"Fruit" by Cedric Grolet

[Madsandersen]

Dear eG

 

I am using Cedric Grolet's book "Fruit" but for me it seems like the quantities in the recipes is way too high. Example; pear and almond tart calls for 590 g sweet dough to cover a tart ring of 18 cm-diameter, which I found to be way to much + I found the the crumb dough in the recipe to be a factor of 10 too high. This is the case in many recipes, also the coconut entremets, which calls for a coconut dacquoise 16 cm-diameter but the recipe calls for 225 g of egg whites etc. 

I have been looking for some explanation of the quantities, it might be recipes for more than one cake/tart etc., but it seems like it is only for one? Anybody who have been thinking the same?

 

Cheers,

Mads.

[teonzo]

I don't have the book here, so I can't check. But that's a common problem on many books. Professionals don't work with recipes for single cakes, they work with big quantities, then everything is scaled out. For mousses, biscuits and so on, you pour the desired weight into the mold then proceed. For stuff like shortcrusts you sheet the dough to desired width, then place it in the mold and cut the eccess (no scaling here), when you are finishing the dough you prepare a new batch.

So it all depends on the editors, not on the pastry chef. The pastry chef gives his/her recipes, then the editors work out the text that's ending in the book. If the editors are really experienced then these things are sorted out, if not then the book will suffer of a lot of these troubles.

There's another thing to consider when making this kind of technical pastries. Most of the recipes are pretty convoluted, with lots of ingredients and passages. If you want to make a single cake, then you end up working with too low quantities that make it almost impossible to get a good result. If you want to make a dacquoise with 25 g egg whites, your result will be much much worse than with a big quantity: whipping 25 g egg whites will never give good results (too few for the whisk to work well), when you add the powders you are deflating the whites much more than if you worked a big batch. Similar troubles are behind the corner in each step.

Personally I always suggest to avoid trying to replicate those technical pastries at home. Lots lots of time (much more than in a professional setting), for 1 single cake that's going to be a pale imitation of much lower quality than the original. It's not cost effective (you spend less money if you buy a cake in a top class pastry shop) nor ego effective (not much satisfaction in making something that's full of errors).

 

 

 

Teo

 

[Madsandersen]

35 minutes ago, teonzo said:

I don't have the book here, so I can't check. But that's a common problem on many books. Professionals don't work with recipes for single cakes, they work with big quantities, then everything is scaled out. For mousses, biscuits and so on, you pour the desired weight into the mold then proceed. For stuff like shortcrusts you sheet the dough to desired width, then place it in the mold and cut the eccess (no scaling here), when you are finishing the dough you prepare a new batch.

So it all depends on the editors, not on the pastry chef. The pastry chef gives his/her recipes, then the editors work out the text that's ending in the book. If the editors are really experienced then these things are sorted out, if not then the book will suffer of a lot of these troubles.

There's another thing to consider when making this kind of technical pastries. Most of the recipes are pretty convoluted, with lots of ingredients and passages. If you want to make a single cake, then you end up working with too low quantities that make it almost impossible to get a good result. If you want to make a dacquoise with 25 g egg whites, your result will be much much worse than with a big quantity: whipping 25 g egg whites will never give good results (too few for the whisk to work well), when you add the powders you are deflating the whites much more than if you worked a big batch. Similar troubles are behind the corner in each step.

Personally I always suggest to avoid trying to replicate those technical pastries at home. Lots lots of time (much more than in a professional setting), for 1 single cake that's going to be a pale imitation of much lower quality than the original. It's not cost effective (you spend less money if you buy a cake in a top class pastry shop) nor ego effective (not much satisfaction in making something that's full of errors).

 

 

 

Teo

 

 

I see the issue, it might be the explanation. I am have a great time trying to imitate advanced pastries at home, practicing and getting better at it - I would just have to solve the quantity-problem for the recipes then. Thank you for your reply.

 

Cheers,

Mads.

[teonzo]

Then you should try to write down some overall guides for the quantities.

Example for mousses: a layer of 1 cm of mousse in a 20 cm diameter mold weighs X.

Example for shortcrusts: a disc of pate sablee rolled 4 mm high and cut 18 cm diameter weighs Y.

A recipe for a dark chocolate mousse will have a different weight per volume than a recipe for a raspberry mousse, but the difference is not big. Same for the rest. When you have a table with these guidelines it will be much easier to catch those errors in advance.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[Madsandersen]

11 minutes ago, teonzo said:

Then you should try to write down some overall guides for the quantities.

Example for mousses: a layer of 1 cm of mousse in a 20 cm diameter mold weighs X.

Example for shortcrusts: a disc of pate sablee rolled 4 mm high and cut 18 cm diameter weighs Y.

A recipe for a dark chocolate mousse will have a different weight per volume than a recipe for a raspberry mousse, but the difference is not big. Same for the rest. When you have a table with these guidelines it will be much easier to catch those errors in advance.

 

 

 

Teo

 

 

Wonderful idea, that’s what I’m going to do ! 

[teonzo]

That's the standard procedure in pastry shops.

Each cake (especially entremets) has a production sheet where you find the weight of each layer for each size (except glazes, that's a different story).

Example: you want to produce 10 cakes 16 cm diameter, 15 cakes 20 cm diameter, 7 cakes 24 cm diameter. When you are planning how much chocolate mousse (or whatever) to produce, then you pick up the production sheet of that cake, see how much chocolate mousse is needed for 16 cm (say X), 20 cm (Y) and 24 cm (Z) cakes, then make the calculation (10*X + 15*Y + 7*Z). When you have the total weight you need, then you calculate the proportion for each ingredient starting from a basic recipe. All this is made with a spreadsheet, ideally.

 

If you are making entremets at home, then I suppose you are using the same mold size every time, so this is going to simplify your life, you just need to know the average weight for each kind of component. Once you have the weight for a 1 cm layer, then it's easy to know the weight for a 1.5 cm layer.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[dano.dano]

Agreed… using a spreadsheet would be a good method to deal with scaling issues.

 

Another digital example would be to use an app like Paprika which has a scaling function built in. Simply calculate the volume needed, figure out the scaling factor (e.g., I need 2x qualities of puff pastry) and enter that scaling factor (e.g., 2)  into the app. The app then automatically applies the scaling factor to the quantities of ingredients for that recipe. Depending on how you work, using an app specifically designed for cooking might be more convenient than managing a spreadsheet(s).

Edited November 3, 2019 by dano.dano
Forgot the URL to Paprika's homepage. (log)