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« April 2008 | Main | June 2008 »
May 03, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose in Announcements
... the wedding season that is! Hector, our talented baker/blogger/designer/photographer/friend, has designed a stunning book plate and gift concept for the bride and groom.
He suggests printing it out as a 5x7 photo to tape in your books as a bookplate! He writes that it is ok to print on other sizes but the edges may chop out a little.
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May 05, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose in Photos
A year ago, during my visit to Germany to visit my nephew Alex and family. Marley Jane was only two months old then. When I returned with Elliott a only 6 months later she had, predictable changed significantly--in fact, she took her first steps with him. And what a lovely surprise to receive these recent photos her mom Haley sent me and to see she is already a little girl and such a sweet one too! Haley titled the photo with the daisy "Haysmile" and I just know it's because Marley was looking at her older brother Hadyn!
May 08, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose in Announcements
I ran over to Whole Foods today and look what I found!!!
From a distance I thought it was albino eggplant but then to my amazement I saw that it was an ostrich egg. Next my eyes took in the entire egg display. All eggs were set on rafia to ressemble nests and there they all were: quail eggs, pheasant eggs and most beloved of all: duck eggs.
I raised home with my cache and lost no time in frying up two of the pheasant eggs for an early lunch. They were flavorful but more delicate than chicken eggs with no "eggy" flavor. The bread is my new whole wheat sandwich bread recipe which I will be posting later this summer.
I just mixed up a small batch of pasta dough for dinner using just the yolks and a little heavy cream. No I don't have time for this but who knows how long this windfall will last.
Incidentall, duck egg yolks make THE most delicious cakes but don't use the white as they don't aerate well at all and the texture will be coarse.
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May 10, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose in Special Stories
Phase 6 Copy Editing
This is the awful one and I always forget just how awful. Foolishly I look forward to having the “baby” back. I also suffer from the illusion that I have submitted a manuscript that is in perfect shape. My illusions are shattered with amazing speed. Take a look at a sample of a copy edited page and you’ll begin to understand what the author is up against—especially the author of a cookbook and most especially the author of a detailed baking book.
The production editors notes are in grey pencil, the copy editor’s in red, and mine in purple.
Continue reading "Book Production Phase 6 Copy Editing" »
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May 17, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose in General
It has happened again! Cake Questions Too has become so long a thread it takes forever to load so i have closed the postings options for this Thread and Reopened it as Cake Questions Three.
Please also use one of the 4 categories under Cake Questions:
Equipment
General
Ingredients
Wedding
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May 17, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose in Special Stories
During a recent DVD planning visit to Gold Medal Flour/General Mills in Minneapolis I finally had the pleasure to meet Marie and family in person. Of course after reading her extraordinarily expressive and entertaining blog www.breadbasketcase.blogspot.com I felt like I already knew Marie very well. And amazingly she was exactly and delightfully like her blog voice! By the way, her daughter Sarah is just like her which means she is also very much her own voice and person! Her comment about our meeting (afterwards) was "like two peas in the pod!" (Better than two loaves in the oven right?!)
I was planning to do a full report but what with the copy editing swallowing up every waking second she beat me to it! So I encourage you to make a visit to her blog (it's the April 10th posting) and you will read not only her take on the evening but also see her husband Jim's excellent photos and several comments including my own!
May 18, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose in FAQs
I've developed my starter at a 75 to 85 oF kitchen, in Hawaii. And as some people experience, the process looks different from how it is described.
A warmer environment accelerates the process. I would recommend in this warm case, to follow the instructions for the first week, then do your feeding at shorter time intervals.
Ideally, you want to feed when the starter is at its peak activity (the most bubbles, higher, before it deflates). Seems like your starter is now on its peak, so actually, feeding it sooner as you say will be ok, but just in case, I like to let the starter "over activate" during the first week, to get the most yeast growth possible.
I've read somewhere that when the ideal temperatures are not possible, the starter will behave differently. I was getting a lot of smell and bubble activity. After 4 weeks, I've kept feeding daily, a few times I will forget and let 2 days pass by which turned my started "really dirty and stinku looking." I am glad I did not give up since the first time I made bread it proved the starter was alive!
It is really easier than what we think, and definitely don't get discouraged if things don't look as expected. Having your own birth starter becomes beloved.
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May 18, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose in Photos
Never has a German Chocolate Cake looked more appetizing!
or a blueberry lemon cake more beautiful
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May 21, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose in Special Stories
Yesterday,in the pouring rain I delivered the 780 page copy edited manuscript . As there were no taxi’s to be found (there never are when you really need them) I walked the one mile to my friend Maury Rubin’s City Bakery, wheeling the manuscript in my new Magellan carryon bag that I thought to be waterproof. Much to my horror I discovered that the zipper component is not as the edges of the manuscript got wet. But Rebecca, Pam’s wonderful assistant, assured me it got to NJ safely (and dry) later in the afternoon. I also brought slices of a flourless chocolate and walnut cake glazed with apricot lekvar (from the upcoming book) which managed to stay dry and perfect since I carried them upright all the way in an airtight tupperware container! Lesson learned—always put the precious manuscript in plastic bags and trust nothing else to be waterproof.
We all discussed the look, design, and size of the book and I learned that Alison, the designer, had done what’s referred to as a cast-off which gives a sense of projected book pages based on the present design. Again to my horror I discovered we are presently 42 pages over.
On my return home last night I spent several hours deliberating which if any recipes could be cut and conferred with Woody who reminded me of a 12 1/4 manuscript page recipe that might be sacrificed. Thankfully I heard back from Pam, my beloved editor, this morning that she LOVES the recipe and doesn’t want to cut it. We will try to find our solution through design. The one thing upon which I was insistent was not to reduce the size of the font in the ingredient charts or for recipe instruction. That’s where it’s essential to see clearly and easily.
Continue reading "Book Production Phase 7 Pre Design Meeting" »
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May 22, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose in Photos
It has been almost 12 months since I baked my last butter layer cake. I am very sorry to report defeat in the form of Rose's Yellow and Chocolate Butter Wedding Cake. I needed to make two 9-inch, two 6-inch, and a variety of smaller sizes. Rose's recipe is perfect, and it is probably a recipe that has been executed over a million times during the 20 years since Cake Bible printed. Use cake strips, lower oven temperature 25 degrees if convection is used, and I THINK you will avoid defeat.
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May 24, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose in Notes
Many of you know that I am a great advocate of using old starter added to bread dough to enhance flavor, texture, and keeping quality, but much to my regret, not everyone is willing to make, buy, or maintain a starter. There are, however, other ways to introduce extra flavor into bread dough that are really quite simple. My favorite easy method is used in many of my recipes in The Bread Bible. It involves making a sponge with all of the water used in the recipe, equal volume (1 1/2 times the weight) of the flour, and half the yeast and allowing it to sit from 1 to 4 hours before mixing the rest of the dough. But did you know that using just a total of one quarter of the yeast means you can let it sit at room temperature overnight which gives you more leeway time-wise. By the way, the total amount of yeast in the bread dough remains the same, you simply add less to the sponge and more to the final dough in the second stage of mixing.
It is a good thing to keep in mind when you need to slow down fermentation. You can experiment with how much yeast to add depending on the amount of time you want it to ferment and the temperature depending or the time of year. In Summer you may need to lower the yeast, in Winter increase it. YOU have the control!
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May 26, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose in Photos
Jennifer Giampetro sent me these delightful photos and it looks like not only was it her first big cake but it was someone else's first big cake too (see below)!
May 27, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose in Photos
This is a note from Hector from Hawaii and I thought you'd all appreciate seeing the spectacular photo plus a description of how it was made and for what special occasion!
Note from Hector:Last Saturday, my younger cousin Keith Chan graduated in Civil Engineering. He organized a lovely dinner for our ENTIRE family which turned into a family reunion of 80. My relatives has seen me baking since I started with The Cake Bible back in 1989, but they have not seen any of my recent work, so I offered to make cake and attempt to re-introduce myself as a baker. My first cake from the book was the Golden Cage which I have a picture I dare $$$ to ever share publicly. I felt the responsibility to do something with caramel....how about a caramel bridge? If it didn't turn out, my cousin could fix it!
Here it is. The vertical ropes of the bridge were done by pouring caramel onto every other groove of corrugated cardboard lined with aluminum foil. Honestly, the technique is here, but I would execute this cake again, a little more carefully and precisely to make it look prettier and less heavy: I inserted Mc Donald's drink straws in the cake to prevent the bridge from smashing! I ran out of time that evening and showed up late at the dinner, never again because when you show up late no-one sees your cake! I do have a few pictures with my cousin and my nieces with the cake, but besides that people admired the cake mostly for its flavor when served.
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May 27, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose in Announcements
I have to write about this so I can stop eating it! several months ago I mentioned a fantastic bread I ate in Sweden a few years ago and that it was in an award winning Swedish cookbook in Swedish. A kind blogger from Sweden translated it for me and after spending several hours working it out in a user friendly manner for the semi-professional home baker I finally got to try it. And it is a winner!
The challenge to working it out is that, for starters, it requires not only one starter but two--a white wheat starter and a rye starter. Many people don't have any starter so when I post the recipe I'm going to add how to add old bread dough in its place. And for those who do have a starter, I've combined the white and rye starter into one, i.e. equal weight but adding the rye flour to the dough. Also, I'm using my usual old and stiff sourdough starter and instant yeast.
It's going to take me a few weeks to post this so it gives you time to purchase some pumpernickel flour (aka coarse rye) or medium rye and maybe get a starter going? It will be worth it.
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May 29, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose in Announcements
I just returned from the French Culinary Institute where I was one of the judges for the graduating pastry class. I started speaking to one of the other judges who is the pastry chef at the terrific restaurant Aquavit in NY. I asked her where she was from and she said Sweden. So I started telling her about the bread posted below and she got really excited because she worked in that bakery!
I'm going to be retesting my version this Monday to make for my dentist who is a major bread lover. I've never brought him a loaf of bread before because he's 3 1/2 miles uptown and I always walk but carrying 1 1/4 pounds is not a big sacrifice when it's this wonderful. I'm doubling the dough because it's just too good to make only one loaf. I'll be posting it within 3 weeks time.
If anyone wants the original with the rye starter or just to compare and see how I translated it or maybe try both side by side I think I'll post that one too. It will be like taking a voyage through my brain to see how a recipe gets adapted. And I'll add a few notes as to why I did what I did.
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May 31, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose in Special Stories
I know, I know—I already submitted the changes and answers to queries a few weeks ago but this past week I’ve been agonizing over the wedding cake chapter—always the most complicated.
There is one special wedding cake that always dips about a half inch at the edge of each layer which means either you have to fill in the edges where it dips with extra buttercream or level it losing some of the cake.
Woody and I tested every possible variation to try to fix this problem. What worked best was a combination of all-purpose flour and cornstarch but the all-purpose flour with its higher protein than cake flour darkened the 8 inch layers so with the longer baking time of the 12 inch layers it would be too dark.
Finally we decided that this is one cake that requires cake flour and that we would compromise and level it half way between the edges and the rest of the top so as not to lose much cake but not to have as big a gap at the very edges.
Of course revisiting this cake brought a few other things in to question among which was the buttercream itself. 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of sugar should have been 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon according to the weight in the chart. How did this happen? How did none of us catch this? How many more things are lurking in other recipes? How can this be when we’ve gone over everything a hundred million times?! well you’ll be the first to tell me when you catch any inconsistencies but as the saying goes: “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” because some things have to be rounded off so won’t correlate perfectly from volume to ounces to grams. And some cakes, though they look similar, are not. Even one change in an ingredient may necessitate a change in another ingredient or ingredients. So don’t take this on as a challenge!
Just a little over a week til we film the tips at General Mills/Gold Medal. Really exciting. And now going over all the revisions with Ava. All this does not end until the book ships to China and then instead of being fully relieved one agonizes over it being too late to change anything in this the first printing! Nonetheless, I feeling very “complete” for the moment.
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