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Hello all, When I making tarts with pate sucree, I blind bake the crust as directed . And when I cut the tart, the dough cracks in the middle in two or more halves. This doesn't happens when I don't blind bake the crust. Absolutely not happy about this as these tarts are planned to be for sale (well, one day). My guesses: 1. Too long to blind bake? I am aiming nice light caramel color of the dough. Even though the sides are browning faster than the bottom. 2. The crust is too thin (I usually make it about 4 mm or 0.15748 inch thick, as directed as well!) and perhaps it over dries? My bottom crust looks like this: http://parispatisseries.smugmug.com/Pastries/Paris-Patisseries/i-MKpx3RQ/1/XL/lapatisseriedesrevestartecitron4-XL.jpg But sides are much thinner (also 4mm) Your suggestions? p.s. I made Tarte Au Citron by Jacques Genin and a fruit tart with pastry cream. I brushed the second one with chocolate before filling with pastry cream as I was afraid that the crust would become soggy, however it was my mistake, the crust was dry already and the chocolate made it overly dry as didn't allow any moisture to go in. As a result it didn't went well with pastry cream: harsh crust + subtle cream. Nah.

This Recipe that I am going to share, its by my mom. We used to have these cookies since Childhood. To me its a very traditional Recipe. any flavors you want to add, all depending upon your taste. I used Chocolate, Vanilla and Raspberry for that. Same recipe goes for all cookies with distinct use of essences and food colors. Well here we go, it makes about 20 to 30 cookies, enough for your family while having tea/coffee. I love its crunchy texture outside and softy material of a classic cookie from inside. So for making a cookie you gonna have: COOKIES HOMEMADE: You will need: 1/2 cup unsalted Butter/clarified Butter 1 cup Sugar 2 Eggs 1 tsp Baking Powder Milk 1/4 cup(Use Milk as required, dough should be soft, add it if you feel stickiness) 2 1/2 cup Flour Vanilla Essence(or any flavor you like to have in cookies) Steps to Follow Beat Butter and Sugar. Add Sieved Flour & Baking Powder. Add flavor , Essence, Eggs, make a dough. Add some warm milk if you feel to have in your Dough. Make a soft dough. Then cutout soft cookies and Bake. This Recipe works for simple Vanilla Cookie. I filled my cookies with small pieces of Dark Chocolate. If you need some amendments or more flavors, add Cocoa Powder or Raspberry Essence with Red Food Color as I did.

My wife and I are in Seattle and desperately searching for butter tarts. Can anyone help?

I've been having trouble with whole key lime pies lately. i can make a couple hundred pounds of the baked custard with no problem for desserts in cups/verrines, but when i bake a whole pie and slice it, it just doesn't set up. i baked 2 pies a couple of days ago, sliced them, and put them in clamshells and they all caved in at the most narrow part (what would be the center of the pie. the recipe i use i think is a standard one: 1 cup key lime juice (i use nellie & joes) 8 egg yolks (i use 4.8oz of pasteurized yolks) 2 cans condensed milk i pour the filling into a prebaked graham crust, and bake for 17-20 minutes. i think that i got this recipe from the joy of cooking and adapted it to use liquid egg yolks. i'm not sure what the cause of this is. i think maybe it could be the egg yolks? i use pasteurized egg yolks for my creme brulee, and it sets up perfectly. in the past, i used fresh egg yolks and was able to slice the pie and it didn't cave in. has anyone had something like this happen to them? i'm going to try later today using fresh yolks and seeing what happened....maybe its an issue with the heat of the pasteurization

What to make when it's sweltering? Trying to think of heat-proof confections for the summer. Every week I make 7-800 little bite sized treats that we give with the bill at the restaurant. Truffles were great for the winter, but it's getting too warm in both the kitchen and the dining room to produce and hold truffles. Last summer I made pate de fruits, which hold up well, but which I'm pretty sure gave me a splatter burn every single time I made it. Too much pain. Ive been working on some gelatin gummies that I like and that don't hurt, but they seem to get droopy in the heat as well. I've been adding agar to help the texture, maybe more agar and/or cook the syrup to a hotter temperature? How do hard candies hold up? Nougat? Humidity can be an issue but I'm more concerned about heat. Cookies are an option, especially easy to pipe or slice and bake. Amaretti? Has anyone tried cutting shortbread with the guitar? Candied nuts seem a little too simple - what else besides chocolate would make them special? What are your favorite treats that stand up to heat?

If i start using ice cream stablizers such as Cuisine Tech's Cremodan 30, is it still necessary to use eggs or will the mixture of eggs and cremodan 30 be "too much" for a recipe? i want to continue using eggs because I feel it is important to the flavor of the ice cream but i also dont want the ice creams to have a unpleasent texture. Any additional help or suggestions regarding Cremodan 30 would also be much appreciated.

I am really a cook, not that much of a baker, but I just used a recipe my wife requested for a coffee cake. I do understand a few of the basics, why you cream the butter and sugar first and such, but not much more. The recipe I just used had you do the usual creaming first, add the eggs and vanilla, but then it wanted the dry ingredients added a bit at a time, alternating with adding milk. In my mind this was a bit "fussy" but if there is a good reason for it I'm all ears. I'm willing to do things that make since and I understand - but when something looks like "black magic" instructions it leaves me cold. Any insights you all can give me are welcomed.

Does anyone have a great recipe for blackberry cobbler? My friend asked me to make one for his birthday. He said his mother used to make them and they lived up north. I have seen several recipes. Some use kind of a drop biscuit, others a cake, and one recipe I found called for making little pie crust dumplings and cooking them on the stove with the blackberry filling and then topping the whole thing with a lattice crust before being baked. I am not sure what is considered "authentic" and unfortunately he's been out of town all week so I couldn't get the details. I'm more of a pie gal myself, so I like recipes which use regular pie dough. However, I do realize that those types of recipes are probably not a true cobbler. If anyone has an awesome blackberry cobbler recipe I would appreciate it!

In Baking, by Dorie, she has a recipe for "Perfect Party Cake" where she mentions in her ingredient list, that she prefers buttermilk with the lemon. What does that mean, I am not quite clear? As written in the book - 11/4 cups whole milk or buttermilk (I prefer buttermilk with the lemon)

A few questions for making individual cakes. I have read many recipes, and there seems to be a variance in how to soak the babas. Some say let them cool completely, then imbibe in a hot, but not boiling syrup. Some say to keep the syrup at a boil. Others say to dip them while they are still warm from the oven. Some say to let both the baba and the syrup be completely cool, and then soak. There are also instructions to poke the cakes with toothpicks. In any case, I do not have enough time, nor eggs and butter, to experiment every possible scenario. Which way would be best to get as much syrup into the babas? So far, I have let them cool, then soak in a hot syrup for about 10 minutes, and while good, I feel the cake could have been a bit more saturated. Secondly, I plan to make 10 babas for a party next week. Is soaking them the day of ideal, or can this be done a night ahead? Again, I don't really have the time or desire to eat and test these at different stages. I had thought of possibly storing them in their syrup inside an airtight container. Any thoughts are appreciated.

I find that making chocolate molten cakes in a regular oven doesn't produce consistent results. I am wondering if there are modernist improvements in this space. I would imagine that cooking them in a combi oven would produce more consistent results, but I don't own a combi oven. Is there any other trick or technique that increases consistency of results when making this dessert?

I had an amazing Pavlova at a restaurant yesterday which inspired me to make again this lovely summer dessert. It was crispy on the outside and soft on the inside but not wet soft, more creamy soft with only a touch of chewiness. I was surprised to discover that there is no topic dedicated to Pavlova, so thought of starting one. How do you like and make your Pavlovas? Can you share your winning recipes and tricks that make a difference?

Hi everybody! I was wondering if someone could explain to me why sometimes my lemon tart have cracks on the very next day I baked it. I've learn on my apprenticeship that one of the reason is the over baking, so I am always careful to get the tart out when the filling is still a bit jiggly. I know in Heston Blumental's perfect lemon tart recipe the filling should reach only 72C but since I am selling this tarts I cannot keep poking it with a thermometer. I'll be grateful for any inputs! Cheers!

Mothers day is coming up in few days. I wnat to discuss this topic which is the best dessert for mothers day celebration?

I am a newer member of eG Forums and would like to thank the organizers and members for this amazing web-site. It's very educational and enjoyable! I've been making caramels at home for about a year, and have been running into problems with delayed crystallization. I have been using Recchiuti's Fleur de Sel recipe from his 'Chocolate Obsession' book which uses the dry technique for making caramels. My caramels start graining up about a week out, despite being enrobed in chocolate and stored in a sealed container to hopefully limit moisture attraction. I'm wondering if there isn't enough 'doctoring agent' in this recipe? Here is my current recipe: 5 drops Lemon Juice 298 g Sugar 1/2 Vanilla Bean 232 g (1 cup) whipping cream 38 g light corn syrup 14 g 82% Butter 1/2 tsp fleur de sel +/- toasted cashews Are there any general guidelines for the ratio of corn syrup to sugar? If I do increase the corn syrup and decrease the sugar by equal amounts, will this affect the texture of the caramels. Could the cashews be contributing to the crystallization too? Thanks in advance for your suggestions. Burny

Hi I'm new to this forum and new at baking as well. I recently attempted my first Swiss roll. The recipe is from a book, I own and it is as follows... - 4 eggs - 100g caster sugar - 75g + 2 tablespoons self raising flour. ( I replaced the suggested 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder with flour) I also made my own self raising flour with baking powder and salt, but the measurement was a little off when the flour was weighed. The outcome: It turned out smelling of raw eggs and tasted like egg too. While I was whisking the eggs and sugar, I read how it should be beaten for 10 minutes, however, I didn't keep track of the time and probably overbeat since I started smelling raw eggs and the mixture would drop in blobs and then trail and blob down and trail. I thought the smell of raw eggs would disappear once it cooked. After folding in the flour, and baking it for 10 minutes, I took out and proceed to roll it. However, when peeling off the parchment paper the sides and bottom of the cake was really sticky. After unrolling to put in the filling, the top of the cake tore a patch off the sticky bottom surface. I decided to try a student recipe on how to beat the eggs and sugar. So I tried the second time, with a smaller recipe as follows. 2 eggs 50g caster sugar 50g self raising flour So this time, I felt like the mixture was good to go, before it turned into a huge blob and decided to stop my 550w stand mixer. I don't know if beating till 10 minutes would have ruined it... I didn't smell as much raw eggs as I previously did. However this time I baked it at 170C for 15 minutes ( they didn't state any temperature and timing was wrong and gathered info from commenters and my oven's manual ), however after removing the parchment paper off the flan dish this time, the bottom was STILL sticky but not as before. However, it still had a raw or fried eggy.

I'm making a mascarpone coffee sherbet/sorbet with some of my friends custom roast coffee. I've gone through quite a list of possible accompanyments but have not settled on one that I think is quite right. I want the coffee flavor to be the star and I want to compliment it the best I can. So I'm looking for parings to serve with the rich coffee sherbet.

Hi everyone, Melbourne (AUS) is having a bit of a warm spell at the moment that's looking to continue - 30+ celcius for about 2 weeks straight. I want to play around with a bit of chocolate making but it seems... foolish! In the mornings, the ambient temperature in my house is maybe 23, and i'm wondering if this would be ok for dipping (perhaps a quick trip to the fridge to help them set up for a few minutes?). With moulded pralines, it seems the brief fridge steps that some people recommend make sense since the whole tray is done at once, but it seems impractical for hand dipping, since i'd have to either wait till a whole tray was done (and perhaps moot the point) or otherwise do tiny batches! I guess a related question is that if i made a ganache to slab, would it even set up properly overnight? I was thinking that the crystals would still form as it cooled, but I don't know. Any tips for working in warmer weather (where climate control isn't possible)? Am I best to just write it off over summer and pick it back up when things cool down a bit? The one positive I can think of is that it'll take longer for my tempered chocolate to cool down, so less reheating! Cheers, Stuart.

I tried the Modernist Cuisine's Coffee Creme Brulee recipe however it came out bad and too thick. They recommend sous vide at 181F and pulling it out when it reaches 176F. First of all why don't they just recommend sous vide at 177F?! What's even more frustrating is that Modernist Cuisine has a custard chart where they recommmend using 70% egg Yolk to liquid and recommending 167F for Creme Brulee. Why don't they follow their own chart and use 70% egg and 167F in their recipes? Anyone with good recommendations for Creme Brulee temperature and egg yolk percentages? Thanks!

Hi guys! Looking up on Instagram I found this amazing dessert http://instagram.com/p/VornSEEU8H/ and I've been trying to figure out how to make those tiny, perfectly round translucent spheres. Any ideas how to get this result? Thanks in advance for all the inputs

The 1946 Trader Vic's Book of Food and Drink describes a turn of the century dessert called "Fruit Crown" where fresh fruit is pilled around and over a mound of sugar cubes. The entire thing is saturated with liquor and set of fire at the table. The fruit is cooked for a good 10 minutes and spooned onto ice cream, etc. The recipe is described as prose and I am looking for other descriptions, photos or recipes for this or a similar dessert. I am interested in recreating this for benefit dinner in May. Kevin

I made some passion fruit ganache last weekend. In fact I made three different batches, recipes from Greweling, Notter and Torres. When I tried them last weekend they all had plenty of passion fruit flavor. Tried them again last night and it seems that the passion fruit flavor has mellowed quite a bit and if this continues, soon they will not taste of passion fruit at all. I have not had this happen for any other ganaches. Wondering if anyone else has experienced this and how they fixed the problem.

There's been a lot of discussion about pâte à choux technique recently. It's a tricky dough, to be sure. But what are you doing with it? Does everyone just make the traditional éclairs and cream puffs, or are there more adventurous types making glands, salambos or the elusive divorce? Is nobody game enough for the croquembouche? (Sorry for the French links, I couldn't find anything in English) For my two centimes, here's an old favorite: the Paris Brest (originally posted here). Makes a great birthday cake. Bon appétit.

Ok so I have a question. I use my whipper a lot for whipped cream (My fiance loves it). But, I want to make a smoother whipped cream. Typically I whisk together a pint of heavy cream, a few tablespoons of powder sugar and a splash or two of vanilla. I charge it with 1 cream charge, shake and go. But, it is very...stiff...for lack of better terms. Whenever I go to Starbucks and they use their whippers they get a really smooth texture. What can I do to make a better, smoother cream? Thanks!

Alright so I had a question to any of you chocolate experts: I am planning on making one of the plated desserts (Chocolate Tile, Shortbread Crumble, Clotted Cream, Peter's Chocolate) out of The Elements of Dessert by Migoya and I have run into a small bump. The dessert I am making calls for a certain brand of chocolate, Peter's Chocolate. It says it is a special high-fat formulation of chocolate which holds its shape after tempering (rather than running), almost giving the texture of a ganache. It is served on the plated dessert just like this. Unfortunately, I have been unable to source it from any online retailers in reasonably small quantities (i.e. not for restaurant kitchens). Do any chocolate experts here have any insight into this? Are there any other suitable replacements? I was thinking I could simply make a ganache as a substitute, but only as a last resort...