FWED

Has anyone besides me tasted the "Choc Elan" chocolates. They are produced on Mercer Island I think and are sold in selected locations, including Sur La Table. The are Exquisite looking and more like Essentials in taste profile. One of the principals in the company is Bill Fredericks (the chocolate man) who teaches chocolate tasting and gives classes in molding chocolates and truffles in this area. He also retails many varieties of bulk chocolate and rents tempering machine and molds.

This is slightly off the topic but associated with it. Can anyone recommend a good coffee grinder. I use a French press for morning coffee and find that my old grinder (a Krupp's) does not do a uniform grind. It's not a bur grinder, it's the kind of grinder that looks like a miniature blender. The coffee ends up either to fine or to fine and to course combined. This produces a lot of sediment in the French press.

Hi Neil. I am assuming that the pastry shell is prebaked or almost completely baked. Yes/No. I love straining out the zest because I can munch on it while the tart is finishing doing its thing.

Hi Wendy. Its been many years since I was in Venice but some things don't change. The things that I remember there were; gondolas, the plaza San Marco, the cathedral of St Marks (I think), a tall column (in the plaza) with a winged Lion on top, and of course the masks. These are some of the most photographed things in Venice. The bridge of Sighs is another item but might be hard to include. Look for postcard views and work from there. Why not do a scene of some of these items done in thin (1/4 inch thick) chocolate as a series of silhouettes with the pastry's displayed in front. Look at pictures of Venice, say the Cathedral and the column and add a cutout of a gondola and then draw up the outline and use that as the basis for patterns. The outline is what is important and you could even texture the sheets of chocolate or use transfer sheets if you have them. This is the technique I have used for some things I have done. It is the technique that Jacques Torres uses in some of his creations and that is where I got my ideas. There is one of his pictured in his book "Dessert Circus" on page 123. Its not exactly the same thing but it will give your the idea that I am suggesting. Also talk with Neil he is definitely the graphics man and he might have suggestions. Hope this helps

Hi JFLinLA and all. Well I finally got around to baking and here is the results. I have Sherry's book and have used several things out of it with success. I was not prepared for what was about to happen. I followed the original recipe adding the lime zest and juice. Was careful about creaming, mixing, chilling, and the oven temp. The cookies came out flat as little pancakes. They tasted great but were flat. Just like JFL said in her original entry. So its back to the drawing board. In another section on Creaming butter and sugar Sherry suggests that in cookie recipes using powdered sugar the butter should be slightly soft. The original recipe does not state what temp the butter should be but intimates that it should be cold. So I make two more batches of the cookie recipe. In the first batch I used room temp butter (about 70 degrees) and in the second I used cold butter. I creamed both for a minimum of time in both cases under 2 minutes. I add the flour and mixed by hand. Into the refer for a 2 hour cooling. I then divided each batch into two parts and altered the chilling of the shaped unbaked cookies, the temp of the oven, the freezing of the dough before baking, convection vs regular baking, type of cookie sheet, use and non use of parchment and silicone mats and the time in the oven. Nothing worked. They all came out flat or semi flat (in the case of the frozen shaped cookies). So what is next. It would be nice if Sherry could give us some suggestions if she is out there. If anyone else has tried this recipe with success please report in.

I used the magic strips on the original cakes in the other thread because I had already baked 2 of the 5 taste tested and wanted to keep the routine the same for all 5 cakes. As far as the type of cocoa powder used I tend to use what is called for in the recipe. I would think that for this thread we need to decide which type we are going to use, Natural of Dutched. 1+1/2 tsp of baking soda might be to much for Dutched and just right for Natural cocoa. I'm not sure what was the cause of the off taste. Not all the tasters in my taste test of the 5 chocolate cakes could detect it in the Wooley cake but 2 of 12 could and their pallets are quite sharp. I suspect it was either due to the baking soda or the type of oil I used. So I will try a couple of things

I like the idea of the appliance lift brackets but am concerned about their load capacity The info on the link says a load capacity of 17.5 pounds. My old Kitchen Aid model 45 weighs in at 20 pounds and I am not sure what the new bigger machines weigh. Another aspect is can the machine be left on the lift when operating or does it have to be moved onto the counter and the shelf stowed away. That might make the shelf more effort than its worth. I'm also not sure my machine would be secure when it is kneeding dough on that shelf. I would hate to see the machine walk off the edge onto the floor. That would not be a good day. I don't mean to discourage you but these are things that can be answered before you start building and end up with something that isn't quite workable.

I second the recommendation for large uncluttered counter surfaces and adjustable spaces. I would also recommend that if you are going to have under counter cabinets please consider drawers in them that pull out instead of shelves whether fixed or adjustable. It makes things much easier to find and get at especially if the cabinets are deep. Corner cabinets should have lazy susan adjustable turntables. If you have a place for cabinets that are more shallow and not in direct view of other parts of the house I would recommend not putting doors on them. I had this done on the non view side of a small island in the middle of my kitchen and I found it very easy to store platters, bowls and small utensils and to be able to see everything at a glance(the adjustable shelves were only 12 inches deep). I keep my spices in a drawer and I transfer the bulk spices that I get locally or from Penzey's into glass jars of the correct height and place a label on the lid. There is no wasted space and I can look down at them easily. Take your time and build in as much flexibility as possible. I have found that over time my baking and cooking interests change and evolve and that due to the flexibility of my kitchen it can change and evolve also. Hope these ideas help.

Hi Wendy. I wanted to add that when I baked the Wooley cake I didn't get much if any doming or cracking. I must admit that I used the "MAGI-CAKE" strips recommended by Rose Levy Beranbaum. I use these routinely and have not had a problem since I started using them. For those of you that are not familiar with them they are strips of aluminized fabric which, when moistened and wrapped around a pan, keep the sides of the pan cooler. This slows down the baking at the sides of the cake so that they rise at the same rate as the center thus ending up with a level top. I also baked the cakes in a conventional oven. No convection. Some of the tasters did not an off taste in this cake so I will try the recipe again using 1/2 teaspoon less of baking soda and see what happens. I will also do some fact finding on cocoa powders and see where that leads taste wise.

Ditto Two

Hi. A couple of thoughts come to mind when I was looking at the photos. Besides the thermometer issue I like to use a pan with a light interior color. Nothing against the black and nonstick pans its just that you can't see the color of the caramel in a dark pan. I noticed in the photos that the pans seem to be flared with a wider top than bottom. This may contribute to the overcooking and darkening of the caramel around the outside of the pan. You might try a heat defuser (there are several made for both electric and gas ranges). I have had this problem where the outside of the pan flares and the thick bottom deflects the heat up the outside. This along with a malfunctioning thermometer can spell Bitter caramel. I usually go with a med to med hi temp when making caramel and a defuser on my cook top. It may take a Little longer but things happen slower and allow me to react to the cooking color and smell. Hope this helps.

Good luck on your journey. It's a great adventure to be on. I would like to add my recommendation of the "Cookwise" book. Now my 2 cents on digital thermometers when making sauces and candy and such. I have stopped using the digital type because I found that for most of them the tip has to be submerged into the liquid anywhere form 1 in to 2 inches. I found that I was overcooking or burning the liquid and not getting the correct temp because there wasn't enough liquid in the pan to give a reeding. I went back to the glass candy thermometer and haven't had that problem since and i feel that is because the part that measures the liquid is at the very bottom. I also want to put in a good word for pots and pans. A good sauce pan that has a thick and even cooking bottom is a must for continued success. Good luck. Fred

Yes Toliver you are right. It should be 1/2 cup of sour cream.

I know that everyone has gone on to other cakes by now but I wanted to let everyone know that we really did taste 5 different chocolate cakes at one setting. Here are the photos to prove it. We had two young ladies in our group and boy are their taste buds sharp maybe even sharper than some of us adults. Hope you enjoy the photos. Some of the folks doing the tasting. The colored tooth pic's help me to identify which cake is which with out letting the others know. Slicing up the cakes. The after math of judging. After the judging the fun begins with white chocolate ganache (melted), hazelnut milk chocolate ganache, vanilla bean ice cream, hazel nuts, and the chocolate cake of your choice. I had a wonderful time and I think every else did too. Thanks Wendy for starting all of this. Thanks to Seawa Dave for taking the photos. Fred

I'm with Neil on this one. I think Ganache is the perfect toping. In fact after the blind tasting of chocolate cakes I brought out a bowl of milk chocolate ganach that I had made and we all slathered pieces of the chocolate cakes in it. It consisted of : 8 oz of heavy cream 8 oz of milk chocolate of your choice 4 oz of Nutulla 2 T of unsalted butter 2 T of Hazelnut liqueur If you want a fluffier frosting you can wait until the ganache is set and then whip it.

Sorry its so late but here it is. Baking Illustrated's Devil's Food Cake. Ingredients: 4 oz unsweetened chocolate chopped 1/4 cup dutch-processed cocoa 1+1/4 cups boiling water 3/4 cup (3 3/4 oz) unbleached all purpose flour 3/4 cup(3 oz) plain cake flour 1 tsp baking soda 1/4 tsp salt 16 T unsalted butter (2 sticks) and softened but still cool 1 1/2 cups packed (10 /2 oz ) dark brown sugar 3 large eggs at room temperature 1/2 cup sour cream 1 tsp vanilla extract Heat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare 2 8" pans. chop chocolate and add cocoa and pour the boiling water over and whisk until smooth. Combine flours soda and salt and sift. Cream butter, add sugar, then eggs. Add sour cream and vanilla combine. On low speed add 1/3 flour then 1/2 chocolate. Repeat until all flour and chocolate has been added. Do not over-beat. Divide the batter between pans. Bake until skewer comes our clean about 20 to 35 minutes depending upon fullness of pans and the oven. Cool cakes for 15 to 20 minutes. Notes: For the this cake and all the cakes that I baked I used Plugra butter, Penzey's cocoa, and Cacao Barry "Caraque' unsweetened chocolate.

Chicken Pot Pies. During the late 1940's and early 1950's there used to be a place on the University Ave between 44th and 45th that served only chicken pot pies. They were baked in real miniature tin pie pans and one could order just the pie and a cup of chicken soup or you could order the full dinner. Yumm. It contained a pot pie, buttered carrots and peas, and mashed potatoes covered in chicken gravy. My mother would take me shopping at the Penny's store up the street and then we would have lunch. Yes there was a real old fashioned J C Penny's store in the U district. This brings back fond memories. Thanks for bringing it up.

Annie I love your digression. I am now retired and its to bad that my former female employees never learned that trick. It would have made life much easier on all of us in the office. I make custards for ice cream and such quite often and I use a all glass candy thermometer and a whisk in a heavy pan over med-low heat. I find that for many of the insta read thermometers the custard has to be 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inches deep to read properly. If I am making a small batch it might not be that thick whereas with the glass candy thermometer the reading portion is at the very tip of the thermometer. I even went out and bought a fancy remote digital thermometer and found out that for custard it didn't work. The probe had to be in the custard a full 2 inches. Oh well live and learn and read the fine print always.

After reading this thread and being a cookie baker at heart I just had to respond. My recommendations in addition to those you already mentioned would be: after chilling the brown butter don't let it get to warm when you cream it (65 to 68 degrees is best). Weigh the sugar and flour to make sure that there is the correct ratio of fat to sugar and flour. Weights for these items can be found in many books including Rose Levy Beranbaum's "Cake Bible" and "Pie and Pastry Bible". I usually use 5oz for a cup of flour and 4oz for a cup of powdered sugar. Chill the dough for at least 1 hour, not just 30 minutes, use cold cookie sheets, and chill the cookies again after forming. Carole Walter in her book "Great Cookies" also recommends increasing the baking temp by 25 degrees to cook the outside of the cookies quicker and this assumes that you know the accuracy of the temp in the oven to start with. I have made this kind of cookie before and prefer to use bright (non black) cookie sheets. I will try to make a batch of these this week and see what happens. Good luck to you and keep trying. PS I just noticed Annie's comments and agree hole heartedly. In fact Sherry notes in the recipe that the entire creaming should take no more than 3 minutes at medium speed and she cautions not to over beat the dough when adding the flour.

Wendy, thanks so much for starting this thread. All of us here in this area had a wonderful cake party and I hope that we have contributed to the thread. I know that I certainly learned a lot about cake baking. I don't usually do 5 cakes in three days. Neil, The IB cake is as moist and only slightly more delicate in structure than Wendy's. The taste in both is of rich chocolate and I feel the possible off taste that some tasters experienced in my version of Wendy's cake may have been due to either the use of natural cocoa instead of dutched or an additive in the buttermilk (non organic) or to much baking soda (as Wendy suggested). I personally did not detect the off taste. I must say that if you bake the IB cake and do not freeze it the cake will be noticeably more delicate in structure and perhaps a little less moist than Wendy's. If you do bake the IB cake let us know what your opinion is. gibfalc, thanks for your input, I totally agree with you on the cocoa powder type and brand statement. Wendy didn't specify which to use and so I went with the undutched based on the amount of baking soda in the recipe. To be totally fair I probably should have done Wendy's recipe with both but lack of time and energy took its tole, OR I probably should have started off with a blind tasting of dutched and natural cocoa powders but thats a bit anal even for me.

Sound the trumpets. Lets have a fan fare (maybe the Fanfare for the Common Man from Space Odyssey 2000). The votes are in. Twelve egulliters form the Seattle Tacoma area got together this afternoon to taste five different chocolate cakes. The nominees were: Wendy’s fudge Brownie Cake Jankk’s Feathery Fudge Cake A Chocolate cake recipe by Flo Braker A Devil’s food recipe by Susan Purdy A Devil’s food recipe out of Illustrated Baking (Cooks Illustrated) All the cakes were baked using the same brand of flour, chocolate, cocoa powder (Penzeys), butter, baking soda, milk or cream and vanilla. The mixing method was the same for all cakes and all the cakes were frozen for at least 24 hours and then thawed. The cakes were blind tasted with and without frosting. In the unfrosted division the winner was a tie between Wendy’s Fudge Brownie Cake and the Devil’s food cake out of Illustrated Baking. Both rated an average of 4. In the frosted division the winner was again a tie between Wendy’s Fudge Brownie Cake and the Devil’s Food Cake out of Illustrated Baking. Both rated an average of 4. I’m not sure how these cakes could be improved upon and I feel that the reason that they got 4’s instead of 4.5’s or 5’s has more to do with personal taste of the evaluators than any shortcoming of the recipe. It is interesting to note that Jankk’s cake went from third to second place when it was frosted. Two people said they noted a slight strange taste to Wendy’s cake and this may be due to the use of non dutched cocoa. It would be fun to try this recipe again and use dutched cocoa just to see if there is a difference but I’ll save that for another day. Every one had a wonderful time and we finished off the afternoon with more cake of our choice accompanied with homemade Vanilla bean ice cream and / or milk chocolate and hazelnut ganache frosting.

Just a word about peanut butter. It was true years ago and I am sure its true today that all peanut butters are not created equal. Years ago I worked summers for a company that made peanut butter from scratch among other food items. They maid 6 or 7 different kinds. They made their own label "Old Fashioned Smooth" and "Old Fashioned Crunchy". They made their own label "Smooth" (modern) and "Crunchy" (modern). They also made several private label brands for local supermarkets. All of the peanut butters had one thing in common. They had a combination of different kinds of peanuts (Spanish and southern white) in them. They were a blend. The proper roasting and blending was an art. Much like blending and roasting coffee. This is why some fresh ground peanut butters sold at health food stores taste flat and one dimensional. The "Old Fashioned" types consisted of roasted peanuts and a little salt. Nothing else and thats why the oil separates. The modern types contained hydrogenated oil, salt, sugar, and other preservatives and thats why the oil doesn't separate. The better the label the better the quality control of the product. The cheaper the product, the less the quality control. If some of the peanuts got over roasted a bit but weren't burned they went into the cheap product anyway. The bottom line on peanut butter is Read the List of Ingredients and don't buy it just because its Cheap.

It might be helpful for us to know what you would like to do with the tempered chocolate once it is in temper. It is one thing to dip truffles, fruit, or biscotti and another to coat a cake or brownies. If I am going to coat a cake or cookies I usually use a chocolate glaze. This is a thin form of chocolate ganache. I make the ganache using the chocolate of my choice plus cream, and a little butter, and let it cool to about 90 degrees then I pour it over whatever I am wanting to coat. It forms a thin coating with a sheen that will eventually harden (but no snap) at room temp. I don't put the item in the refrigerator as it causes the sheen to dull. There are a number of postings concerning ganach on this forum as well as books discussing ganache as well as glazes. One book I can recommend is "The Art of Chocolate" by Elaine Gonzalez. Hope this helps

I would like to recommend the Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum as a source of weights and measures. Check out pages 439 to 442 for the weights in grams and ounces for most of the common ingredients that we will find in this recipe and others. Please let us know Wendy if your measurements differ significantly from those. Thanks. Fred

Ill join you. See you there.