eG Foodblog: Wendy DeBord - Dessert, the most important meal.

[SethG]

Wendy, are New Yorkers who don't golf permitted to join your country club?

Edit: And a question. Can you tell us the origin of your old user name "Sinclair"?

Edit #2: I can't believe I own a pastry book that you don't seem to have. Payard, Simply Sensational Desserts. Do you have any opinion of him?

Edited April 13, 2005 by SethG (log)

[helenjp]

I know other pc's would want to see the titles

Definitely each to his/her own...according to my son, that gorgeous shot of your cat going after a pecan roll is "a picture of a Dell computer"...

I'm reading with interest. I've actually often wondered how people who spend their workday surrounded with sweet food and sweet smells eat...it doesn't sound easy for you to come home from work feeling like a nice bit of swordfish and salad!

I really loved your peekaboo easter egg centerpiece...amazing celebration of ancient fertility rites going on there .

[*Deborah*]

Oh those bunnies are the greatest! so much personality, each one different.

Are they cake inside?

[Dejah]

Oh those bunnies are the greatest! so much personality, each one different.

Are they cake inside?

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Exactly my question!

How did you make the ears? Royal icing? The carrots at the back?

The large Easter egg is awesome! Styrofoam?

[Rhea_S]

Everything looks amazing Wendy. That giant egg is a true work of art as is your entire Easter pastry table. If that took you only one week to plan, I can imagine how incredible your other ones must be. It's obvious that you love your job/career.

[Chufi]

Oh those bunnies are the greatest! so much personality, each one different.

Are they cake inside?

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Exactly my question!

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Hey, my question too! first thing I thought when I saw the bunnies.. are they edible.. and if they are what a pitiful sight they must have been with people butchering them to get more cake..

That said, Wendy, I am very much enjoying this blog. Your dedication to all things sweet is inspiring..

Your food life is so very different from mine but that's what makes these blogs so interesting!

And you have my admiration for working and blogging at the same time..

Edited April 13, 2005 by Chufi (log)

[Smithy]

I am in awe of your photos and your work! That Easter spread is gorgeous. Others have already admired the bunnies and the egg, said the things and asked the questions I wanted to ask. I'll just say the cakes are durned pretty too! If this is your idea of below-your-usual-quality workmanship, I can hardly wait to see what you normally turn out. Oh, wait...there was that tiramisu tart to die for. Wowowow.

I love it that you have an entire bookshelf devoted to chocolate. You're my kind of pastry chef!

On a practical note: if you can see your way to making an appointment with an allergist, it will cost you time and money but may save you a lot of pain and trouble working out what's causing your allergies. I finally broke down and did that to work out what was causing my lip(s) or other facial areas to swell unexpectedly and stay that way for hours. It turned out I'm allergic to birch - especially but not only the pollen - and that a number of foods (raw apples, some other red fruits) have allergens that approximate the birch allergen enough to cause a minor reaction. It was well worth the time and money, AND the allergist came up with an antihistamine that works for me when necessary.

[Irishgirl]

I was the one that mentioned the allergy....not Wendy.

It is a tricky situation, as it is not THAT bad. My sister recently had herself done by an allergist, and she is allergic to SO MUCH STUFF!!!!! I feel badly for her. She spent a year not being able to smell because of her allergies and had three sinus infections in a row. She is better now, but can't eat so many things that she loves.

I think that I am afraid to go and get this done because I don't want to know. I don't want to be limited to what I can eat. And I am pretty sure that it is stuff that I ingest, and not a pollen.

Back to on topic discussion....Wendy, your bookshelves look like mine....well used, and pots inbetween books. We have many of the same books in common. I don't know what I would do without my Roux brothers books.

[Smithy]

I was the one that mentioned the allergy....not Wendy.

Whoops! Sorry about that, but I'll continue for a moment anyway.

I think that I am afraid to go and get this done because I don't want to know.  I don't want to be limited to what I can eat.  And I am pretty sure that it is stuff that I ingest, and not a pollen.

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Part of my point was that some foods can mimic pollens in their allergic effects. But aside from that, you can also be tested for food allergies. If your allergies aren't causing you any physical danger then I can understand not wanting to know what's causing the problem. Remember, though, that some allergies get worse with age and/or exposure. In that case (yanking this back almost on topic) you may need to know what foods to avoid. I can certainly understand not wanting to avoid anything, though. I'm a bit leery of hazelnuts because I can feel that reaction in the back of my throat, too close to the airway for comfort. But apples? Naw, I eat 'am anyway.

OK, we return to Wendy's thread. Apologies if this was too much like a highjacking.

[SuzySushi]

Those bunnies are fantastic!!!!

Did you use cake molds, or cut & piece them together?

[SushiCat]

Fun Blog Wendy! Cool bunnies to boot.

Among other questions asked already and generally being interested, I'm curious about your use of cake mix for that lemon cake you mention. I am a bit of a lemon cake nut, actually a lemon fiend overall! Anyway, just curious on the rationale here.

[claire797]

Wendy, this is awesome!!!

I am especially impressed with you cookbook collection. I noticed you have a lot of my favorite dessert books -- in particular, Richard Sax Classic Home Desserts. I LOVE that book. Keep up the great blog.

[Trishiad]

Some of us do quite well living on sugar and butter. Odd metabolism I guess. I'm not a pastry chef but make cookies, brownies, cakes, and other desserts all week long. I may actually eat dessert 2 or 3 times a day. Yeah me! I must be a happy girl! (with big fat thighs).

Wendy, you and I have the same engagement ring and the same plates. wierd.

what's for breakfast tomorrow? Oatmeal cookies here.

[andiesenji]

Thanks for doing this eG Food Blog, Wendy. I am really looking forward to seeing more of what you do. I've already learned something as a really green newbie home baker that has been worth the price of admission: the plastic bag over your mixer.

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I thought I was weird for putting a tea towel over! I will have to try with plastic !

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Way back when I worked in my mom's bakery we used the plastic garment bags that just fit around the big mixer and the top, where the hanger would go, would be secured to the top of the mixer with a cow magnet. it was split front and back and held together in the front of the bowl with a spring-type clothes pin. The heavy plastic was washable and we used the steamer to sterilize them.

Edited April 14, 2005 by andiesenji (log)

[Wendy DeBord]

Hi, I'm back. I will admit I'm pretty tired..........I stayed up about 4 hours past my normal bed time last night to post. I'd say I put in 6 hours yesterday on the computor, total. BUT I'm having fun because it seems like others are interested.....and that makes it worthwhile!

I began my morning like every morning, a fake mug of cappuccino and nothing else.

Work was real work this morning, a huge hussle and stress to meet deadlines. I had baked off my cakes and slapped them together with lemon mousse right before I left last night. I put them in the freeze overnight (as usual), that's my method of handling cakes.......it's much easier when their frozen. We had a party for 100 due at noon plus I was stressing over getting my ala carte items done. Under my own pressure, because what I had in the cooler was old and I didn't want anyone to buy it.

I needed 6 cakes to get my servings for the lunch party......then I made two extra because I'll need them for Sundays brunch, I froze them.

(sorry, the lighting from this angle in my room apparently isn't good)

Soooooooooooooooo, it's a bit shocking huh? Yes, we sell sliced cake. Nothing fancy on this party. Hey, it's all about money and they wanted cheap so I was dirrected to give them cheap. Told you all how average this job is. Notice our plates........they are horrible. THICK white salad plates, our banquet dinner plates are the same. Nothing could ever look elegant on them! So I rarely try to take an elegant approach using them.

After that was done I dived into my ala carte work. I didn't have anything to eat until 2:00 p.m. when I finished. Beleive me I was hungry. I did nibble on a few bits/scraps here and there, but nothing much, really just tasting for things to be right on. Sweets weren't turning my crank today. I think I inhaled too much xxxsugar while making frosting for the lemon mist cakes cause I lost my appetite from then on.......well, until my stomach screamed at me.

The next set of photos is a continuation of my ala carte desserts that I showed you yesterday in my blog. First up is my Savannah cake (it's the angelfood cake and light custard):

This is just after unmolding, their still frozen. I ran out of pans yesterday (that's a painful reality of how under-equiped we always are in the pastry kitchen) and had to find my bread pans to mold this in.

This will get served with raspberry sauce with whole raspberries in it. The reason being, we never have fresh raspberries (or at least it's only on huge club events that we do), so it's frozen or nothing.

Next dessert is the tiramisu tart. I'm not happy at all with how I had to finish this. I had planned on spraying it with chocolate, but I forgot to freeze it so I could spray it. Instead I gave it a dusting of cocoa powder, heavy dusting because it will fade in the cooler.

This is the keylime cake. I threw this together using left over items from my freezer and "wong it". It's a green joconde (cake) wrapped around the outside. Then it's got a layer of keylime mousse, layer of white chocolate ganche, layer of lemon chiffon cake, layer of strawberry mousse, more ganche and then topped with white chocolate coated corn flakes. After it was completed I inbeded more white chocolate corn flakes into the bottom for it's crust. I like contrasting textures and a little crunch with a cake goes well.

Next: my brownie cake/torte (I forget at the moment how i wrote it up). Since this is geared toward kids and non-dessert eaters I got a little playful........I haven't put a marishio cherry on a dessert in.........forever. But I started thinking about Pierre Herme's "cherry on the top cake" and I, well, just had fun. Around the bottom edge is pressed on chocolate covered rice crispies.

The white design on top is white cocoa butter airbrushed on (I would have liked to have used color, but I know my clients would be scared to try it then). This is something I've talked about may times in the P & B Forum. It's more commonly done on chocolates but I airbrush on anything and everything. The photo of my airbrush is to show you it's broken! I suppose that won't matter to anyone but me.......it's spitting instead of spraying.

Last, should be my Chef's Special the peanut butter pie: pretty basic for the timid. (pooh, I forgot to upload it, I'll post it later).

I should mention something about our plating. The day and night salad guys plate the desserts, I don't. They have several homemade sauces to choose from for plating and also fresh fruit (strawberries, grapes, pineapple, oranges, etc.. but nothing exoctic cause we're cheap). I attempted to make individual desserts for ala carte as is the norm in all decent dinning. BUT when I did that, nothing sold! I believe it scared them because my clients are middle income dinners, not foodies, not well traveled, not upper class They also can imediately recognize when the emperior has no clothing on, their a tough crowd that way. So I've accepted that as I accept doing the type of work they want, that's my job. You can't really judge a person by their job and I hope you won't count that against my abilities. I can certainly do fine dinning.......but this isn't the job that is fine dinning. I'm a firm believer in giving people what they want so long as I can do it as well as I can. Our ala carte desserts do get plated on a nice plate. I'll upload a photo of those later.

I have to appologize...........I had written I'd make napoleons for my ladies lunch tommarrow but I really do need to make something that can be done even quicker. All of the sudden I've got a TON of work and I've got to do my job first before this type of extra ciricular activity.

Oh I lost my place..........Yes, so after making those ala carte desserts I finally sat down to lunch. I asked for a hamburger, rare.....again no garnish. I'm running out of fruit2o's so it looks like it's grape again! I buy them at Sam's Club and they didn't have the case I normally buy, boo on them.

After lunch I had many other things to work on which I couldn't stop to photograph, sorry. But I did get a couple shots of making my bliz danish dough. Well it's not "mine". I really like the danish recipe from "Baking With Julia" written by Dorie Greenspan and everyone at work loves it so much I rarely can make any other breakfast pastry. I made 8 double batches. This is how I go about doing this recipe in bulk. I was thinking today it's time to make this in the mixer like I do my pie dough, the cusinart thing I do have down to an art time wise but it's silly.

I measure out all my wet ingredients, then all my dry. Then I mix together and retart it overnight in the cooler. I'll roll these out tommarrow.

[Wendy DeBord]

Wendy, are New Yorkers who don't golf permitted to join your country club?

Edit:  And a question.  Can you tell us the origin of your old user name "Sinclair"?

Edit #2:  I can't believe I own a pastry book that you don't seem to have.  Payard, Simply Sensational Desserts.  Do you have any opinion of him?

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Yes, if you pay we have several different types of memberships and one is just dining privilages.

The origin of my old user name...........it was my cat that passed aways name.

Oh I sure do own Simply Sensational Desserts! It's another Great book!!! I've made almost everything in that one. Maybe I missed uploading a shot or two from my book shelfs (I did find the problem I was having yesterday with photos, my Kodak software has got a problem and it is freezing on me). Opinions, YES SIR, I LOVE Payard, his work is brilliant. I must add I only know his published work (his recipes I've baked), I've never eaten anything he's actually made.

[Wendy DeBord]

Oh those bunnies are the greatest! so much personality, each one different.

Are they cake inside?

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Yes, they are all cake, with a couple of drinking straws used for support dowels.

[Wendy DeBord]

Oh those bunnies are the greatest! so much personality, each one different.

Are they cake inside?

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Exactly my question!

How did you make the ears? Royal icing? The carrots at the back?

The large Easter egg is awesome! Styrofoam?

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The ears are made from gum paste. It's a edible pastry dough that dries hard..........but it's not something you'd want to eat. I made those at home the night before, so I had no idea what size to make them. I had to cut the cakes to match the ears which is backwards working.

The large egg is completely edible! It's molded sugar. All the items in and on it our edible. The rabbits are made from gum paste and the carrots are made out of royal icing. The butterflies are also gum paste and the flowers piped on the exterior of the egg are all done in royal icing. I'm glad you like it! Thanks.

[Wendy DeBord]

It's obvious that you love your job/career.

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I absolutely do! I live it day and night, even my days off often involve something work related.

[snowangel]

But, did the bunnies get eaten?

I'm exhausted reading your blog, Wendy. Beautiful. I'll never order a dessert and think of it the same was as before.

[mizducky]

Oh those bunnies are the greatest! so much personality, each one different.

Are they cake inside?

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Yes, they are all cake, with a couple of drinking straws used for support dowels.

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Are my eyes deceiving me, or are there also a couple of thin white wires coming off of every one of those bunnies? (Do they make the bunnies' eyes light up? )

I got an even bigger kick out of the bunnies because of one of the more lame-ass classes I had in high-school home ec, where we were supposed to make these bunny cakes out of layer cake cut and re-assembled. Unlike your cute bunnies, our home-ec bunnies were irredeemably hideous. (And they didn't even taste all that good.)

[Wendy DeBord]

I love it that you have an entire bookshelf devoted to chocolate.  You're my kind of pastry chef!

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You noticed! Actually I have more chocolate books that don't fit on that shelf. I had to scatter those.

[Wendy DeBord]

Those bunnies are fantastic!!!!

Did you use cake molds, or cut & piece them together?

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I'd be happy to own more regular round cake pans................gosh no, we don't have any shaped pans that's not in the budget. Once upon a time my Mom used them (my Mom was a pastry chef/caterer) and I decorated the baked cakes. I find them actually harder to use and do a decent job then cutting the cakes myself. I know other decorators would tell you the same thing.

[Wendy DeBord]

Fun Blog Wendy!  Cool bunnies to boot.

Among other questions asked already and generally being interested, I'm curious about your use of cake mix for that lemon cake you mention.  I am a bit of a lemon cake nut, actually a lemon fiend overall!  Anyway, just curious on the rationale here.

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One huge rational is time. Good lord theres never enough time in this job for how much they need. Using a cake mix here or there is a huge time saver and for white and yellow cakes I've yet to find the "perfect" recipe. Oops, I forgot I do have that white cake recipes........I just haven't disclosed that here yet.

AND the yellow cake is how it came when my Chef purchased from a broker. The yellow cake slightly contrasts with the lemon mousse and lemon frosting. I could have baked a lemon cake and have a decent recipe or two for them, but too much lemon is too much lemon.

I'm a HUGE believer in ying and yang flavoring and I adore sweet and salty. Or.......well probably the most often I include a vanilla (often it's vanilla whipped cream or anglaise sauce) as a contrast to whatever flavors are going on in a dessert. I find I want to come back to something vanilla as a palate cleanser in most desserts so the brightest flavor can be highlighted instead of using too many other flavors that compete with it. I also use alot of Fleur de sel on my desserts. Sweet great highlighted by salt.

Hope that answered your question?

[Wendy DeBord]

Wendy, you and I have the same engagement ring and the same plates.  wierd.

what's for breakfast tomorrow?  Oatmeal cookies here.

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No way....really? That's weird.........

Breakfast..........hum.........you'll see. Like I plan that out, you forgot I only eat what handy imediately.