Baking ,pastry mistakes...

[tan319]

I was re-reading 'The Making of a Pastry Chef' this morning and I was on the chapter where evryone is talking about things they've screwed up.

I had one of those days yesterday at work.

First, I had a pan of tuiles burn, even though everything was done exactly the same.

Oven was just too hot, maybe the thermostat is wacked.

I didn't let them go too long. If fact, as I'm sure a lot of youu have developed this sense also, I'm usually ahead of my timer, just by smell and 6th sense.

Secondly, I was doing this spiced hazelnut cookie I use as a garnish for a flan I just started selling, it uses 12 oz. of butter, and I was doing my thing, the hazelnut/sugar mixture has been ground, it's going around now in the KA with the paddle, I'm thinking, this doesn't look right.

Proceed anyway, add the eggs, flour and it comes togedther in a weird way.

I'm thing 'WTF', what did I leave out, when, out of the corner of my eye I see the mised, cubed butter.

DOH!!!

Luckily, it incorporated fine and my cookie was cool.

How about you?

[ellencho]

I seem to have a lot of problems with baking soda and baking powder. I either add the wrong one, or don't add them at all.

[Wendy DeBord]

PLEASE..........are you kidding? They invented the phrase "shit happens" just for me. Somedays it does seem like everything is off.

I'm actually pretty happy with myself over this issue, in that I've probably reached "expert level" (if there was a grading system on this) in digging myself out of a mess. I have soooooooooooooo much experience with this-much gained through my catering days. But I've gotten pretty good specificly with baked goods just by experience and necessity.

I've had to go back and figure out how to increase everything else to balance out a mistake of adding too much of 1 ingredient. I remember that happening on like the second day I had at a bakery. I was following their recipe and everything was in pounds then 1 ingredient was listed in grams or cups and I didn't catch it. This owner was always standing over me like a hawk-so it was impossible to just quitely work my way out. They treated me like and idiot and they were sort of accusitory-like I'd just spent their last penny and now they'd be homeless......of course they never went back and corrected these inconsistancys in their recipe system...... So I KNOW I wasn't the only one who messed up their recipes.

This isn't an example of my diggging out-just a typical mistake. Lets see, just last Sat. I was making cheesecake. I had 15 lbs going and it equaled 1 1/2x recipe but I lost my mind and added 2x the recipes cream and milk. I went ahead and baked them off-figured it was a dense recipe and this "might" be fine. I baked them all together-same oven, same timing, same cooling, etc... 3 out of 4 cracked...........poop! They were plain NY's and I need to keep them plain-so some whipped cream will have to hide my sin.

Oh, I have a dig out example. I made a recipe from Duflets bakery (something I've had in my file for a while and wanted to make). It was a meringue, caramel, praline, whip cream concoction. I knew it would be fragile to cut....well I don't know what I was thinking, the darn thing couldn't take being cut and plated at all. So I turned it into a tart. Baked a sweet crust, lined it with chocolate, slopped my meringue mess into it, put a thin layer of chocolate sponge cake ontop, added some ganche and chopped praline on top-....well they snarfed that down.

Todays work day consists of making "master pieces" out of the numerous scrap cakes and fillings I've got in the freezer. Practice, practice, practice.........

[mckayinutah]

It happens to all of us, and this in turn makes us all better pastry chefs.

To quote Jacques Torres:

" When you have made as many mistakes as I have, you will know as much as I do "

Very true.

Jason

[PastryLady]

About a month ago I made a huge batch of banana bread. I had enough left over after making the loaves to make about 3 mini muffins and baked them off while the others were in the deck oven. After tasting the "muffins" I just about cried when I realized I forgot the baking powder completely. I nicknamed the surviving loaves we saved for bread pudding "banana brick". We all have our moments don't worry as long as you learn from your mistakes and do not repeat it you will be o.k! I double check all my ingredients always, but now specificially check that powder or soda too!

Edited March 16, 2004 by PastryLady (log)

[phlawless]

This wasn't a mistake, but intentional: reading through the thread for some reason reminded me of this:

When I was in 2nd grade my family moved to a new town, sometime in the early spring. My mom thought it would be a hoot if we pretended that my birthday was April 1, and that she would supply a birthday 'cake' and trimmings for a class party.

So my mom and I wip up a very bland cornbread, and iced it with heavily salted frosting. She then made lemonade with vinegar...it was pretty cruel when I think about it: all those eight year olds with persed lips and dry tongues!

The joke was a bomb; it took months before I had any friends (remember 8?)

Edited March 16, 2004 by phlawless (log)

[tchorst]

If this is turning into a worst times thread, I forgot my boss's, wife's B-Day cake for an evening service about 2 months ago. They told me they were ready for it right after they finished their entrees. That'll teach me never to write anything down.

[chromedome]

I had an instructor last year who kept a file of deliberately "off" recipes. Once a week or so, he'd hand somebody a recipe with a joker in it: double the flour it should have, or half the butter, or something like that.

His point? Trust your common sense, not the recipe. If it seems screwy, question it.

He also kept a broken scale around, just to see who was going to be hardheaded enough to keep trying to use it. And metric and imperial balances and weights on the same shelf. I think his 30 years in the military may have had something to do with his "training by gotcha" mentality.