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

[Wendy DeBord]

The little lobsters blew my mind too. So cute! (And so many to pipe out just so--must take the patience of Job...)

I sure as heck wouldn't be able to knock out a Barney cake if my life depended on it.

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You'd be quite shocked at how fast I can pipe out those lobsters (it takes far longer to whip the whites and color them then to pipe that out). I've done them before.

Oh, the Barney cake.........I have a story on that one. I did the barney part of the cake the night before the b-day, totally out of cake (as usual) and I wasn't thinking (I left work quite late that night and was really tired) and left it in my room on a speed rack (just because that cake couldn't go in the coolers overnight). The next morning when I came into work it had melted. Up until then (as all our pastry people have read me complain about) my room is in the mid-90 degree heat zone and a HUGE complication in my job. So anyway, when I got in that morning I had a little break down over the temp. of my room and my barney cake melting. I had to remake the barney before lunch when it was due ( and I didn't have enough cake in my freezer to make a second one, so I had to make the head out of styrofoam I found in the mantainence department). I might have even threatened to leave if they didn't do something about how hot that room is. Well, that worked having a fit, because they went out and bought an air conditioner just so I could work in that room. Sometimes it does play to fail, then you can get what you need.

[Wendy DeBord]

Wendy, what were the bees?

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Thanks.

The bee's are made from marzipan. It used to be my "signature" garnish. This year I'm into butterflies as my "signature". I have talked extensively about those darn bee here (at eG) and I finally posted a shot of them. I wonder if anyone from the Baking Forum remembers me going on about them.............?

[Wendy DeBord]

What would you suggest for a home cook who wants to do something impressive as a dessert? I know that in most cooking there are dishes that seem complex and difficult, but are actually pretty simple to produce, so I'm assuming there are such dishes in the pastry arena as well.

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Yes, your correct about simple items verses complex. But that topic it's self is complex and another thing I could write pages on. I really would be happy to talk about that in the Baking & Pastry Forum after I'm done blogging. We have talked about it many times before, so please drop by and read thru some of our threads. If you don't find something that really answers that question, please start a new thread on it and we will all join in and help.

[Wendy DeBord]

About what percentage of your work goes to your amazing sweet tables and specialty cakes?

Are these all relatively recent, meaning at the club you're with now?

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I probably only do 10 sweet tables a year at this current club, mainly for holidays really. Specialty cakes..........most members don't want to pay extra for those. So usually it's my standard b-day cake design. Most of my work goes into banquet functions, that's the most volume of our sales, then ala carte.

[Wendy DeBord]

Like your key lime cake, is that pink disc a disk of frozen strawberry mousse?

And with your lemon cake, how do you get the lemon curd/mousse so thick?

Also, what kind of cookies and petit fours do you make?

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I have to make mini pastries for a party tomarrow so I hope to down load photos of that work tommarrow. For cookies I mostly make full sized average ones. I make tons of those once the golf season gets under way with banquets. But I've never photographed them. I have mentioned in the P & B Forum my favorite recipes for cookies.

The pink disc is the frozen strawberry mousse.

Lemon cake,..............there isn't any curd (that I'm thinking about), it's just a lemon chiffon cake. Perhaps I'm not following you?

[Wendy DeBord]

I wouuld like to know your whipped cream trick/technique, but maybe that's better left to the P/B forum?

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Thank-you all through out the posts I'm answering for all of your kind words. Trust me as far as pastry chefs go, I'm strickly average.

If you don't mind, I would have more time in that forum when I'm completed here? thanks for understanding!

[jackal10]

This is great stuff. It seems like magic to me, since I'm no pc.

I'd love to see a detailed photo essay of how you put together some of these amazing cakes...

[Tepee]

You keep saying your work is boring and ordinary

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Well I can tell you haven't spent any serious time in the Pastry & Baking Forum. We have many people there that just blow me away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Big time!

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You're too humble! Sure you don't have some Asian blood?

Looking forward to more eye candies.....

[pastrymama]

Hi Wendy, I'm really enjoying your blog. It is interesting to me that we both work in clubs, but it also so very different. I would love to see more photos of your desserts and to follow a typical work day from start to finish. Thanks for sharing.

[Dejah]

Hi Wendy,

I love all the pictures of your work.

I wonder if all the "piping" you do with cakes, etc has caused any discomfort in your hands, wrists?

Do you make up a supply of frequently used decorations to pull out whenever needed, or do you make these fresh each time?

My 6 year old grandson wants your halloween cakes for his next party. He loved the rats!

[mkfradin]

Hi Wendy! It's so cool to see all your work and hear about your days. I'm on a slow dial up so I haven't been able to see all the pix, but I will go to the library one of these days and use their T1 line to get an eyeful.

We are making Danish today and I was interested in your formula. I could see the chunks of butter in the dough, but do you roll butter in, too? Or is it just cut in big chunks and laminate it as you go along (I'm not sure how to describe it, but yours looks like it's more comparable to a rough puff paste, where the butter is cut into chunks instead of shaped into a slab and rolled in). Do you freeze the yeasted dough? If so, do you freeze in slabs or shape and then freeze.

Also, did you have any formal training? Or maybe that's the wrong word, did you pay to go to school anywhere?

It's so nice to read about someone who's constantly interested in pushing the envelope andnot just sticking with the old and familiar. Where's your club specificially? Can you put in a plug for those of us in the Chicago area so maybe we can visit when we're up in the area??

[Rhea_S]

I wish everyone liked and ate dessert. Us pastry chefs are becoming dinosours.

I hope not. Dessert has always been the most exciting part of a meal for me. I go to restaurants, order several savory items, and not always finish each of them. The server usually asks why in a worried tone, and the answer is of course, "I need to save room for dessert." I have also been known to order two dessert items for myself.

[saskanuck]

I've just gone through all the pages of your blog, Wendy, and all I can say is WOW! Your work is amazing. Beautiful stuff.

[jm chen]

Amazing and impressive. I'm particularly wowed by how consistent your work is on the repeated, smaller pieces.

Keep up the great work!

[Marmish]

Wendy,

I ate apple cranberry pie for breakfast and dreamt of being a pastry chef.

[azurenath]

Wendy, your stuff is incredible. Thanks for sharing. Question: how much do taste and flavor factor into your pastry-creating decisions? To that end, how aggressively do you seek out high-quality ingredients (farmhouse butter, fresh cream, etc) which are often more expensive than, say, Sysco products? If you're cooking for others (e.g. a wedding cake, where you might have to follow a budget), are you more inclined, would you say, to focus on appearance, or taste?

[ludja]

...

I made the ladies pineapple tartlets using puff pastry squares we buy in already cut (hows that for lazy!). I slapped some pastry cream on each and then fresh cut pineapple (which was pretty ripe if my photos colors don't show that).

...

So what those tarts needed was some sauce and whipped cream. The whipped cream is to take you back to a base/vanilla every bite or so.........I mentioned this before, it's how I eat, I think your tongue gets used to a taste and can't appreciate the flavor after eating several bites. The sauce was auesome even though the following photo looks gross. I pureed fresh pineapple and added some grated fresh gingerroot and vanilla. I LOVE that taste combo........the pineapple and gingerroot (light on the ginger) are good/fresh then the splash of vanilla makes it pop.

...

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That sounds like a wonderful dessert. vanilla, cream, pineapple, ginger.... yum. I must make something similar!

(Must also add my bravos for your Easter bunnies; they really came out well! oh,.. and the boxes and the purses..)

[Wendy DeBord]

hello again.....

Today was a typical friday. Rush, rush, rush, RUSH!

Can you guess what I drank first thing this morning while I checked my forum?

Sha.........

I'd like to say it was a different flavor, but it wasn't. I think my body would be shocked at this point if it started the day with a different flavor or drink. For excitement I pulled out a old favorite sippy cup. Anyone reading along that's from Iowa? If so, you'll be familar with the name on my cup. Bruegers has great bagels in Iowa City, IA. We eat there when ever we visit.

Walking into work with a party already in progess makes you feel like you've missed something and you need to get into hyper drive and be on everyone elses speed. I started to, but then Leo said, "theres breakfast on the line, help yourself" so I stopped, made up a plate and went back down to my dungeon to eat this:

I didn't ask how long it had been put up, but it did taste pretty good inspite of how long ago it might have been made. It's always a weird thing eating left overs off buffet parties. Sometimes it's a feast of wonderful items and sometimes it's horid. When you work in the kitchen you just wait for the buffet to come back when you hungry, instead of fixing yourself something. Also, it's not bad form........the waitstaff is hungry too and they don't have the option of making themselves something to eat. Ah...........if you notice I finally got a cherry h20 instead of those darn grape ones.

I buy these cases of the h20 at Sam's club and the last time I was there they didn't have the case of flavors I like. So not only getting what you don't really want, that case also comes with lime h20............and I don't care for those at all. It leaves me with a 6 pack out of each case that I bring to work and pawn off to everyone else. Today for some reason they sort of were fighting over them.......... strange.

I couldn't photograph alot today. Fridays and Saturdays in the food biz are generally major days, and today was no exception.

My mini pastry stash was almost depleted last weekend and I really need to restock the freezer with more, plus I needed to do a glass mirror for tonights party. When I began working at this club they hired me part time just to come in and make petite fours/mini pastries, they sold that many to make it worth while. They've got their system and it still remains. The system is to have tons of mini's in the freezer so there are always some ready to go. It's really NOT a good way to do this. They are impossible to decorate and then cover with-out ruining their presentation, etc... but it's what they want, period. That type of storage and prep, eleminates any fruit topped mini...........no fruit tarts, etc... And I've had to figure out how to do things that aren't fragile and that can be held for weeks in the freezer. I do try to make a couple fresh mini's for every mirror I make. Today I did some strawberry tarts and cannoli.

Wait, heres todays mirror of mini's:

I've been becoming too focused on photographing these trays of mini pastries lately. I'm sort of beginning to day dream off and think more about patterns and colors when I'm preparing my mini's, then I should. You/I want mini's where the whole is greater then the one. Hopefully that made some sense? The group of pastries looks more impressive then looking at one detailed little mini. That's sort of the opposite of what you see in pastry books and competitions. They, make each piece a work of art..........but when you put a bunch together.........in my opinion they loose good design and compete with each other. Sooooooooo I thought I'd share a couple more photos on this line of thought.

The next several shots are the few photos I took while at work today:

Eclair shells before they are baked...pate' choux or choux paste as we refer to it.

Chocolate pate' choux.

Baked off cream puffs and eclair shells.

I was impressed with the thinness of my shortbread cookies (sorry- but true). We had been talking in the Baking & Pastry Forum lately about a new technique to make these joconde wrapped mini's......and I wanted to share a photo of how this technique was coming along for me. I've learned that my photos aren't showing the scale of objects correctly and so I stuck a ruler up to this mini to give Bripastryguy a peek (if he's been reading along here).

[Wendy DeBord]

Here's more that went on today.

Just cutting these pastries and sitting them on the shortbreads. I won't decorate them until later.

We have a party for 191 people for lunch tomarrow so I had a alot of creme brulees to make. I'm just heating the cream at this point. Everything else is measured out and ready to be tempered in.

Since I had breakfast this morning I didn't stop for lunch. But around 2:00 I started to get hungry again. I noticed when I was up in the upstairs kitchen the smell of popcorn, and I couldn't resist.

It's wasn't as good as it usually is. We have a new full time bartender and it's her job to keep the popcorn flowing in the grill room. I can tell this bartender doesn't like popcorn as much as the last one did. Last one made it so good, if you closed your eyes you'd think you were at the movie theater. Popcorn is one of my favorite foods! I've eaten it before until it actually made me sick from too much. Forunately that hasn't curbed my liking for it.

Heres the filling for my cannoli waiting to be beaten together:

I had to make a b-day cake today that I didn't want to make. They ordered a whip cream frosted cake and wanted all the decorations to be green. Specificly asking for green flowers.............that's weird/different. I hate when they take orders like this because I don't have green flowers laying around and I can't make them easily out of whipped cream.

I'm not a buttercream piped out flowers fan. I tend to prefer real flowers or crazy fun flowers......not roses or real copies of flowers. But a girl has to do what she has to do. I instructed the Chef to put a gum paste butterflie into the cake before presenting it.

When I arrived home tonight my hubby was boiling hotdogs for himself. I opted to reheat last nights Chinese food:

and now here I sit typing to you while I drink another cherry h20. I've been thinking about making a dash down to the kitchen for a hand full of m & m's while I continue visiting with you all...........I'll be back.

[Smithy]

I am absolutely gobsmacked by all this. It's so beautiful, and so detailed, and I keep thinking how long it takes me to assemble a simple casserole, much less make it look pretty. Do you know, if I were confronted with that wonderful mosaic of pastries, I'd dither in indecision until either (a) I died of starvation or (b) someone in line behind me throttled me. Which one to take? They all look so good! But how can I break any of those lines and wreck the mosaic???

Ah, me, it's beautiful stuff.

OK, enough praise. Now for a practical question from a non-professional: what's in those joconde-wrapped minis? More specifically, what's joconde?

[Wendy DeBord]

I wonder if all the "piping" you do with cakes, etc has caused any discomfort in your hands, wrists?

Do you make up a supply of frequently used decorations to pull out whenever needed, or do you make these fresh each time?

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No problems with my wrist yet. That's another aspect of being a pc at a country club verses a bakery. I don't do repetitive work like bakerys do. People who decorate cakes all day tend to get carpial tunnel.

Yes, I do make a supply of decorations and keep a variety of things on hand at all times. I don't often make the same thing twice (cause theres so many things you can do and why not learn to make everything). Here's some photos in my garnishes cabinet. You can tell their all spring related. As we get into summer I'll begin making different items.......more bee's and butterflies (I like to put those on cookie platters for golf outtings that are served outside, kind of foux fun) and I'll change the types and colors of flowers.

Heres a look inside: (I've been using those little drop flowers as accents on banquet desserts lately. No one but myself at work understands those are retro decorations, the drop flowers.......as is what's so in today.....but I've finally got you to tell.)

[Wendy DeBord]

making Danish today and I was interested in your formula.  I could see the chunks of butter in the dough, but do you roll butter in, too? 

Do you freeze the yeasted dough?  If so, do you freeze in slabs or shape and then freeze.

Also, did you have any formal training? Or maybe that's the wrong word, did you pay to go to school anywhere? 

Where's your club specificially? 

Can you put in a plug for those of us in the Chicago area so maybe we can visit when we're up in the area??

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I use the danish recipe from "Baking with Julia" written by Dorie Greenspan. It's not laminated. It's a blitz type, no additional butter is rolled in. You leave the butter in chunks and that does the same thing as the rolled in butter. You still do three turn rolling out the dough to build layers though. I find I can get as good of flavor out of the blitz with less work then regular laminated dough.

I have not had any formal training. There is some grey area there........as in I always tagged along with my Mom who was a pastry chef and owned a bakery. She never "taught" me, I watched while washing dishes and learned. She did super basic work, I've learned mostly from books and hugely by on line reading and talking to others. I learned alot from Steve klc and Michael L...........and several others that are members here.

I think it's best not to say exactly where my job is...........just in case. If your a member of a country club in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago..........most club memberships let you dine at other club. It's a great system so you can check out more then the club you belong to. You can pm me and I'll disclose where, that way.

[Wendy DeBord]

Question: how much do taste and flavor factor into your pastry-creating decisions? 

To that end, how aggressively do you seek out high-quality ingredients (farmhouse butter, fresh cream, etc) which are often more expensive than, say, Sysco products?

If you're cooking for others (e.g. a wedding cake, where you might have to follow a budget), are you more inclined, would you say, to focus on appearance, or taste?

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Wow great questions:

Taste is THE factor above any and all! A good looking product that tastes average or horrible is a waste, why bother.

But to that end I do not aggressively seek out high-qualtiy ingedients. I can't at this current job, it's not in the budget. It doesn't lessen me or my work. It challenges me to do even better!

Very often with baking the whole process of baking and one chemical or flavor against another cancel out your ability to taste specific brands. Sure that isn't the rule. But I can't tell what cocoa powder is in a damn good piece of chocolate cake unless I eat two pieces made by the same person with the same recipe. The piece of cake is more then the ingredients, it's how the ingredients are handled and combined and the quality of your recipe and mostly the chefs ability to do good work. It's not quite like cooking, certainly not comparable to a salads ingredients, the quality of your meat or fish, etc....... You don't eat specific individual ingredients with baking. When your picking produce for baked goods.......that is a different story and quality is everything. Again, there's an exception to that too. Many times fruit frozen at it's peak is better then the anemic fruit you get at the store or thru produce companies.

I'm only cooking or baking for others, rarely myself. And the same thing hold true. Taste is THE most important thing, with-out it- it doesn't matter what the item looks like.

[Wendy DeBord]

what's in those joconde-wrapped minis?  More specifically, what's joconde?

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Joconde is a type of cake. It's very thin. In the photo I posted above it's the green layer. If you want to know more about it please take a look at a current thread in the Pastry & Baking Forum on this topic, lookhere. You will have to scroll down thru the discussion.

Inside the joconde photo I have posted above is keylime mousse.

[handmc]

Its the Bear Claw guy...Thank you so very much for the photo essay. After I take the girls to baseball in the am I have to give it a try.

I'm a pastry whimp. It involves measuring and math and patience of which I have little.

I asked for the bread baker's apprectice for Christmas but I think my wife decided to save me from a world of dissapointment.

Off topic a bit did you buy a proof box or build one. I did the cardboard box thing and I don't think I got the results I should have. Problem is I am too clueless to know any better.

Thank you for the adventures in pastry. I can look all I want and I don't get any fatter, from the pastry that is....maybe I'm on to something.

Edited April 16, 2005 by handmc (log)