Merry Berry

Another catering event. This time, just a simple Vanilla Bundt cake with mixed berries and lemon glaze. Again, this time of year in the heat and humidity, something light and simple is preferable. All of it (2 cakes) was gone by the time the luncheon was over. Always happy with no waste!!

Yes, I make a mascarpone mousse with a bombe mixture heated to 165, add the gelatin sheets and fold in the mascarpone. Then fold in the whipped cream. It sets it up nicely, but not overly so (it is still light and airy without being too rigid). I typically have to keep it frozen since it will start to sag over time in the cooler.

Yep, I hear you. I like the shaved chocolate too.

Catered a luncheon for the local Chamber of Commerce. The dessert I am pushing here lately is tiramisu since it is always simple and light for the heat this time of year. I hand make the mascarpone cheese and the ladyfingers and use ground chocolate-flavored coffee beans in the simple syrup for soaking the ladyfingers. Finish it with a 3-cocoa blend from KAF that I really like. One of my favorite desserts to make. Had a lot of people tell me they like that it does not taste like the same old same old tiramisu you see in stores or at other catered events (read, from Sysco frozen haha). Tiramisu.pdf

Alternately you could make the order now and freeze until they are needed. Definitely second this. What is your capacity? How many molds do you have, how fast are you, etc.

I don't know. I have never met a gruntled dishwasher haha

Have you staged with them? Something to focus on when staging is how they treat people around them besides focusing on the operations. If I leave a stage without much thought to their operations, then I know they most likely make sense or I see areas of concern, etc. But watching how they interact with their staff and customers is just as important. I try to stay silent and keep my ears open to what is happening around me without them really paying me much attention. If they forget I am there, they might slip into their normal routine and drop the "best behavior". I know pretty quickly if they are people I will mesh well with or not by that point.

Gotcha

I have a few questions for y'all For one, why did you take your cocoa butter to 60°C. Anytime I make my silk, I use the CB pellets out of the pail, set the temp to 33.7 and let it go for 24 hours. Nice creamy silk when it's finished. Taking it to 60°C would completely remove the crystalline structure necessary to hold its and the chocolate's shape, no? I am confused there. Also, when I add my silk to my chocolate mass, I do it at around 35°C and the subsequent stirring of the CB into the chocolate cools it off right to the 32.2°C, in perfect temper. Any reason you wait to add the silk at 31-32°C? Lastly, how humid is it there? I ask because I saw this a few times at my school. It is often hot and humid here, and if I leave my chocolate on the counters to set up instead of a quick pop into the fridge, this type of bloom happens. Even if your room is cool enough, the moisture in the air is still hanging around and can play havoc with the surfaces of your chocolate. I use the cooler no matter the time of year since it is almost always humid here. If your cooler is down, is there a way you can work around it? Cooler with ice packs in it to put the molds in for a few minutes? I know for me, I have to get that setup going as quick as possible. Typically after that, I can leave it at (a reasonable) room temperature without it blooming. What type of cocoa butter are you using? Hope some of this helps.

Sure, but credit goes to lebowits since I am pretty sure I use a recipe he posted on here once. I want all the starch in the bananas to be converted to sugar, so I use bananas that are oozing sugar syrup. So they basically are all black and look terrible, but are delicious to use. His version just called for medium ripe. 2 bananas, black and oozing syrup 1 vanilla bean, scraped 150 g walnuts 325 g dark brown sugar 225 g white chocolate, melted 25 g butter, soft 80 g dark rum 1. Process the bananas and walnuts in a food processor until the fruit is smooth and the nuts well chopped 2. Melt the sugar in a pot with the scraped vanilla and slowly bring to a boil 3. Add the banana and walnut mixture to the pot and continue to cook for several minutes, stirring to thoroughly combine 4. Take the pot off the heat and add the butter, stirring to combine 5. Add the sugar mixture to the melted chocolate and mix to combine 6. Allow the mixture to cool to about 100F 7. Add the rum and combine 8. Allow to cool to room temp Pipe into molded white chocolate shells and seal.

It is worse when you have 3 refrigerators at home and all 3 are filled with bananas falling on the floor from the freezer. My wife takes a dim view on them doing that, for some weird reason haha. Besides banana bread, one of my favorite uses for it, is a Bananas Fosters molded white chocolate bonbon. It is a hit everywhere I take them

Right now it is pretty unscientific. Used to, I was spoiled with a stand-up proof box. Now, I have to put them near a warm oven if it's the wintertime, but, not close enough to get too hot and melt the butter out. Of course, since I am in the South, it is easy to proof them the other 9 months out of the year 😳 The bakery I currently use gets pretty hot when the ovens are turned on, so I roll the carts close to them and that seems to do the trick. With the heat and humidity lately, proofing is not a problem at all haha.

To me, the jiggle is just like Jell-O. The entire structure moves or wiggles from the bottom up. If only the top barely moves, that is not enough. It looks like it is going to collapse, but it does not. I probably find 73° too low of a temp to proof at just because I feel like it would take it forever especially if there is no humidity to go along with it. That said, I have seen 73°F be on the low end of the proofing range by some writers.

PPM, for beginning out, I really liked Burno Albouze's recipe https://www.brunoskitchen.net/blog/post/croissant-taste-of-paris My method is a little bit different from his, but I really like the recipe. I got my Bouchon book out and it said to mix the dough for 20 minutes. As Teo said, that is why too long for croissant dough. For me, I take it just up to where it just begins to relax, but is not to the windowpane stage. The other key to croissants and the crumb I have found to be one of the most important is the proofing. They are proofed when they are proofed haha. Meaning, there is no timeline for them to proof, so many people just read a recipe and go with the time listed. Proof around 80°F (or lower to 75°F) and gently shake the pan they are on. They should jiggle like Jell-O. No jiggle, then they are not ready yet. Usually I do not check until at least an hour, but often it is closer to 2 hours before they are fully proofed in my kitchen. Oven temp for me usually starts at 425°F and then I reduce it to 375 for 12-20 minutes depending on the oven. I have also done 375°F for about 20 minutes with fine results, but that was a deck oven at the school I taught at that would run hot most days. I find it curious that Bouchon says to bake them for 35-40 minutes in a conventional oven. Even at a lower temp, that is overkill and will be too dark (in your pic, they look a little too dark). They also have a bready look to them. What type of flour did you use? When I am stuck with subpar AP flour, I will sometimes sub a certain percentage of the AP with pastry flour (10% or so). Sorry if you already know all the above. By the way, I have always wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your beautiful bonbons you post on IG. I wish I were that diligent in posting stuff 🤔 and half as creative. It definitely inspires me.

As JeanneCake said, I know I would never use glaze for a tiered cake. I definitely would never try to paint on it since glaze never really dries like a fondant or modeling chocolate. Making your own fondant or modeling chocolate is infinitely easier which allows you to quickly cover the cake, and gives the perfect canvas for most things you want to do to it. As for mixing the edible powders and not wanting to use alcohol, you can mix them with lemon extract. I personally use Everclear since it evaporates quickly, but I have also used the extract, vodka, etc. and they all work well. If you get the Styrofoam cake dummies, watch the video on YT by Chef Alan at Global Sugar Art for tips and tricks. I have made variations of the video below for poppy themed cakes. It is a good basic tutorial for painting on fondant. Just make sure to torte and layer a barrel cake to give you enough room to paint and play.

What is her reasoning for leaving it out, exactly? I am with you that trying to handle room temperature dough is ugh. That said, I cannot imagine this being very different than leaving butter out to soften for the creaming method (actually one of my pet peeves is bakers leaving butter out like that, but that is a discussion for later). Here in TN, our food laws pretty much mirror ServSafe standards and as far as I know from teaching ServSafe for the past 5 years, butter is not considered a TCS food. But it depends on what your state laws are. Some states are draconian with their laws and might frown upon it.

I definitely second what PG is saying. Order from your competitors. Or better yet, if they have a semi-open kitchen, go there and order and then watch their process. You can always ask innocent questions as a "customer". Most counter workers (from my experience), are unaware when a "customer" is asking probing questions. You are just a curious customer, killing time, by talking about cookies.

Unfortunately, both are still outside my price range for now. But it is definitely on the short list for toys to buy.

That's ridiculous!! <Quietly deletes his browsing history to hide evidence of looking into buying a mill) 😛 If I had found one in my price range, I have to admit, I would have ordered one.

Made a Father's Day cake for a neighbor. She did not care what I did with it as long as it was chocolate everything haha. Have not done fondant figurines in a while, so I knew I would be rusty, but they came out okay. Still have some work to do to make them look more natural, but it should come back to me with time and practice. Cake is Devils Food with ABC icing with a dark chocolate ganache drip.

David, I absolutely adore rhubarb and I am finally starting to see it in the stores this week. My grandmother would make a rhubarb cobbler from plants she had in her garden and to this day, it is my favorite dessert. She did not cut it with strawberry or anything. Just the right amount of sugar so that it was just sweet enough without killing the wonderful tartness of the rhubarb. I cannot think of anyone I know who enjoys rhubarb or even knows what it is besides me (well my mother, but she despises it). I would love to see it make a comeback!!

It doesn't answer your question, but it got me thinking about 1800's style baking and yeast production. I thought this was an interesting article. Now I want to grow hop vines 🙄 https://thelibrary.org/lochist/periodicals/bittersweet/sp79i.htm

Ha. I like how the nuthatches are checking on their eggs in the last picture!! And if anyone ever asks for a mint chocolate chip cake, that is the perfect look!

Any reason you are leaving them in the chiller overnight? Chilling tempered chocolate is going to make them release in about 3 minutes or even less. When I place my shells in the cooler before filling, it is for that amount time only. If I leave them in as long as you do, they will release and then the humidity from the chiller is going to cause them to go dull and bloom. If your room temp is cold enough, placing them in the chiller is not even necessary as the tempered chocolate will set up nicely in the <=65°F room. Unfortunately, I am in the South so I rarely can get my workroom cold enough this time of year.

Sorry shain, I forgot to respond to your post. Let me know when you take on the L'opera cake. I will give you my notes or recipes if you want. It is definitely one of my favorites.