Away Until January 11th
Jan 01, 2007 | From the kitchen of Rose
I'm off to S.F. to make a wedding cake for my dear friends Daniel Patterson (chef/owner of Coi) and his bride to be Alexandra Foote. Another dear friend, Diane Boate (gee maybe i should put an e at the end of Beranbaum(e)?) aka "The Cake Lady of S.F." will be helping me to pull this off (this is a the first time I'm attempting a wedding cake away from my home kitchen) and also will be documenting it with photos (she's an award winning photographer). So this is QUITE an adventure.
I may not get a chance to answer any postings until then but plan to catch up on questions and to post photos of the cake at my earliest opportunity!
Happy New Year!
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Rose Levy Beranbaum
02/12/2007 07:55 PM
he's one lucky kid!
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judy
02/12/2007 07:51 PM
Thanks I will try to find them. Regarding the strawberry cake, if I remember correctly, yes i just pureed frozen strawberries and I did not delete all the milk, I will have to look and see if I wrote down the changes that I made and will let you know. But whatever I did - he was very happy.
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Rose Levy Beranbaum
02/12/2007 07:48 PM
judy, the paste and powdered colors are the most intense.
thanks for reporting about the strawberry cake--i MUST try it. did you just puree frozen strawberries and replace the milk?
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judy
02/12/2007 07:41 PM
I am making my son a superman cake for his birthday and although I have tried the Wilton Gel paste colors I am not happy with the color - what do you recommend to get the bold colors? Thanks.
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Rose Levy Beranbaum
01/14/2007 10:41 AM
it's in the cake bible!
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Heather
01/14/2007 10:40 AM
Hello Rose, I'm looking for guidelines for substituting bittersweet chocolate for unsweetened chocolate in cake recipes. I've checked several cookbooks and have come up empty. I know you prefer cocoa, but I'd like to find a way to use what I have. Thanks, Heather
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Rose Levy Beranbaum
01/14/2007 01:16 AM
june--thanks for pointing out the bread basket case blog which i love so much i've linked to on this blog.
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Rose Levy Beranbaum
01/14/2007 12:32 AM
georg, i think the spun sugar would work just fine as long as it isn't very humid as once i did it in the summer wrapping it around a cake and by the time i got to the event it had evaporated into thin air!
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Rose Levy Beranbaum
01/13/2007 11:57 PM
beth, my fav. dough to use for bread bowls is the sweet heart of wheat bread but the basic hearth bread would also be great. i'm delighted by your expression of bread heaven (me too me too)!
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Rose Levy Beranbaum
01/13/2007 11:57 PM
gail, thank you but if you try a search on the blog for gluten intolerant you'll see my suggestions for a book that deals with it and my disinclination to substitute anything for wheat flour. i personally would rather give up bread entirely. someone recently accused me of being glib for saying this but i really mean it.
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beth richardson
01/13/2007 04:27 PM
happy new year. I purchased the bread bible as a christmas present to myself and ahve been making bread non stop. Hubbie purchased me a new kitchgen aid mixer (professional wooooo!) and my teenage boys gave me a La Cloche. We are in bread heaven. Our favorite, so far, other than the no-knead from the NYT is your famly pumpernickel bread. I eat it for breakfast with peanut butter. My boys make grilled cheese from it and it is dunked often in soups and stews. Thanks!
Now my question: My recipe from the Bible would be best for bread bowls for black bean soup soup and chili? I look froeward to hearing form you.
thank you again
Beth
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Gail Tucker
01/13/2007 03:59 PM
Hi Rose,
I am the proud owner of "The Bread Bible"; it is a fabulous book -- thanks for making it so interesting, educational and easy to follow. Although our flour, here in Canada, is different, the recipes adapted well.
Some in my family are unable to eat wheat flour and I am determined to produce a tasty loaf of bread from alternate flours. We are currently buying a "passable" spelt bread at our local bakery, however, I'm sure there must be something we can produce here with better taste and more fiber. Any suggestions?
Keep up the great work - your enthusiasm is contagious :-)
Regards,
Gail
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Rose Levy Beranbaum
01/13/2007 02:14 PM
fantastic in the end but a brutal 16 hours. i'll be posting photos but not til i catch up with 50 million g-mails!
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Brian
01/13/2007 02:01 PM
Rose,
How did your wedding cake come out? I assume we'll see pictures at some point as you mentioned it was being documented in photos, but I was curious how it went.
Brian
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georg
01/13/2007 10:47 AM
hi rose, i want to make a really beautiful cake for my mother's birthday coming up. i was thinking about baking only one tier of the pistachio and rose wedding cake, but instead of the ribbon, wrapping the cake with spun sugar angel's hair. do you think something like that would work out, or is this cake too delicate to wrap with spun sugar?
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Vernita Salinas
01/10/2007 03:15 PM
I have a recipe for Portuguese Sweet Bread that I've adapted and is similar...
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Jane
01/09/2007 11:25 PM
I posted a couple of days ago (but I do not see my post anywhere) regarding a recipe that would make a close equivalent to the addictive (and over-priced) commercial King's Hawaiian Bread, a softer, sweeter version of seaworthy Portuguese bread. Any help is appreciated!
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Kennith
01/08/2007 11:34 PM
Sam, lemon curd has a high concentration of sugar, which keeps the mixture in suspension fairly well, so yes, you can freeze it. Just thaw it slowly in the fridge. (Althouth, I like to eat it frozen sometimes.) :)
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Sam
01/08/2007 10:19 PM
I'm not sure where to ask this question, so I'll try here: Can you or anyone tell me whether it's possible to freeze lemon, lime or orange curd? In your book you mention refrigerating for up to three weeks, but nothing about freezing? Will it fall apart? Also, how does the store bought stuff in stay fresh?
Thanks.
Sam
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RuthWells
01/08/2007 11:16 AM
Hi Dreamy,
I'm obviously not Rose, but I have some thoughts on the buttercream variations. A buttercream made only with egg yolks has a richer flavor than the ones made with only egg whites, but does not hold up as well for piped decorations. The egg white buttercreams are stiff and sturdy enough to pipe roses and other flowers, but the flavor is less distintive than the egg yolk buttercreams. Hope that answers your question.
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Dreamy
01/04/2007 08:29 PM
Hi Rose
Just curious. In your Cake Bible, the Neoclassic Buttercream uses egg yolk. I noticed that most of the buttercream uses egg whites. Whats the difference ?
thks
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June
01/03/2007 08:48 AM
Hi Rose,
I was reading around the baking 'blogosphere and saw that someone made her way through your entire Bread Bible! Have you seen this site?
http://breadbasketcase.blogspot.com/2007/01/favorite-breads.html
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Andrea
01/02/2007 07:20 PM
Do you know a way to count how many calories a recipe has per serving if its not given? If you could that'd be great!
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Rose Levy Beranbaum
01/02/2007 03:20 PM
no--not the dough--the starter when it's mixed.
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david
01/02/2007 03:02 PM
hi rose
i have a question about your no-risk sourdough recipe. you mentioned that for a san francisco style sourdough to let the dough sit for a week in the fridge after mixing. is this directly after you mix the dough, or after it has risen a few times and just before shaping it? or can it be shaped in the banneton and left in the fridge for a week? thanks rose and happy new year,
david
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Rose Levy Beranbaum
01/01/2007 07:46 PM
i made these baguettes small so they could fit into the average home oven. and yes--i think there is a significant flavor difference and also texture or i would have used a simple sponge. i don't like complicating things unnecessarily and the baguette, though one of the most straightforward breads is also one of the most difficult to achieve with the correct texture and maximum flavor. i hope following my recipe you will agree that it's worth it. though i'm trying to get ready to leave i did want to answer your questions bc i know you are in the middle of making this recipe.
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Ronald Day
01/01/2007 05:12 PM
Rose,
A little context before I ask some questions about your Baquette recipe
on p. 335 of The Bread Bible. I've been baking Monsieur Montfort's
French Bread recipe for 30 years as it appears on p. 266 of Bernard
Clayton's Complete Book of Breads (Simon and Schuster, 1973). For 4
baquettes it calls for 7 cups of flour, 2 packages of yeast, 4 teaspoons
of salt and 3 cups of water. To add more fermentation I usually make a
sponge the night before of all the water, salt and yeast but only 3.5
cups of flour. The next morning I add the other half of flour,
kneed it and let it rise 3 times (twice in the bowl and once in the french
bread pans) and bake around 4 pm. It usually turns out nicely.
So I thought I'd try your recipe on p. 335. I doubled your ingredients
so as to yield 4 baguettes. Half-way through your complicated and very
exacting recipe, I realized that your quantities seem awfully small.
Even with doubling your ingredients, I end up with only half of the
ordinary Montfort recipe. I am now looking at 2 baguettes rising in the
french pans and wondering if there is even enough yeast therein for the
final kick in the oven.
Are your baquettes unusually small? Does your very long rising (1.5 to
2 days) enlarge them? I do see your statement on p. 336 that 4
teaspoons of yeast will speed up everything. Time will tell.
Nevertheless, your total amount of flour (4.33 cups?) seems way too
little for 4 loaves. Finally, is your use of the scrap bread and poolish a significant increase in flavor over my simple sponge?
Best wishes,
Ron
--
Ronald E. Day
Head of Reference Services & Lecturer
Biddle Law Library
University of Pennsylvania Law School
Tanenbaum Hall, Room T-214
3460 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-3406
email: rday@law.upenn.edu
tel: 215.898.0639
fax: 215.898.6619
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