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"Chocolate Desserts" by Pierre Herme (Part 1)


SethG

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Sorry no pics this time.. Made the truffles last weekend The sichuan and the dark on dark.. They came out great. I didnt have sichuan pepper corns, so i used thai chili peppers.. They came out really great! Were very spicy.

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Ok, the Concorde is finished, and I've tried a slice and taken some pictures. I ended up making another batch of meringue for sticks to put on the outside. I used less cocoa and powdered sugar, and powdered the outside with cocoa, trying to better duplicate the pic in the book. I ended up just pressing the sticks vertically onto the sides. I think that was a mistake. It doesn't look right to me. The cake was frozen for about 24 hours, and that did indeed soften the meringue discs, which I thought was good.

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"If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced" - Vincent Van Gogh
 

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While it may not be the most aesthetically beautiful dessert that you have posted photos of, Patrick, it still looks mighty delicious. I know that I wouldn't refuse a piece!

John Sconzo, M.D. aka "docsconz"

"Remember that a very good sardine is always preferable to a not that good lobster."

- Ferran Adria on eGullet 12/16/2004.

Docsconz - Musings on Food and Life

Slow Food Saratoga Region - Co-Founder

Twitter - @docsconz

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Yesterday, I was invited to a friend to try his Tarte Grenobloise (which he has taken a bunch of pictures of and has promised to post here soon), and after eating that (which was very good, though also very rich, so you can't have too much of it...) we started browsing through CDBPH again trying to figure out the next project to do.

We came upon the chocolate and lemon caramels, and those seemed both tasty and fairly simple to make. There is however one problem with them. Corn syrup is not easily available in grocery stores in Sweden. Is there anything else that we could use as a substitute for the corn syrup? Some other kind of syrup or something?

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Another delicious looking creation, Patrick. I too kind of like the look of the sticks on the sides.

BTW, do any of you use a cake turntable (like the ATCO) in making these cakes? If so, is it helpful?

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Patrick, I am so jealous. Now I have to make it again -properly this time- to make it look remotley close to yours. Did you use 1/4 inch tip for the sticks? What did you think about the overall taste/texture?

Elie

E. Nassar
Houston, TX

My Blog
contact: enassar(AT)gmail(DOT)com

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Patrick, I am so jealous. Now I have to make it again -properly this time- to make it look remotley close to yours. Did you use 1/4 inch tip for the sticks? What did you think about the overall taste/texture?

Thanks Elie (and Dorie, Seth, Richard and John)! I actually used a big tip, I think it was 1/2", for the tips. I just adjust the speed at which I move the bag to get the sticks as thin or thick as I want.

The texture I think is the strong suit on this dessert. When you put it together, you have the ultracrispy discs contrasting with the soft and light mousse. But once the mousse set and the whole thing freezes and then thaws, the mousse gets firm and the meringue gets soft and a little chewy, and very little of the contrast remains. I like that. The taste is good too, but I'll say that I don't think that a little more sweetness would hurt. But then I tend to prefer a little more sweetness in most things chocolate.

As an aside, does anybody else think that slightly over-baked cocoa powder tastes like coffee? I've noticed this several times now when I make meringues. Typically Ill have a few stray little pieces that end up overbaked, and they taste very much like coffee.

"If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced" - Vincent Van Gogh
 

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Feeling that i better make good out of Thornado's promise. Here's my first post on egullet with a tart grenobloise from CDBPH.

As can be seen by the photos i have found out that i am unfortunately quite crappy at photographing food. The color and settings of the photos resemble some sort of east european state endorsed cookbook from the seventies :biggrin: . Hopefully this is something that will improve with a bit of practice :smile: . This is the first recipe i've tried from CDBPH (in fact it is one of the first baking recipes that i have tried; i like to cook but haven't tried baking to any degree previously) and even though the pictures don't really show it, i am quite happy with the result. The recipe was very straight forward with very good instructions at almost all stages, only the caramell part had me wondering for a while.

In conclusion i agree with Thornado's assesment that the tart is really tasty, however, it is also very rich. You probably shouldn't have more than three tarts at one go :raz: .

tarte1_small.jpg

tarte2_small.jpg

tarte3_small.jpg

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Feeling that i better make good out of Thornado's promise. Here's my first post on egullet with a tart grenobloise from CDBPH.

As can be seen by the photos i have found out that i am unfortunately quite crappy at photographing food. The color and settings of the photos resemble some sort of east european state endorsed cookbook from the seventies  :biggrin: . Hopefully this is something that will improve with a bit of practice  :smile: .

Your pictures look fine, and the tart looks delicious. Good job, and welcome!

"If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced" - Vincent Van Gogh
 

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That East European cookbook crack is too much :biggrin:

But, Patrick, I'm looking at those pix of the Concorde and you can even see some crumb there!!!

The detail is pretty amazing. They look like Bon Appetit photos.

Do you also shoot pix with black backgrounds?

2317/5000

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But, Patrick, I'm looking at those pix of the Concorde and you can even see some crumb there!!!

The detail is pretty amazing. They look like Bon Appetit photos.

Do you also shoot pix with black backgrounds?

Thanks, Ted! The pics I post are actually reduced about 85% from the originals. The originals are about 2mb in size, and you can see the small-scale structure really well in those. I could probably blow them up to 11x8" and they'd still look good. For the fun of it, here is a detail from the middle of that last pic, from the middle of the piece on the fork.

gallery_23736_355_5034.jpg

"If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced" - Vincent Van Gogh
 

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Feeling that i better make good out of Thornado's promise. Here's my first post on egullet with a tart grenobloise from CDBPH.

As can be seen by the photos i have found out that i am unfortunately quite crappy at photographing food. The color and settings of the photos resemble some sort of east european state endorsed cookbook from the seventies  :biggrin: . Hopefully this is something that will improve with a bit of practice   :smile: .

Your pictures look fine, and the tart looks delicious. Good job, and welcome!

I really like your pics, I just hope mine will come out like that.

Edited by oli (log)
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Assaporare- Welocme to the Society. This looks perfect, the tart and the picture.

Why did the caramel have you wondering if I may ask? Did you think it might be too much?

Elie

E. Nassar
Houston, TX

My Blog
contact: enassar(AT)gmail(DOT)com

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Welcome to the eGullet Society For Arts & Letters Assaporare!

Your photos are fine..........no one can compete with Patricks photography..........so don't worry. Seeing your work and everyone elses really adds a great deal to our conversations.

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So last night i made the rice pudding.. I used a 4 to one ratio milk to rice and the rest of the recipe the same.. It came out good while it was hot, but when i let it cool, the thing turned into a rock.. I could really turn these suckers into rice truffles.. Has this recipe been worked out yet?

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I made the rice pudding with the corrected proportions Dorie Greenspan sent in. I think the problem is that it does thicken up a lot when you cool it, but the recipe doesn't warn you about that. When I cooked it for the amount of time specified it was still very thin, so I kept going for a while longer. Then I chickened out, and removed it from the heat when it was still fairly liquid. Chilled, it was somewhat thicker than I thought it should be, though by no means a rock.

It did occur to me that you could scoop the pudding in balls and bread them (probably with panko), and make dessert arancini. I'm just a home cook, so I am a little leary of the deep-frying. I bet it would be really good, though.

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Is there a list of errors in CDBPH somewhere online? I've just recieved the book, and only made the nutella tart. Which I afterwards found out is converted wrongly to metric. And now I stumble upon the rice pudding-debate where the proportions seem to be ambigous. As a lot of these recipes are qiute pricey to make, it would be nice to be able to look up any corrections before starting out.

Thanks a bunch

/Mette

P.s. The nutella tart came out nicely - veryyyyy buttery. my 3 year old helped making all of it (minus the pastry) and it is a great childrens project and the flavour is child friendly too. I'll post a pic of his creation later and tell a bit more about making it with a child :-)

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Is there a list of errors in CDBPH somewhere online?

You're looking at it.

Really all we've found are a couple problematic conversions of volume measurements to metric weights.

The rice pudding thing is a conundrum wrapped inside an enigma still awaiting resolution.

"I don't mean to brag, I don't mean to boast;

but we like hot butter on our breakfast toast!"

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I made the rice pudding with the corrected proportions Dorie Greenspan sent in. I think the problem is that it does thicken up a lot when you cool it, but the recipe doesn't warn you about that. When I cooked it for the amount of time specified it was still very thin, so I kept going for a while longer. Then I chickened out, and removed it from the heat when it was still fairly liquid. Chilled, it was somewhat thicker than I thought it should be, though by no means a rock.

It did occur to me that you could scoop the pudding in balls and bread them (probably with panko), and make dessert arancini. I'm just a home cook, so I am a little leary of the deep-frying. I bet it would be really good, though.

The only thing she sent in was the 4 to 1 ratio.. It seems that this recipe is just a dud..

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I need to bake a birthday cake for my wife for tomorrow. She happens to be the primary baker of the family, though. Is there a consensus opinion here for what cake provides the most bang for the skill buck? In other words what is the best cake in this book that is relatively easy to make?

John Sconzo, M.D. aka "docsconz"

"Remember that a very good sardine is always preferable to a not that good lobster."

- Ferran Adria on eGullet 12/16/2004.

Docsconz - Musings on Food and Life

Slow Food Saratoga Region - Co-Founder

Twitter - @docsconz

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