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Santa's Spectactular Tonawanda Workshop

Kerry Beal

By Kerry Beal
in Pastry & Baking

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Kerry Beal

Kerry Beal

Posted
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Posted
13 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

I thought I saw some rum, but must have been mistaken and without the coriander seeds, you'd be out of luck anyway. 

 

That pecan sour sounds good!

My bad - missed the part where you switched out the spirit! 

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the Chocolate Doctor
www.thechocolatedoctor.ca

www.eztemper.com

 

Confectionary Course • Confectionary Course Q&A
eGullet foodblog 2006 • eGullet Foodblog 2012

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suzilightning

suzilightning

Posted
Posted
39 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

Did I mention @patris has turned vegetarian?

OK.....so make a roasted vegetable sandwich on a weck roll.   Or slater the pimento cheese on one.

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Nothing is better than frying in lard.

Nothing.  Do not quote me on this.

 

Linda Ellerbee

Take Big Bites

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caroled

caroled

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Posted

Egg salad with olive has long been one of our favorites, and pimento cheese is a mainstay all year long, but especially during the holidays.  I love being able to pull it out of fridge at a moments notice if guests should drop by.  That refreshments table looks fantastic, and I eagerly await the out come of your endeavors !

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And this old porch is like a steaming greasy plate of enchiladas,With lots of cheese and onions and a guacamole salad ...This Old Porch...Lyle Lovett

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patris

patris

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Posted

What a grand day it was! I mostly forgot to take pictures, so I am happy to see Kerry found the time whilst shepherding folks through tempering and general chocolate maintenance and somehow doing an awful lot of dishes not only to take photos but to post them. How she does it all I will never know, and once again I forgot to take notes...

 

Anyhow, a bit of the bounty as people were packaging it up:

 

6E26265E-2908-423B-8FB3-CB70CCE723ED.thumb.jpeg.dd35cfee32496a523b2505618b153fd5.jpeg

 

I didn’t bother with photos of the aftermath like last year because there wasn’t too much to photograph - I learned lots of lessons about streamlining this event and it was so much more relaxed. I cleaned up and put everything back where it belongs at quite a leisurely pace, and it took maybe 90 minutes to get everything back to normal, which looks more like this:

 

9A1D5998-A8D5-4665-A8BD-798649FCB910.thumb.jpeg.1c67d29df93f20f04abd01ee36fffaf2.jpegD29103E2-E4B8-4AE2-92B1-40F819221415.thumb.jpeg.56d0a5cbecd7951b060fb68cb248077d.jpeg

 

Just a few leftovers that I will enjoy over the next day or so.

 

i just love this event.  It brings together all the different facets of my life - family, a dear colleague, fellow potter friends, and of course @Kerry Beal who is in  a class by herself - and it’s so lovely to see them all enjoy themselves and click so nicely as a group. Talk about the spirit of the holidays!

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Patty

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Kerry Beal

Kerry Beal

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23 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Wow.  I love your kitchen and all of the candies etc. look so good.    I know you guys must be exhausted!

 

I suspect @patris is a lot more exhausted than I - she's spent a bunch of days working up to this - I just dropped around after I finished work on Saturday morning. I actually slept in until 7 this morning - something I never get to do at home! I made my way back across the border with no delay and I'm sitting enjoying a cup of tea. 

 

Her organizational skills made everything run so smoothly this year. She learned a lot from what she had to get out of the carpet last year!

 

She'd picked up a few different things from Amazon.com that were excellent additions this year - the first some sterilite bowls in a variety of sizes that are microwave safe and perfect for the task. And some one piece silicone spatulas that cleaned up beautifully. We had 3 of the La Chocolatiere melters in addition to the 6 kg Swiss Krea. White, milk, dark and caramelized white. 

 

Next year a few more small offsets and some small straight spatulas. And some slightly narrower, deeper bowls for dipping ( @patris and I were talking about the possibility of some pottery bowls with a couple of cut outs at the top that could hold a wire across the top of the bowl). I suspect a few more of the good dipping forks should be taken along as well. 

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the Chocolate Doctor
www.thechocolatedoctor.ca

www.eztemper.com

 

Confectionary Course • Confectionary Course Q&A
eGullet foodblog 2006 • eGullet Foodblog 2012

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patris

patris

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Posted
23 hours ago, suzilightning said:

WHAT?????  No beef on weck from Swiston's????

 

Suzi - Swiston's is about 5 minutes from my house and in all my years here (10 since I bought it, but close to 50 since was born - it's the house I grew up in), not once have I eaten there! Beef on weck was never one of my favorite things, even when I was an omnivore.

 

Now Anderson's roast beef... that was another thing entirely, mostly because after the roast beef sandwich came the frozen custard!

Patty

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suzilightning

suzilightning

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5 hours ago, patris said:

 

Suzi - Swiston's is about 5 minutes from my house and in all my years here (10 since I bought it, but close to 50 since was born - it's the house I grew up in), not once have I eaten there! Beef on weck was never one of my favorite things, even when I was an omnivore.

 

Now Anderson's roast beef... that was another thing entirely, mostly because after the roast beef sandwich came the frozen custard!

@patris....went to school at SUC Fredonia.   Loved both the Fredonia style and the Buffalo style beef on weck......especially the weck!!!!!!  I learned to make it myself since you can't get it east of Syracuse.

we used to go to Schwable's in Buffalo but a college friend lived near Swiston's and we would stop there after we went up to the falls on the way back home.   I still make Italian beef for sammies but it is more Chicago style.   

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Nothing is better than frying in lard.

Nothing.  Do not quote me on this.

 

Linda Ellerbee

Take Big Bites

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David Ross

David Ross

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On ‎12‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 7:12 AM, patris said:

 

 

To be honest, we are making use of just about every one of my house's 988 square feet!

I love it.  And I use every bit of my home's 790 square feet. Last week someone came over and without prompting, said she liked the setup of my "galley" kitchen.  I guess it was sort of a compliment.  I've always said that the end result of what we cook isn't based on how big the kitchen is.

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MelissaH

MelissaH

Posted
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@patris, any chance you'd consider expounding on a few of the details once you've recovered, to give us a guide if we want to do something similar ourselves?

MelissaH

Oswego, NY

Chemist, writer, hired gun

Say this five times fast: "A big blue bucket of blue blueberries."

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patris

patris

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Posted
7 hours ago, MelissaH said:

@patris, any chance you'd consider expounding on a few of the details once you've recovered, to give us a guide if we want to do something similar ourselves?

 

I’d be happy to - will put something together in the next few days.

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Patty

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patris

patris

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Posted (edited)
On 12/13/2017 at 12:48 PM, MelissaH said:

@patris, any chance you'd consider expounding on a few of the details once you've recovered, to give us a guide if we want to do something similar ourselves?

 

So here are some notes - let me know if you have questions.

 

- I provided chocolate and people brought things they wanted to use for barks, clusters, etc. Since just about everyone wanted peppermint bark last year, I asked them all how much of that they wanted and made it ahead of time, leaving it in big pieces so people could break it up as they wanted. I also made marshmallows (plain, peppermint and cinnamon) and peanut butter meltaways (with and without feuilletine) for people to dip. I had people keep track of how many pounds of chocolate they used and charged an amount per pound that covered my costs. I use the Orchid line from Albert Uster, which is reasonably priced and tastes pretty good. I charged per pound for the peppermint bark and by the dozen for the marshmallows and meltaways. The extra confections are definitely not necessary but I can’t help myself.

 

- Chocolate melters and an EZ TEmper are indispensable. I had a 6 kg melter full of dark, and 3 3 kg full of milk, white, and caramelized white (no one used white this year, so I may skip that next year). We showed everyone how to use the scale to weigh the chocolate they took and calculate the amount of silk they needed, and then how to add and incorporate the silk. Everyone got perfect temper every time. @Kerry Beal did a lot of re-warming for people to keep the chocolate workable.

 

- In terms of space, a good rule of thumb is to allow about 3 feet of workspace per person - 6-foot folding banquet tables are a great option if you lack counter space and will accommodate 2 people. Also make sure you have PLENTY of space for people to set their goodies aside as they crystallize, and then even more space for people to work on packing stuff up. You seriously cannot have enough space for this.

 

- Having enough bowls, spatulas and dipping tools is super important. I had one bowl and one silicone spatula per person, plus a couple extras so there would always be dry ones at the ready. A huge pile of clean dish towels also helped - I use IKEA tea towels in the pottery studio so I brought those home - probably a couple dozen - and they were really handy.

 

- I made some snacks and people brought some things to share. There is always too much food. This is not a complaint.

 

- The 5 elves went through about 10 lbs. of peppermint bark, somewhere north of 15 lbs of chocolate, 20 dozen marshmallows and 15 dozen meltaways. 

 

In all, it was a delightful day and though it was a lot of work, I would say that it was fairly low stress - but I have a feeling I might not say that had Kerry not been a part of it!

 

Happy to answer questions or expand on anything.

Edited by patris (log)
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Patty

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caroled

caroled

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Posted
4 hours ago, patris said:

 

So here are some notes - let me know if you have questions.

 

- I provided chocolate and people brought things they wanted to use for barks, clusters, etc. Since just about everyone wanted peppermint bark last year, I asked them all how much of that they wanted and made it ahead of time, leaving it in big pieces so people could break it up as they wanted. I also made marshmallows (plain, peppermint and cinnamon) and peanut butter meltaways (with and without feuilletine) for people to dip. I had people keep track of how many pounds of chocolate they used and charged an amount per pound that covered my costs. I use the Orchid line from Albert Uster, which is reasonably priced and tastes pretty good. I charged per pound for the peppermint bark and by the dozen for the marshmallows and meltaways. The extra confections are definitely not necessary but I can’t help myself.

 

- Chocolate melters and an EZ TEmper are indispensable. I had a 6 kg melter full of dark, and 3 3 kg full of milk, white, and caramelized white (no one used white this year, so I may skip that next year). We showed everyone how to use the scale to weigh the chocolate they took and calculate the amount of silk they needed, and then how to add and incorporate the silk. Everyone got perfect temper every time. @Kerry Beal did a lot of re-warming for people to keep the chocolate workable.

 

- In terms of space, a good rule of thumb is to allow about 3 feet of workspace per person - 6-foot folding banque- tables are a great option if you lack counter space and will accommodate 2 people. Also make sure you have PLENTY of space for people to set their goodies aside as they crystallize, and then even more space for people to work on packing stuff up. You seriously cannot have enough space for this.

 

- Having enough bowls, spatulas and dipping tools is super important. I had one bowl and one silicone spatula per person, plus a couple extras so there would always be dry ones at the ready. A huge pile of clean dish towels also helped - I use IKEA tea towels in the pottery studio so I brought those home - probably a couple dozen - and they were really handy.

 

- I made some snacks and people brought some things to share. There is always too much food. This is not a complaint.

 

- The 5 elves went through about 10 lbs. of peppermint bark, somewhere north of 15 lbs of chocolate, 20 dozen marshmallows and 15 dozen meltaways. 

 

In all, it was a delightful day and though it was a lot of work, I would say that it was fairly low stress - but I have a feeling I might not say that had Kerry not been a part of it!

 

Happy to answer questions or expand on anything.

You an Kerry both amaze me. What a wonderful time everyone must have had!

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And this old porch is like a steaming greasy plate of enchiladas,With lots of cheese and onions and a guacamole salad ...This Old Porch...Lyle Lovett

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