Woops.. meant to say, I have to agree ABOUT your dad.. sorry.

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I have to agree with your Dad. Can I adopt him? He's absolutely priceless.

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What a wonderful class today in Salem! Thank you - and Woody - so much for your time, your passion, your stories, and sharing your baking lives with us! I couldn't have asked for a better way to spend my day -

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Rose, you are adorable. Your smile in this picture is deep from within...priceless!!!

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Rose, honey, you need to fix yourself up a bit. Get the hair shortened, a rinse. At least some lip gloss!

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Rose's recipes are never overly sweet or cloying. The problem with white chocolate is that it has a distinctive flavor that my wife hates. She thinks it's the powdered milk flavor. It's not the sweetness that is the problem but this distinctive white chocolate flavor.

The buttercream in question is not where the passionfruit is located in the White Gold Passion cake. I don't have the book in front of me at the moment, but the cake is a genoise soaked with a passionfruit syrup, filled with passfruit curd, but topped with a plain buttercream. As I recall the buttercream is mixed with cream cheese. I posted over in the forum to continue this discussion.

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Hi Adrian, Rose is in Upstate NY this week for a series of book promotion events, perhaps I can help.

I also dislike white chocolate, but I must say that the white chocolate custard-based buttercreams in RHC are amazingly good and not the least bit cloying or overly sweet. I was amazed when I tried the lemon version, and can't wait to make it again.

But if it just won't work, you could try the passionfruit mousseline, p. 393. It is a large portion so you'll need to scale it down. Multiplying everything in that recipe by 0.263 will give you the 2.5 cups of frosting that the White Gold Passion recipe calls for.

Good luck!

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Rose,

We love passionfruit, so I want to make the White Gold Passion cake from Heavenly Cakes, except my wife hates white chocolate. (It doesn't matter what kind. The Green and Black was less offensive than several other kinds but still bad. The problem is not that I haven't used good white chocolate.) So I'm wondering if you have a recommendation for a different buttercream from Heavenly Cakes or Cake Bible that would work in this recipe.

Regarding Linda's problem, I think she should be able to get a reasonable result in the angle food cake pan. They are usually aluminum, so they'll have good conductivity. If the pan is too wide, as Hector suggests, that should lead to overcooking, not undercooking. I suggest cooking at a lower temperature.

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Dearest Rose,

You look awesome as usual.
Blueberry pie looks so inviting and sinfully. I can finish whole!

I have to say, Elliott couldnt have found a better name for Oreo, looks so oreo.

Cheers and take care

Yusuf

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Love Love Love the photo of Dad and Pie.! Priceless

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I am counting the moments until your presentation at the Battenkill Kitchen on Saturday... While I have followed your expertise since the very first Cake Bible and Christmas Cookie books, I never thought I would actually have the opportunity to meet you and watch you work. The fact that we share similar experiences in trying to make life the best it can be for aging parents only increases my admiration for you.

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Reason is because the pans I suggest have a much better heat conductivity and are not as deep or wide as an angel food pan (which are designed for angel food cake!)

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Linda, cakes should be baked on the pan mentioned on the recipe! U can't use any pan and expect the intended results.

I stay away from stoneware or ceramic pans for cakes at once! These don't conduct heat fast enough, yet retains heat too long once the cake is done.

I would guess a loaf pan will work. Standard 3.5 x 9. Also a bundt pan made of heavy thick cast aluminum, such as the very many used on rose's new cake book.

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Hi Rose!

I am such a HUGE fan of your books. I think I have them all! Sometimes the recipe's fascinate me, and I want to try them, but other times I just look at the pictures in awe and just know that I could not do them. I bought a scale simply because one of your earlier books said that baking needed to be very precise and that a scale would provide that. I use it all of the time!

I do have a question if you don't mind. I make this cream cheese pound cake recipe that I got from a web site that calls for the standard amounts of sugar, butter, cream cheese, eggs, vanilla, and almond extracts. When I have beaten it in my KA mixer, the batter is very fluffy but very thick, which I how I would imagine it should be. I have an angel food pan that I cook it in, and even though I bake it for the called for 1 hour and 15 minutes, it is NEVER done at the center. It is always wet there, but perfect at the edges and towards the center. Then I have to bake it for 10 to 15 minutes more for the center to get done, and that causes the outside to be quite dry by the time the center is done.

I also have an 11-cup stoneware bundt pan from Pampered Chef, and that one takes even longer to cook all the way through. So my question is this, what kind of pan should I be using and where in the world do I find it? The stoneware pan holds 11 cups of batter. I have no idea how much the angel food pan holds. It does have a removable center tube insert with it. This is very frustrating to me.

I have put an oven thermometer in my oven to determine correct temperature, and it is exactly what the oven is set for every single time. I am truly perplexed, and I would really appreciate it if you could shed some light on this issue. I love this pound cake along with the rest of my family, but I don't make it as often because of this issue. I like to eat pound cake without anything on it if it is baked correctly, and if this one happens to come out moist on a lark, I just love it. Thank you for your help!

Oh yes, that blueberry pie looks yummy! Is the recipe in your Pie and Pastry Bible? Hmmmm.. :)

Linda

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I'm with Vicki, i adore the photo of your dad with the pie too! It's so candid! He's so cute & handsome looking! BTW, any snakes to me is poisonous..hahahaha..i'll run a mile if i see any..i won't be there to take photos for sure..lol..that includes a whole lots of other insects as well..lol!

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Great photos, especially your dad with the beautiful pie!

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Wikipedia lists the "checkered adder" as harmless:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterodon_platirhinos#Common_names

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Great pictures! Your dad is so cute with the beautiful pie. You and your husband must be having such a good time. Brilliant rooftop garden.

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