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I have not posted for a time due to work load. Let me expand a bit. At the beginning of December I was asked by a local bowls and social club if I would be interested in cooking a dinner every Friday evening for members of the club. I accepted the challenge and was supposed to start the catering at the beginning of February - except the previous catering folk decided to abscond in December and thus I started the catering at the beginning of January. I have now done three Friday evening dinners with the fourth next week. Dinner consists of two courses - either a starter and main or main and dessert. Being summer at the moment, I am doing mains and deserts until the winter months start. Now, it may be a bit unlucky for some (I am not superstitious), but Valentines Day is on a Saturday this year and thus Friday the 13th is my meal evening and I was thinking of a simple dessert for the approximately 50 club members who order the Friday meal, with a Valentine's theme. My initial thoughts were a heart shaped meringue with a dollop of cream topped with red berries. However, I am not too sure of the availability of fresh red berries nor their cost at the moment. Also, these meals are low budget (what isn't these days) and thus I need to keep this in mind. Right, other than my meringue idea, mentioned above, anybody wish to throw in some thoughts or ideas?

Last night I made "Fudgy Chocolate-Walnut Cookies (flourless)" for a Seder dinner tonight. What emerged from the oven weren't cookies at all, but rather a crisp puddle with vaguely cookie-shaped broken pieces floating on it. Tastes wonderful, but looks pretty bad. No photos--too ugly. The recipe includes 9 oz. toasted walnuts chopped very fine in the food processor, 3 cups confectioner's sugar, 1/2 cup + 3 Tbs. Dutch process cocoa powder, 1/4 tsp. salt, 1 Tbs. vanilla, and 4 egg whites (unwhipped) . The instructions say to preheat the oven to 350 and bake for 20 minutes. My first thought is that the oven temperature is too high for anything with egg whites in it. Any other ideas? I will try this again at a lower temperature, but there's no time to do it today (plus I'm out of both walnuts and confectioner's sugar). I'll bring them tonight, but it's a little embarrassing to have to break this big dark brown cookie/cracker into uneven pieces to serve it. Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks-- Nancy in Pátzcuaro

Before I start experimenting, does anyone here have an understanding of how pate de fruits would be affected by fatty ingredients? Boiron has a formula for coconut, but I don't now how fatty their coconut puree is. I recall eating an olive oil pate de fruit somewhere in Australia and wondering how it worked. Is pectin gel formation affected by fat? Would the texture be softer? Greweling does not make any mention of fat in the section on jellies, obviously with most fruit it is not an issue. Berries and cream, pbj, melon with prosciutto... will it work?

I know that the recommended way to make macarons is on parchment vs silicone, but I am asking specifically about meringue cookies. I want them all to be uniform in shape and was wondering if I could pipe these into mini round silicone molds, would it work? Would spraying with a light coat of PAM deflate them too much or prevent them from drying out? I don't want them too dry, but I want the bottoms to set. Thanks for your responses!

I'm looking for a way to whip milk into a whipped cream-like topping perhaps stabilized with carrageenan in my isi whipper. Has anyone done this? Any ideas or recipes? I can't seem to find anything on the web. Any help would be appreciated.

Hello, All. My monniker is Tennessee Cowboy. In real life I am a retired lawyer who has invested way too many hours in ice cream making! I have tested over 100 recipes over the last five years, and I would like to go to a new and higher level. . . hopefully with your help. One of my fixations over the years is how to make low- or no-sugar recipes so that my friends who are on sugar restricted diets can enjoy what I make. At the moment I'm working on pistachio ice cream, and trying to make the pistachios more flavorful and present. My wife is a spectacularly good cook, and I'll share some of her secrets if she will let me.

I've been requested to make a cake inspired by Prince circa the Purple Rain era - "a riot of purple" and white ruffles like the shirt he wore. I have little experience with fondant, am planning to use marshmallow fondant (melted marshmallows + powdered sugar). Does anyone have any tricks to making the ruffles perky and 3-D? Should I drape them over something the day before and let them dry? I want them to add dimension. Thanks!

I baked a spiced angel food cake and after taking if from the oven, I immediately inverted it as I do with other angel food cakes, but this one was heavier and fell out of the pan! It collapsed and sunk in on itself. ( I made two more after this and did not invert them and they turned out perfectly, so lesson learned with this recipe.) My question is: does anyone have any ideas what to do with the dense, but still nicely flavored cake? Thank you.

Hi all, wondering if anyone has experience with keeping hot chocolate hot for several hours? I've been vending at a couple of outdoor markets this summer and since it has been quite warm chocolate sales have been slow. I'm looking forward to cooler weather and also debating whether I want to add hot chocolate to my offerings. There are a few year-round outdoor markets, and I know of one person who does hot cider and a hot ginger drink but no hot chocolate drinks. I would either have to heat the batch at the kitchen and keep it hot for 8 hours, or sort through additional regulations and permits in order to heat it up onsite. I would rather not have to buy too much extra equipment beyond beverage dispensers and cups, but would consider a gas stove if that was a better way to keep things hot. Winter in Seattle can be soggy and cold, and I think a couple varieties of hot chocolate could be popular. I don't have a generator and electricity probably isn't available. I appreciate any experience or advice you may have! Thanks, Andrea

I am about to make a meringue for a coconut cake and will have 6 egg yolks left over, which I want to use to make ice cream. However, I probably won't get to the ice cream before Sunday. What is the best way to save them? Do I need to freeze them, or will a plastic bag with all the air pushed out be sufficient? Can I expect the texture to be affected?

I'm always finding that my glazes are incredibly thick when I downscale my recipes. I am not sure whether it is the ingredients I use, my technique or the recipe is problematic when scaled down. Do I just add sugar syrup to thin it down to required viscosity?

I well remember the first time I made DH a Boston Cream Pie. And I thought he would be so happy. I think I followed a Martha Stewart recipe. But no. He is the son of a French-Canadian cooking, baking, Mother and if you know anything about French-Canadian cooking, Sugar Pie is a regular feature. And pure pork Tortiere. DH grew up on Millefeuille and Napoleons and Rhubarb Pie which had so much sugar in it that you couldn't taste the rhubarb. (Sorry, dear departed M-i-L.) And so my cream filling simply wasn't rich enough. Make it richer, he said, Like my Mother did. And so I am asking. Take your regular Creme Patisserie and add what to it to make it 'richer'? Butter? Several tablespoons? I've Googled 'very rich pastry cream filling' and can't get back the usual egg, cream...and maybe a smidgen of butter...recipes. Help please.

I'm frustrated! The restaurant kitchen has two gas convection ovens, a Wolf with a 6-burner top and a Viking with a French flat top top. The Wolf has long been the pastry oven and I've baked approximately a zillion things in it, including a few thousand French macarons. Unfortunately the Wolf has been out of commission and I'm left with the Viking. The cream puffs, brownies, and shortbread have been baking fine, but I've had two batches of French macaron with really poor foot development and some cracking on top. I made a batch today and gave at least a third of the shells to staff because of poor rise. I don't think I rushed the drying, they seemed appropriately skinned-over before baking. It's a nice sunny day and I've made plenty of macarons in the rain so I don't think it's the weather. The Viking seems like a moister heat when I open the oven, is it possible that one make of oven would create a more humid heat, or have I simply lost my macaron mojo? Help!

Makes 40 cookies, 2 loaves. 50-60 g very aromatic olive oil 80 g honey 120 to 150 g sugar (I use 120 because I like it only gently sweet) 2 eggs 2 teaspoons of fine lemon zest, from apx 1 lemon 230 g flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking powder 75 g lightly toasted peeled pistachios 50 g lightly toasted almonds (you can replace some with pine nuts) Optional: a little rosemary or anise seed Optional: more olive oil for brushing Heat oven to 170 deg C. In mixer (or by hand), mix oil, honey, sugar, lemon, egg and if desired, the optional spices - until uniform. Separately mix together the flour, salt and baking powder. Add flour mixture to mixer bowel with liquids and fold until uniform. Dough will be sticky and quite stiff. Don't knead or over mix. Add nuts and fold until well dispersed. On a parchment lined baking tray, create two even loaves of dough. With moist hands, shape each to be rectangular and somewhat flat - apx 2cm heigh, 6cm wide and 25cm long. Bake 25 to 30 minutes until golden and baked throughout, yet somewhat soft and sliceable. Rotate pan if needed for even baking. Remove from tray and let chill slightly or completely. Using a sharp serrated knife, gently slice to thin 1/2 cm thick cookies. Each loaf should yield 20 slices. Lay slices on tray and bake for 10 minutes. Flip and bake for another 10-15 minutes until complelty dry and lightly golden. Brush with extra olive oil, if desired. This will and more olive flavor. Let chill completely before removing from tray. Cookies keep well in a closed container and are best served with desert wines or herbal tea.

I have been asked to make Chinese Bow Tie desserts for a function. However, I have never made them, but using Mr Google, there are a number of different recipes out there. Does anybody have a decent recipe which is tried and tested? - these are for deep-fried pastry which are then soaked in sugar syrup.

I'm making the citron cream recipe in Migoya's Elements of Desserts (p318/9?). It says to cook the anglaise to 85 degrees, place on an ice bath then whip the anglaise. I've done that but it doesn't seem to whip (let alone to a medium peak). This is a new technique I've not tried before so I'm at a loss. Anyone have any ideas?

Hi all! I'm trying to perfect my lemon bar recipe, which is from my grandmother's Purity cookbook with all sorts of notations and changes she made. It's perfect in terms of flavour and the pâté sucree base works exactly as it should, but the topping is coming out too fluid. The topping is 3C sugar, 1/4C lemon juice, the zest off of those lemons, 1tsp baking powder, 6 eggs and 2C coconut. What can I do to firm it up a bit, so that it stays put once I cut the bars? Would cornstarch or tapioca flour do it?

I'd like help from anyone on making the best Pistachio Ice cream. This forum is a continuation of a conversation I started in my "introduction" post, which you can see at I recently made Pistachio ice cream using the Jeni's Ice Cream Cookbook. I love Pistachio ice cream, so I've launched an experiment to find the best recipe. I am going to try two basic approaches: The Modernist Cookbook gelato, which uses no cream at all, and ice cream; I'm also experimenting with two brands of pistachio paste and starting with pistachios and no paste. Lisa Shock and other People who commented on the earlier thread said that the key is to start with the best Pistachio Paste.   Any advice is appreciated. Here is where I am now: I purchased a brand of pistachio paste through nuts.com named "Love 'n Bake." When it arrived, it was 1/2 pistachios and 1/2 sugar and olive oil. I purchased a second batch through Amazon from FiddleyFarms; it is 100% pistachios. I bought raw pistachios through nuts.com. The only raw ones were from California. If anyone has advice on using the MC recipe or on best approaches to ice cream with this ingredient I'd appreciate them. I will report progress on my experiment in this forum.

I am planning to make Pistachio Ice Cream with broken up Pistachio Pralines as a mix in. I tried it once, using the Jeni's Ice Cream recipe (roast and run 1 c pralines through the blender until smooth, then add to her normal mixture. There is a discussion of the pistachio ice cream under new members forums. On the Pralines, I have read all of the posts in this forum on Pecan Pralines--click below if you want to see all of the posts. My questions are: 1. In general, how should I adapt the pecan praline recipes for Pistachios? I have attached a file with most of the different recipes from the generic pralines forum. Is there any reason to think one would be better than the other, as applied to pralines? 2. Any particular pistachio roasting recipe you think would work well? (I've purchased raw, unsalted) 3. To get more pistachio-related flavor, should I substitute Pistachio Extract for Vanilla Extract. Do I substitute one-for-one? 4. Is there a role for Pistachio Paste to impart a more intense Pistachio flavor? If so, how? Praline-multiple recipes.docx

Cheesecake muffins Ingredients (6 muffins) 1 lemon jelly 10 big strawberries 200g of vanilla fromage frais grated skin from half a lemon Dissolve the jelly in 250ml of hot water. Leave to cool down (not to set). Wash the strawberries, remove the shanks and blend them. Mix half of the jelly with the strawberries. Put it into the silicon pastry cases. Leave it to set in the fridge. Mix the rest of the jelly with the vanilla fromage frais. Put it on the strawberry jelly. Leave it to set in the fridge. Immerse the silicon pastry case in hot water for a while to get the dessert out of the dish. Enjoy your meal!

I was catching up on my blog reading, and hit a post about icebox cakes. I've only ever made one icebox cake in my life, and it was delicious, using the classic chocolate wafers and whipped cream but flavored with Red Bird peppermint puffs. (I got the recipe from an article about the company that makes the candy.) Anyway, while the blog post itself was interesting, the first comment (at least as I currently see it) caught my attention, because it described a Mexican icebox cake that looked very different to me because it didn't use whipped cream. The commenter called this icebox cake a carlota de limón, and described it as being made from maria cookies, lime juice, and sweetened condensed milk. I adore limes! So...I can find recipes on line, but has anyone made this cake before? Do you have a tried-and-true recipe that you'd be willing to share? Please? Thanks!

Hey all, I've made thicker and creamier sorbets with 25% to 35% sugar strained fruit purees and sugar, syrups, and other stabilizers that have worked well. However, because it's so much fruit and little to no water it can be an expensive project. I am trying to make "Water Ice" or "Italian Ice" in my home ice cream machine. Think of textures similar to Rita's Water Ice, Court Pastry Shop, or Miko's in Chicago. It eats much lighter than a sorbet but isn't really icy, but it's also not thick like sorbet. Ritas uses "flavoring" and sugar, while the other two use fruit juice. I'm thinking of thinning the strained fruit juice with water and adding a stabilizer, but I'm having trouble getting this in my home ice cream machine without it freezing solid like granita. Can anyone suggest a way to use real fruit juice, water, and a combination and concentration of stabilizers to get a looser, frozen fruit dessert that isn't icy?

So I've been looking for the ultimate matcha brownies (technically blondies but it just doesn't have the same ring to it). I've made chewy and fudgy regular brownies, but I find white chocolate based blondies to be much trickier. I have made a few matcha brownie recipes in the past, but they all came out sad and cakey. So I have taken it upon myself to come up with my own recipe. My matcha brownies came out very moist and "fudgy" but not chewy. I'm thinking next time I should try using vegetable oil instead of butter and only dark brown sugar.

Ingredients (for 4 people): 3 long sticks of rhubarb 250g of strawberries 4 tablespoons of xylitol 4 tablespoons of butter 150g of desiccated coconut Heat the oven up to 180C. Wash the rhubarb, peel it and cut it into 1 cm pieces. Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of xylitol, mix it in and leave for half an hour. Wash the strawberries, remove the shanks and cut them into small pieces. Drain the rhubarb from the juice and mix it in with the strawberries. Melt the butter. Mix the desiccated coconut with the rest of the xylitol and butter. Smooth some small casserole dishes with a bit of butter. Put the rhubarb and strawberries into them. Sprinkle with the desiccated coconut crumble topping. Bake for 15-17 minutes. Serve with strawberry or vanilla ice cream.

I prepared two versions: the first one with desiccated coconut and blueberries and the second with dark chocolate and strawberries. Choose your favorite dessert or go crazy and make your own version. Bright dessert Ingredients (for 2 people) 200g of white chocolate 100g of blueberries 200ml of 30% sweet cream 200ml of mascarpone cheese 2 tablespoons of desiccated coconut Melt 150g of the white chocolate in a bain-marie. Draw six 8 cm circles on a sheet of baking paper. Put 2-3 tablespoons of chocolate on each of them and smear it around to cover the whole circle. Leave them at room temperature to congeal and then put them in the fridge for 2 hours. Melt the rest of the white chocolate in a bain-marie. Whisk the cream. Add the mascarpone cheese after whisking. Add the white chocolate and the desiccated coconut and stir thoroughly. Wash the blueberries and drain them. Put the first chocolate circles onto a plate, then a layer of the cream and a couple of blueberries and once again chocolate, cream and blueberries. Put the last chocolate circle on the top. Decorate with the rest of the cream, fruit and peppermint leaves. Serve chilled. Dark dessert Ingredients (for 2 people) 200g of dark chocolate 1 tablespoon of cocoa a couple of strawberries 200ml of 30% sweet cream 200ml of mascarpone cheese Melt 150g of the dark chocolate in a bain-marie. Draw six 8cm circles on a sheet of baking paper. Put 2-3 tablespoons of chocolate on each of them and smear it around to cover the whole circle. Leave them at room temperature to congeal and then put them in the fridge for 2 hours. Melt the rest of the dark chocolate in a bain-marie. Whisk the cream. Add the mascarpone cheese after whisking. Add the dark chocolate and the cocoa and stir thoroughly. Wash the strawberries and remove the shanks. Leave 3-4 nice bits of fruit for decoration, and cut the rest into small pieces. Put the first chocolate circles on a plate, then a layer of the cream and a couple of strawberry pieces and then once again chocolate, cream and strawberries. Put the last chocolate circle on the top. Decorate with the rest of the cream, fruit and peppermint leaves. Serve chilled.