality products. But they'll want your work at the same price as the big wholesaler, and you can't match that as a small retailer. The more things you sell, like catered food, breakfast pastries, b-day cakes the more hands/emloyees it takes to make them from scratch, the more refridgerator and freezer space you'll need, the more square footage you'll need to store your raw product, the more equipment you'll need.....the less profitable each becomes. It's easier therefore more profitable to make 30 gallons of soup at once time in one flavor then 30 different flavored soups in 1lb. orders. It's easier/more profitable to sell 10 wedding cakes per week then 100 birthday cakes. Unforunately, when your building a business you can't be selective. You need money and don't know what the next order might bring, so you take everything that comes to you. You have to. That's the horrible struggle new businesses face. The successful businesses I've seen, have a strong business plan and work it instead of relying upon the next customer in their door. They invest their time and money in marketing their product. If she already has a catering business and is making a profit/living with it, why further extend herself? It doesn't make sense to me. Why not extend the catering, why take on a second avenue? I've met people/been related too people who love to cook and bake and don't know how to make a living doing so. So they open a retail business where customers/money/income comes to them. Their in fact, buying themselves a job. It's not a realistic profitable way to make money. You'll likely make someone money, but it will go to everyone but yourself. So, then what is the main thing bothering you, what do you want in the way of assistance from us? To help you make up your mind? We support your decission either way, we're realists around here. Nothing ventured nothing gained...........go for it......... or don't. Do we think you have enough knowledge to fill the shoes she's wanting from you?.........none of us could possibly know. We've all had jobs that looked good from the outside and then the hours or work didn't match what the job description was or visa versa. We walk away or we stay and adjust.

I'll try to helpful.........and just throw out a couple things that came to my mind...........you might want to duck though.........I can't sugar coat this. First, and worst, I'd bet money that this bakery will fail, quickly (as soon as her savings run out). It's a very nieve dream......... not based on any reality/skill/experience/insight. She's willing to put her money into creating a bakery where you design and own the recipes and product and she just supplys the flour and cracks the whip. Well, how kind of her to fund your dream and how stupid of her to think it will work for her. That shows a complete lack of understanding of both business and baking. In time, this won't work for you personally either. You'll get tired of running the place, you'll get crazied by her poor decissions and how they effect your work load and hours. Ever worked for a boss who didn't own a clue? It's really really hard!!! You can't always hold their hand and make it work........eventually you'll get real sick of it. If I was you and wanted this job, I'd take the job cause someone will and it might as well be you.............run with it..........have fun with it, spend her money and learn learn learn. But don't in your wildest dreams think a bakery business with-out a plan or basic understanding of the business will make it. This will be a great education on 'what not to do'. Don't expect to learn from this, you won't learn how to run your own place from this (as Neil mentioned, your better to learn how to succeed from someone else). That's the mistake that usually happens next. The employee thinks if only the boss had listened and taken all your suggestions.......they'd still be in business.........and that you could do it better just based on correcting their mistakes. The employee sinks their life savings into their own bakery and fails too. I've seen this done a couple times!!! Before you put a penny into a bakery you've got tons to learn. More on how to run a business then on baking.........baking is the easiest part. Learn from people who have succeeded, not from people who haven't. We can coach you thru tons of things.....give you tons of insight......etc.... But...BUT!!!........ it's not your bakery, you don't own it, you don't run it. Will she be able to run it? Does she know how to price and market "your" product.........heck no, she doesn't even realize she's buying a job in a highly unprofitable business. From what you've written, this owner would have better luck at earning a return on her investment if she just pissed it away gambling, seriously.

Always on the hunt for perfection, I tried out a recipe from Cookstalk's list of tired and true recipes the last week of 2005 that was darned interesting. It's called the Suzan B recipe (or very similar)...........I'll try to post a link in the next couple days, if anyone is interested? What's really different is: it's oil based, no butter exactly the texture and moisture level of a cake mix it holds for a LONG time with-out change in texture, refrigeration doesn't change the texture when you eat it right from the fridge the method is crazy simple........combine all wet, combine all dry...stir the two together by hand (no lumps remain)....if you wanted to, this would be the ideal cake to produce in volume.....you could weigh out your dry ingredients and you wet in huge proportions and mix in whatever size batches you'd need for the week, etc... ............but, yes there is a catch..........it doesn't draw you back for more (regardless of the brand of cocoa powder you use, at least in my trials)...it's darn good......but nothing that compels me to gorge on it

I wish you could recall which thread this was resolved on Sethro. Other then this very thread the only similar one I recall was when we were testing lemon curds for the best (does that help?). I wish I could recall.....but I can't remember anyone having the answer to 'why'. I don't find the metalic taste linked to freshness..........for me, if it's present it is so from the moment it's made. I'd love an answer to this puzzle.

I've printed out vertually every dessert photograph you posted, to study and remember. Then, darn it, you got me completely hooked into your blog (and I rarely find interest in savory discussion). I've been reading for hours now and can't stop......my eyes are so tired I can't see straight, but I'll be back asap. I can't wait to finish reading every word, every review. Where will you dine next? I'm going to need more, please.

Ah........I will definately be making a trip there!! Thank-you! P.S. I'd heard the name but wasn't sure what it was........

I hope you won't consider this off topic......the one food source I want the MOST.........is a Chicagoland Granville Island (but a little more upscale). I'd drive 3 hours one way, every week just to shop there on my day off. I want quality ingredients...........shelfs of the best chocolates, shelfs of handmade pasta, a real gourmet source. A one stop visit to a market that has the best produce, pasta, meat, seafood, herbs, teas, coffees, etc... with a few artisian shops thrown in for fun. The dining/cafeteria section would have our best restaurants and bakeries selling 'to go' items.

anyone have a link to where one can purchase his book?

Thank-you for taking the time to share your experiences. I'm savoring each and every photograph and I love your comments too.

As much as I complain about the hours and pay, yes I'd encourage her!!! At that age she's already thinking about her future, bravo....nuture it. Let her try as many things/careers as her heart desires. Take her to good restaurants as excursions. Just as you'd take a child to a museum. Buy her a good/professional level cookbook and get her the ingredients to try to reproduce them. When she's 16 enourage her to get a job at a local restaurant, what can it hurt? Even if she doesn't go into cooking professionally it's a very fun and rewarding hobby that she can dabble with her whole life. Let her take an inexpensive cooking class. Give her opportunities to see that she can be anything she wants. P.S. you can be a picky eater and be a Chef, totally. You never know she may out grow that or she may not. That doesn't mean she won't enjoy preparing food for others.

I'm drawn to a couple of chocolatiers combinations even though I haven't even tasted their work. I can't tell you exactly why but many combinations I read look like they're too adventurous just for the sake of being different...or they read too plain, which they might not be, but the wording sounds plain. Something draws me to Drew Shotts combinations in his advertisements more then others. Here's some of his: Morello cherry pate de fruit over homemade pistachio marzipan, enrobed in dark choc. Minty white chocolate ganache over a layer of bittersweet ganche. Buttery caramel ganache enrobed in dark chocolate and garnished with candied Hawaiian ginger. Cinnamon ganache over a layer of finely ground homemade pecan paste, enrobed in milk choc. Caramel ganache over cashew praline, enrobed in dark choc. Dark choc. ganache infused with pear puree and brown butter, enrobed in milk choc. Pear pate de fruit over a layer of dark choc. that's been finished with beurre noisette, enrobed in dark choc. Milk chocolate ganache with caramelized bananas tossed in Jamaician rum and vanilla seeds, enrobed in milk choc. Key lime with dark chocolate Granny smith apple pate de fruit over a white choc. ganache with ground caramel, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove and all spice Apricot pate de fruit over white chocolate and yogurt ganache, enrobed in dark choc. Caramel ganache over coffee ganache enrobed in milk choc. Coconut white chocolate ganche infused with dark rum, enrobed in dark choc. Key lime infused white ganache over a graham cracker crust, enrobed in milk choc.

Actually I was glad to read your post. I was going to be all bummed out if someone had one solution....cause I have to play with every batter. Muffins too, they don't all rise the same.

just adding my two cents.... I think Ong's is better.

too funny.........I had baked alaska on my menu last night too.....

Loved it!!

I recieved the lastest issue of Pastry Art & Design (Decemeber 2005) yesterday and the whole issue is devoted to frozen desserts. Toward the back of the magazine Tish Boyle did a "how to" with Robert Ellinger on 'liquid nitrogen dip' and 'instant ice cream' as shown above in Heidihi's post.