/ck/ - Food & Cooking

What books do you guys recommend for a beginner?

Now, Last thread I posted >>14807930
basically I want to find a way to introduce the Mexican Café de la Olla flavors of
>orange
>cinnamon
>piloncillo
>mexican coffee beans
Into a French Opéra cake consisting of
>Biscuit Joconde
>Pâte a Bombe and coffee buttercream
>Opéra ganache
>Coffee and Contreau syrop

Cinnamon and orange are easy, I have already added orange zest into the ganache, and I can easily add it instead to the syrup or buttercream. Cinnamon is just a powder I can add to anything. illoncillo is a special type of sugar which I cannot just replace regular surag for, the only places I use sugar on ar:
>Biscuit Joconde, where regular sugar is used to whip my egg whites, here purity is important. And I use Tant por Tant (also called TxT, equal parts icing sugar and almond meal), which I don't see how I can replace it with piloncillo either.
>The pâte a bombe which is made like an italian merengue
>The syrup
My best bet may be making my syrup (to moisturize the biscuit) out of piloncillo, but i know that I use a very small amount, so I hope that the flavor is able to be detected
As for Mexican coffee beans, in my recipe of Pâte a Bombe and coffee buttercream uses instant coffee to make a very concentrated coffee, more than expreso, so just using expreso is our of the question. If I was using a Crème Anglaise-based cream, then I could put by beans with the milk to extract the flavor, but I prefer Pâte a Bombe because it is more airy and creamier.

Also, Pavoni is the only brand I know and trust, so I want to buy from them a half-tray rectangular ring mold for this recipe. What other good brands do you recommend? I bought a Pavoni microperforated ring mold alongside some chinesium ones, and the quality could not be compared, so I've decided to pay extra and avoid random chinese equipment that stains after the first bake

>>14816994
What equipment do you have?

/pat/ poster is so fucking cute i just want to hug him and suck his cock, i love posting in /pat/ every fucking day of my life and seeing 2000x2000 images of extremely detailed miniature pieces of bread the size of my fingernail called "deumoreauxes d'i'le au frauche dumaisse un fragran"

>>14817095
Please, do not lewd me
I just want to talk about cakes

All this shit seems really unhealthy.

>>14816994
i like "the cake bible" by rose levy beranbaum. it's a little dated and not as comprehensive as i'd like, but it has a ton of good recipes and basic information.

>>14817009
I think if you want the piloncillo to shine, you'd have to make the syrup a rather thick caramel. Your other possibility is to shave and blend it to an icing sugar consistency. To get the mexican coffee in there, boil it down to nearly dry. You could also get some slab sugar in there, but then you have to adjust sweetness levels.

>>14818552
When I drink coffee at a restaurant I always ask half Americano and half De la Olla, I am sure most adults do too. I think I will first make a not-so-thick syrup, since caramel does not freeze and I know it will cause problems once frozen. Then I'll see if it is strong enough

As for the coffee, I think I will be forced to concentrate expreso (or the thing you get from a mocha pot in my case), I was just avoiding it because I only need 5ml and I am sure that amount will burn in my pots
I hav also been investigating about extracts, grinding some coffee beans (and maybe some spices too) and macerating them in alcohol, I don't think it will react weirdly in the cream, right? I am sure nothing weird will happen if you combine alcohol and eggs.

Heck, I think I can even add poloncillo syrup to it and have Café de la Olla liqueur, I think my guayabas have been macerating for long enough now, next I will make this

>>14819431
I'm sure most adults (globally) don't have access to spiced De Olla. It's not Masala Chai popular yet.

If you want to concentrate the flavours you're going for, doing that in the coffee might be the way to go. Even making coffee as you would, adding the sugar and spices, and reducing it in a saucepan.

If you combine a lot of alcohol and eggs, the alcohol will denature the protein in the eggs a bit, which I'd think would deflate it, but it might actually help stabilize. Either way, you're not making some sort of everclear zabaglione - if you're adding a strongly flavoured tincture, it shouldn't be enough to push anything one way or another.

>>14817116
CUTE! I love you cake-kun!

>>14817144
They are indulgences, please eat sparingly and preferably on special occasion

>>14820502
Basically, I threw away all low-quality sweets and only eat what I make or at the rare occasion when I find a good pastry, so my intake is less than one personal cake a week

>>14817095
do u think patposter is hung

>>14820901
No. Small and cute feminine penis

>>14817144
You can also bake salty stuff. Like meat pies. You can definitely make those as healthy as other food if you do 'em yourself. Use less salt and include some veggies. Broccoli pie is a thing. You can make a pie out of anything, really.

>>14819520
>Even making coffee as you would, adding the sugar and spices, and reducing it in a saucepan.
Ok, as a recovered coffee nut, I think you want to start with a cold brew concentrate, not any hot brew method.
Trivial prep; for the tiny amount you need, 1/4c ground coffee in a mason jar; 1/2c water, fridge for 24 hours, decant/strain.
Extracts a different set of flavors than hot methods, less likely to go harsh when further cooked.

>>14817009
>Café de la Olla
Literally means Pot Coffee.

I made a coconut pie the other day. Didn't follow any recipe, just winged it. Came out okay, but nothing special.

I made a double batch of old fashioned brownies. I mixed in about half a package of Ghirardelli semisweet chips in too. They came out perfect.

>>14820884
>Tarte tatin
God I miss this.

>>14816994

Bruno Albouze's channel is amazing but he uses a ton of expensive equipment.

https://www.youtube.com/user/BrunoAlbouze

https://brunoalbouze.com/

You can buy old copies of the Culinary Institute of America's pastry textbooks online for really cheap. These are the book they use in their classes. They are a great resource.

Mentioning meat pies made me desire one or something like it. What's your favorite baked thing that can be dinner? I'll probably make something like that next week, and it'll definitely be something new.

>>14820908
I hope he wears cute undies too :-D

>>14821297
I'm sorry but that's gossip. CIA's pastry book has pretty bad reviews on amazon, I'd sooner go with LCB or Ferrandi.

>>14823071
>CIA

I'm going to make a Black Forest Cake, but Kirschwasser is VERY difficult to find to the point I'd have to special order it.
Rather than buy expensive alcohol I won't want to drink, could I just substitute tart cherry juice in for the liquor?
If so, should I mix the juice with the batter or pour it over the top as I would if Kirschwasser were at all findable?

>>14823587
Mix your cherry juice with some brandy or rum and treat it like kirsch. You're not flooding the cake out with the stuff, but that bit of alcohol will help you pretend it was the real deal.

>>14823682
would vodka work? I just want the flavor to be the most correct.

>>14823751
slivovice with a splash of amaretto would be the most correct... but anything will work, unless you're straight up drowning this cake. What's the recipe call for? 1/4 cup for a 3lb cake? You'll be fine. Maybe add a bit of almond extract for good luck.

>>14823817
Sorry, not sliva, that's plums. Cherry rakia... Tresnjevaca?

>>14823817
like 100mL, so yeah not much. I'll probably just do vodka or brandy since rakia and Tresnjevaca is also not easy to find or get. the joys of living in the southern US...

>>14823901
All that moonshine, and no slavs to make it?

>>14823901
I'm serious about the almond extract though - it's why I was thinking that touch of amaretto. It's probably the closest you'll get to that touch of benzaldehyde in the kirsch.

>>14823951
so for 100mL how much amaretto should I add? I also found some sort of geled Kirsch for baking, that I can buy online and for cheap. but I had never heard of it before, do you know anything about that type of stuff?
>>14823944
I only know two slavs, but they're both kind of normie tier women who don't distill alcohol. it's pizdec.

Just started taking a pastry course at a local college. I am thinking of switching careers and getting into being a red seal baker / pattiserie.

I am worried that I am too old for this doe :(

So excited to learn

>>14823974
never used gelled kirsch, but if it's got an ingredients list, and the only difference is something like pectin, then I don't see why that wouldn't work.

If you're using amaretto, like a tsp. 5-10mL (or 5-10%) to about 60mL liquor and 30-35mL cherry juice. It will add sweetness, which... it's going onto a cake, is it really a bad thing? If you want to forego the sweetness, and you have tart cherry juice, then I'd go with a few drops of almond extract.

>>14824079
it's literally gelled Kirsch, it has carboxymethyl cellulose and 100 proof alcohol as the only ingredients. so I'm assuming it's kind of like a hand sanitizer, I'm not sure if it would soak though lol.
I'll probably go with the tart juice, amaretto and vodka, since I already have those and the only quantity of gel kirsch I can buy is 2 liters...

>>14824079
>>14824107
here's a link to the stuf: https://www.foodinno.com/product/alcohol-kirsch-liquid-gel-pastry-cooking-50-volume-2-lt/

I got this book a bit back and it's fun, but all the recipes are designed for an electric stove, not a gas stove like I have, so they often come out wrong the first try since the timing is all off. Is there any way to solve this, or do I just need to git gud and figure it out on a per recipe basis?

>>14824156
Whoops, forgot the picture.

>>14824107
>>14824115
For cooking only, you say... weird-ish. If you used it warm, you could probably soak it in, but it might give a - well - gummy texture. Plus I've heard of cellulose gum leading to IBS and whatnots. Yeah, stick to the good stuff, and pour 100mL for yourself.

>>14824156
>>14824157
Every oven and range is different, but you can calibrate or adjust to them with a thermometer.

>>14824164
yeah the gel was really throwing me off, I wonder what about it makes the state government allow online orders without ID, totally unlike normal alcohols.
I'll stick to your "recipe" thanks.

>>14824172
The problem is that sometimes it doesn't give temperatures, it gives times. Like for instance, with the chocolate tart, it was "while tempering the chocolate on the stove, blind bake the crust." Or something like that. The issue was that on a gas stove, it took far, far less time for everything to heat up so the chocolate was ready well before the crust was, while the slower heating of an electric stove top would have made everything ready about the same time like it wanted.

>>14824193
That's going to be a practice-makes-perfect kind of scenario. Next time, do the crust, time that, then do the chocolate and time that.

>>14816932
How do I into piping bros. Are there standard tip sizes/names? Any good tutorials on different shapes/designs? I'm comfortable with taste of my pastries, but I want to up my presentation.

>>14824157
>>14823071
Based ferrandi bros!

>>14824001
How old are you anon? Have you done any baking at home?

>that time of year where dough never proofs
I fucking hate it. Takes 10 hours to proof anything in my house and it always turns out crusty and flat/dense.
We don't own an oven and I haven't found a method that works. Placing the proofing bowl ontop of a radiator, placing a heatpack under it... no results

Gonna make some choco chip pumpkin bread

>>14824786
pretty, but burnt

>>14816994
>>14817195
I also have The Cake Bible
It has pretty hard recipes, and will constantly call for ingredients you will never have. A lot of it is high-class fancy smancy recipes. Some comfort food. Not a lot of bread or conventional stuff. Mediocre stuff, but has good sections on equipment and ingredients.

>>14824592
bros pls ;_;

>>14824786
does your oven have a mode where it's just the light? i use that to proof stuff and it's worked pretty well.

>>14824813
>>14824592
Buy according to necessity, maybe get a basic pack.
Most sizes and names are dependent on the manufacturer, but there are some tips that have their own names (like the St.Honoré)

It helps to practice with shortening or lard mixed with icing sugar

>>14824813
Youtube it boyo. I dunno so can't answer I'm lurking

>>14824836
thank you, are they any books/vids you'd recommend? Like how I can learn to make the little flowers or shells, or how I should generally approach icing a cake?

>>14824848
>vids
dunno, YouTube seems like a good place to start

>icing a cake
A turntable helps a lot, also pic related. You will also need a large angled spatula.
And when you pipe repetitive patterns (like those around a cake) plant your feet firmly on the ground, keep your back straight, use your hips to move your entire body and only use your wrists for most of the fine work, you should move your arms very little. Also, do not use your fingers to squeeze the bag, instead use the thenar region of your hand (the big bulbous base of your thumb) to squeeze the bag. You must practice you match the turntable (which you will move with your non-dominant hand), your body, wrist movements and flow rate.

>>14824196
Ah, that's kinda what I figured. Thanks, though!

>>14824752
Yeah, I really like how it has the different levels of the same recipe, so it's great for all skill levels.

>>14824889
ty very much anon i will do some studying

Looking to start baking but have no idea where? What's something simple someone with no history of baking cant mess up?

>>14824966
I think tomorrow I will start to work on an introduction to link at the OP. Mostly on how to get into pastries and confections, for baking I will need help
>equipement
>basic techniques
>some theory
>basic recipes

But for a quick answer, maybe pound cake? it follows very similar steps to cupcakes, but are much more respectable, plus, you will be thankful to have a loaf you can just cut yourself a few portions from for when you need to eat in a hurry.
Not a cake, but something which has very similar techniques is Quiche

>>14825023
So I can make Pound cake in a loaf tin? Huzzah, also I can't fuck with eggs yet, I still haven't even mastered the omelette I just get nervous and end up scrambling them instead...

>>14825033
Yes, just butter the tin
>I still haven't even mastered the omelette
An omelette is harder than this, technique-wise, you just mix ingredients in the correct order, and the only thing you must be careful with is to not overmix the mixture once you add the flour. Then you bake it and let it cool completely before demolding

Also, do yourself a favor and measure by mass, not volume

>>14825109
Measure by mass not by volume and
don't overmix the flour. I know thats because of gluten but when you say mass not volume...? Grams instead of cups or something?

>>14825023
I started my path into baking from watching japanese ASMR videos lol
They're pretty entry-level, always consistent, aren't "fake" like Tasty/normie clickbait shit. Measured and cheap/simple ingredients, simple cookware and utensils, tons of variety.

Thanks to free time, i started to learn baking.
Well, i made some bisquits and waffles in my childhood, but it was so long ago.

So, i baked a vanilla cake from butter, eggs, flour and sugar. Apparently, it's called pound cake. It was pretty delicious, but my whipped cream frosting sucked hard. Also, very sweet, next time i'll use smaller form and smaller portions. Not 200g of flour, but 100 or even 50, not to give me diabetes too early.

What you'd recommend as a next step?
I'll probably do the same recipe, but with cacao powder instead of vanilla. Maybe a dash of spiced whiskey that sits on my counter.
What's the easiest frosting? Thinking about buttercream.

>>14824889
this is super helpful, thanks

I got a relatively simple question. How do I make caramel as chewy as possible without it becoming hard when cool so it cracks when I bite into it? Mostly I make sauce by reducing sugar, syrup and cream before adding a little salted butter at the end but I'm thinking about making candies similar to Werthers Original toffee.

I want a kouign amann so bad

>>14817009
>Cinnamon is just a powder I can add to anything.
A cinnamon extract will really help you with baked goods. Just add loads of sticks to a glass jar, fill with vodka and wait 6 months, even though 1 month is enough to get some very good flavor.

Another helpful ones are clove and star anise.

>>14826409
Is cinnamon extract as good of quality as homemade vanilla extract using the same method? I've been putting off doing that for months, I could already have a handle of godtier 'nilla extract. fml

>>14824193
you can hold chocolate in temper for a while.

>>14824800
i don't think the recipes are that difficult
>ingredients you will never have
do you live in the third world or something? most recipes are butter, flour, sugar, baking powder, eggs, vanilla, chocolate, nuts. the only recipes that use unusual ingredients are a couple of the toppings/fillings.
>Not a lot of bread or conventional stuff
it's the CAKE bible, the BREAD bible is another book.

>>14826429
depends on your vodka and your cinnamon, but yeah. It doesn't dissolve as easily, but it's a more potent flavour. You can score or shred the cinnamon to increase surface area.

>>14826429
>Is cinnamon extract as good of quality as homemade vanilla extract using the same method?
It is. I started a batch almost a month ago and it's already pretty potent. I used some of both cinnamon and cloves extract on my pumpkin pie and the flavor was wonderful.

>>14825114
>Grams instead of cups or something
yes

What are your go to fillings for macarons? Ive recently gotten the knack for actually making pretty great macarons, but I dont always feel like my filling is great

>>14827155
>ganache montée and normal ganache
>crème mousseline
>marmelade
Then I add whatever flavour I want, for example you can infuse the cream with lavender, tea, or add rosewater and then use that cream to make your ganache with some white chocolate
For mousseine you just make pastry cream with whatever flavor you want, whipp it and some soft whipped butter. If you are using something like praliné then mix the praliné with the butter and whipp until combined

>>14827602
>>14827155
I forgot, you can also mix pralinés with your chocolate in order to make a ganache

>>14827602
>>14827632

Ill try this out, thanks. Specially the mermelade sounded nice, I feel that macaron shells themselves are so sugary and sweet that something light and fruity would go well with them for me atleast. Depends on the macaron ur going for of course.

I tried with buttercream so far, and its nice but its just a bit too overwhelming

>>14827707
I've been playing with gastriques and tart fruits boiled to death without added sugar and pectin... to mixed results. Pommegranate with balsamic ain't half bad though.

>>14827723

I reckon it would turn out very runny without any sugar or sort of stabilizer in the mixture? What about making it like a curd instead?

>>14827707
You can't really do anything to the shells without screwing them up, so the filling is the only thing you can adjust.
And about marmalade fillings, those have a lot of water, so you have to overbake your shells for 2-3 min, frankly this is why I prefer making a curd and treating it like a pastry cream, when I worked and made hundreds of macaroons a day I always hated filling the marmalade ones, the whole thumb thing I said when explaining piping I learned because my fingers would get very tired otherwise, when working with pectin a few seconds are the difference between a liquid and fruit pâte you are better off cutting with a ring

>>14827804

Yeah I figured this was the best way to go, to make a curd and treat it like a pastry cream. Or take a small amount of buttercream on the edge and add the a looser curd in the middle, but I feel like that would eat the shell texture up if I were to serve them after several hours
So going to try the pastry cream curd you talked about it, seems easy enough too

About the info at the OP, what should we add? Naturally a quick-start guide for newcomers


>>14821277
Those are actually peach and thyme tarts made at "Le Jardin Sucré" in Paris

But yes, I too miss Tarte Tatin

>>14827840
Or you can make a high-fat cream which would not soak-up as much, this is something all ganaches share. Or, if you can put a bit of filling, then a drop of the looser cream, then the rest of the filling, this way the looser one will be completely surrounded and never have contact with the shell
>after several hours
Macaroons should be eaten at least 24 hours after finished, some of the moisture must make it into the shells to moisturize them, is just that marmalade is all liquid and will overdo it unless you counter it.

Wish me luck
Too bad everything seems to be in imp*rial

>all this effort
>meanwhile mass produced lidl cake beats top chef $500 plus tip garbage

>>14816994
The very best resource for both beginner and intermediate people, in book form is the giant pink book of patisserie. It's almost exhaustive in the classic techniques, covers most decoration techniques and is pretty honest about equipment needed. Last I heard it was pretty cheap on Amazon. Avoid any hook that revolves around a handful of recipes or any one specific kind of dessert. There are some Larousse books focused exclusively on patisserie techniques that's pretty good too, though I find the numbers there to be more ballpark figures needing minor adaptations here and there.

>>14828780
Is that the one that just says
PA
TI
SE
RIE
in the cover? I have been looking for it since French Cooking Academy recommends it a lot, and he is the only YouTube channel I actually listen to, but I have never been able to find it again in his videos, sometimes feels like it was all my imagination

>>14824592
Wilco has a starter kit for piping that comes with the most used tips and covers everything that isn't extremely niche. The tips are well built too. Get cheap plastic disposable bags instead if going for the shilled professional ones made from silicone or anything else. Professionals use disposable plastic too. They're a quarter a piece.
>>14824786
Splash some water under your microwaves glass plate and nuke it for a full minute. Proof whatever you need in a bowl on top of the glass plate. With the door closed it stays warm and moist in there for 4-6 hours depending on how good the microwave door is. If it gets cold just repeat the process. I've found its the least stressful method that you can forget about. And cheap.

>>14828790
Yes that's the one. Can't miss it with it being hot pink and all. I've tested personally almost every recipe in it and only the macarron section needed minor tweaking and it was due to my oven. They also use honey to invert sugar molecules in decoration which I strongly prefer. You may need to add a dash of sugar to some fillings though, especially when baking for kids, but nothing a taste test doesn't fix.

>>14824592

Go on ebay to buy your bags and decorating tips. Shit is so much cheaper directly from China rather than paying the middle man. Buy some of those little couplers so you swap out the tips easily.

Wilton makes a good basic tutorial kit. Most Michaels have Wilton cake decorating classes for like $15 but you can learn that stuff online from youtube. You can print out these piping guides, get them laminated then pipe directly on the sheet to learn.

>>14824592

Forgot to add, make some buttercream with Crisco and a little pigment and just keep it in the fridge for practice. You can reuse it over and over. You can also practice frosting cakes using small cardboard boxes then just scrape the frosting off and use it again.

>>14828571
Where can I get it? Thanks.

>>14828846
library genesis

Test

>>14828851
Thank you!!

>>14828916
it look like my shit

>>14829039

>>14828780
So it's good then?
>>14828790
Also what do you think of FCA anon? I prefer Bruno albouze myself even if I find him somewhat off putting.

>>14829155
I would recommend FCA over anyone else for an absolute beginner. Bruno is also very Entry-level, but the presentation can make someone think his recipes are too complicated and most will just give up instead of just trying

I think I will make a modification of his lemon tart (I don't have a food processor for the almond praliné, also, I think this is Cedric's idea) with an éclair tart mold and I'll use a St. Honoré tip for the italian merengue like with pic related

>>14828916

You can buy round and egg shaped plastic candy molds for like $3...

>>14828571
>>14828851
Really thorough book from what I've been able to see so far, but didn't expect to find retarded recipes like this one.

>>14827760
it's more of a smear- the pommegranate-balsamic-reduction is very potent, sticky enough to not screw everything up. works well with lavender macarons, and coffee-heavy eclairs/profiteroles.

>>14829277
Heh. Sorry about your bad experience though.

>>14829277
Maybe it a subrecipe used in manny other recipes
I remember at school that at the beginning of the Confiseurie course we had a recipe that was just equal parts of icing sugar and cornstarch. Around 50% of the other recipes called for that thing so we just made one large batch and used it trough the rest of the course

>>14829243
Silly Anon, those are chestnuts; not eggs :^)

>>14829830
You went to school? Like culinary school or patisserie school? how was it? was it expensive? did you enjoy it? where did you go? I'll stop now sorry.

>>14829842
Culinary school, due to the 'rona I have not graduated yet, but by 2021 I will be free

> how was it?
Classes were hit or miss, some were a pain to go trough and saw no use for, others were a great time and learned a lot from. I believe it mostly depends on the teacher.

My biggest complain is the administration, they were too slow to fix any issues

> was it expensive?
Oh, yes, a lot

>did you enjoy it?
A lot, I found what I liked and networked with a lot of people. That is the main reason you should go for, because you will learn cooking by doing, not taking classes. There was also the business aspect of it, it sounds unromantic, but you go to culinary academies not to be line cooks, but chefs and restaurant owners, so knowing administration, labor law, service, marketing and the like is more important than cooking.

There were also the interships, the school facilitates communication with restaurants and so a friend got to practice at Pujol, another in Spain, others have gone to places like D.O.M. and Osteria Francescana. Heck, I did mine in an Hotel Boutique in Oaxaca and I got to serve food to Enrique Bunbury, later I went to the US and practiced in a french bakery where I learned a lot of attitude from, I went from lagging behind in practical classes to dominating in Bakery, Chocolate-making, Candies and Pastries.

I only have one more internship before I graduate, I've already made a list of local bakeries where I could go to since at the moment I am advised not to leave the city

>where did you go?
Ain't telling

>>14830471
im gonna creampie your asshole.

>>14830579
Cute!

>>14816932
Pastry chefs, I need your assistance regarding a supposedly secret method for creating stiff piped whipping cream that can be used to decorate cakes and such in an extremely intricate and elaborate fashion. Apparently, it's not butter, and it's not butter cream, but it is made from 100% animal fat? See link below for further investigation.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFJywGyn6b5/?igshid=7gduyxbsq9wb

What do you think this person doing to where the whipping cream is so excellent? She teaches the method for almost a grand, but I can't afford it.

Pic unrelated.

>>14830807
Maybe is cream with a very high fat percentage

>>14830807
Italian whipped cream maybe? Or a similar method.

>>14830807
>animal cream
>korea
maybe it's from dolphin milk

>>14831563
>>14831599
>>14831984

Thanks anons, keep digging! And lols about the dolphin milk, sounds epic.

>>14830807
Idk what she's doing but just use gelatin.

7 sheets of gelatin for 1 qt (908g) cream.

Bloom gelatin, scald cream, add gelatin (squeeze out excess water if using leaf), melt completely then cool. Once set just whip up.

>>14830807
i guarantee shes just throwing a few oz of mascarpone into the whip after you get to soft peeks. thats what i do to get pipable whipped cream.

>>14832426
>>14832476

That's what I thought too, but if you visit her Instagram, some of those flowers she's doing look insane and I can't imagine that she's using just a little marscapone to make whipping cream do that. Also she has her own patent on the process, so I'm pretty baffled.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.instagram.com/cakendeco/%3Fhl%3Den&ved=2ahUKEwiP-OjIwJbsAhXXs54KHeeKDXIQjjgwBHoECAMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0pJXgxrzm8XCoF8u0bIen_

>>14832529
if shes claiming its only the addition of 100% animal fat, i have no idea what else it could be besides mascarpone, as "fat" would preclude gelatin. could it be some kind of insanity involving condensed milk/khoya? egg yolk?

>>14832572
Extra-dry butter is almost all fat, she does mention buttercream on her Instagram, but this example claims to be all fresh cream, so maybe she used a cream separator and did something to get a higher fat percentage in it

>>14832572
>>14832625

Hmm, perhaps. I'll be collecting all of these ideas and trying them, then will report back. If they don't work, maybe we can crowd fund with crypto to pay for the tutorial and we can spread it here.

>>14832676
>/pat/ - Piracy and treats

>>14829842
If you have a community college with a cooking school near you then it might not be too bad. At the College of Southern Nevada it was around $5000/semester and a lot of the initial books, supplies, and uniform expenses last for other class or the rest of the schooling. Unfortunately I didn't even finish the semester due to unforeseen circumstances and a rushed move. I know that's a lot of money when it's full time and you can't properly work a full time job to offset the cost, but it's a lot less than typical college. Also they were constantly offering scholarships, work-study programs, and just opened a student food pantry so students could hopefully feed themselves without having to spend much additional money. Being the only cooking school in Las Vegas, and seemingly quite good for a community college, they had volunteer food service events practically every week where you could gain experience and meet employers in the food service industry. For the opening of the new stadium they were hiring thousands of people with unionized pay starting at $17/hr. And a lot of people finish the associates with a good job opportunity with a decent restaurant/business due to the heavy local recruiting. You just have to put in the effort to go to the events that start at 4am and stay until classes start as often as possible and participate in everything that you can including the cooking club and all that. Now I am apprenticing in a grocery store bakery, and it's a lot of fun but low pay. I am considering looking for a prep or line cook second job once I'm more comfortable with my current job, hours, schedule, and activity level. I was out of shape, and I'll probably wait a month before trying to pile on more stuff.

>>14830052
>>14833123
I jut found out I do indeed have a college near me that offers culinary courses although I would have to pay for them... but that aside my main question is do I NEED culinary school to become good at cooking/baking? I have no desire to cook professionally or start a business but I do want to have a high level of skill and/or competency. Can I do that on my own or do I need the schooling? What can Schooling give me that I couldn't learn on my own is another way of putting it I guess.

>>14834857
>do I NEED culinary school to become good at cooking/baking?
No, as I said, you will learn by making, so getting a job is your best bet. Manny techniques, optimizing your work, thinking on your feet and the like are things which you will never get at school. These abilities are things you can rely on, meanwhile manny school-only people get hit very hard with reality when they graduate thinking that they know everything.

What most do is to first gain experience, then study, manny of my classmates were linecooks who got up in the ranks of the kitchen, so then decided to complete their education as their responsibilities changed. Slightly unrelated, but I talked it out with my mechanic, manny mechanics get very good without studying, but lack a point of view, in short, people with studies know the WHY of manny things, a mechanic without studies may be able to diagnose a very specific problem and fix it just by the sound of the engine, but he may not know what that piece really does, same with cooking, you can make very good cakes without knowing the melting point of β, β1, β2 crystals in chocolate. This information is only useful once you start developing your own recipes, which is something you only should do once you try to become a master.

Made some lemon tarts based-off Albouze's recipie (Shortbread, Praliné, Lemon Curd, Merengue)
Pretty good, and I am sure that adding the marmalade would have made it better, but there small tarts have very little space, I also need pastry rulers, I keep using legos to get a nice even dough, far from ideal. I also need a proper torch.

My biggest take from this is this creamed Shortbread, I made some sugar cookies with the scraps and they were very good on their own, will keep this recipe and use it for other things

>>14835525
You blind bake with legos? That's awesome!
Where did you get the legos from in the first place anon?

>>14834857
I am the person you replied to and I also say no you do not need them. I was already competent enough to keep up with the intro class without really studying or practicing more than quick reviews, and it would have been possible for me to simply continue practicing at home with the help of YouTube videos and books. As far as home cooking goes, I'm better at it than everyone else my age and better at it than most everyone I know at this point. That doesn't say too much in the age of convenience food and convenience cooking, but I have managed this in about 6 years by cooking a lot and always trying to improve something and learn new dishes. Since home cooking is on such a small scale, I don't bother with mixers, slow cookers, this and that machines, and too many gadgets/unitaskers. If you want to become competent from home where you only get practice for as many meals and extras (breads, pastries, snacks) you make in a day, then you need to make each one count. Always practice your knife skills for at least one vegetable (if not all) instead of defaulting to a shredder, mandoline, or other tool. Try to cook from as scratch as possible each time and not use shortcut recipes. Avoid anything from AllRecipes.com and definitely listen to people like Helen Rennie (find her on Youtube). Julia Child's 2 volume Mastering the Art of French cooking is a great resource if you are ready for it. You should be able to start with things like sauces, stocks, soups, creamed spinach, etc. that really anyone who can read should be able to pull of and move on from there. If you want to learn to cook, do it correctly from the start. Cooking schools use The Professional Chef, which has lots of great information but the recipes are both scaled and written for commercial use, so trying to understand their bread recipes that called for industrial equipment was confusing for trying to make my first loaf of bread.

>>14834928
>>14836108
Cool thanks guys! I feel much better now although worried about time. I'm a late start at 28 and 6 years sounds like ages t get good but I'm willing to try.

>>14834928
>>14836108
>>tl;dr I'm a huge faggot

>>14836170
You can do it much faster if you're focused and use resources. I got off to a really slow start. I always managed to make good tasting amateur meals, but if I had started watching someone like Hellen Rennie and Julia Child right off the bat, then I could have excelled in those first few years. At first I was winging a lot of it and using shitty All Recipes information, so I really too the long way 'round. On top of that, I was always diet restrictive to stay in shape but now that I don't religiously cut out bread, grains, pastries, gravy, etc. I can actually learn how to make proper food, and it actually doesn't make you fat. I had just been brought up to be afraid of enjoying/eating good food and to always avoid breads and starches and eat diet crap. It turns out that it's not a big deal to eat really incredible food as it is filling and you can exercise portion control. 6 years ago all I knew how to do was make chili, poorly saute chicken and green beans, make eggs over easy, and generally make sloppa. Now I feel ready to tackle anything in the Julia Child books even if it's something I haven't tried yet and I still need to crack open The Joy of Cooking.

>>14821297
Based Bruno poster. I've made a few of his deserts like the lemon pound cake. Hands down the best recent pastry/cooking resource I've stumbled on

>>14836438
>boil and blend a whole lemon for 50 minutes and add to mixture
>it's good
Ty bruno

I made éclairs filled with a crème diplomate mixed with hazelnut praliné. God bless Bruno Albouze.

>>14835975
>You blind bake with legos? That's awesome!
Not that, I used then in order to get an even thickness while I was rolling the dough, Technic Axles are around 2mm, which is the thickness I wanted. There are these things, I have no idea how they are called, much less in English since they go by different names (Perfection Sticks Strips, Rolling Pin Guides,Dough Guides,Pastry Ruler) but they are what I was trying to imitate.

I don't use weights because I use microperforated silicone mats and molds, they are more expensive, but give you profesional results if you combine them with the rulers (or a laminaoir if you are in a large profesional kitchen), a cold kitchen and so on.
If you want a very autistic How-To for picture-perfect results then there's this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rCELhRoSP8

>>14836170
>6 years
Is a life-long thing, but you will learn more by working, it is completely different from been a home-cook, specially in attitude. So, study fundamentals at home, go work somewhere with absolute humility, then, if you want to own a place, or make it with the big boys, then study to learn vanguard techniques and administration. High-Pastries are like medicine, you must continuously study to keep yourself at the front.

>>14836717
Don't be afraid of cleaning the edges of the glaze with your fingers

>>14837064
Damn dude thats awesome. Can I ask where you're based/from?
>>14836195
Luckily I don't have any dietary restrictions and I have a lot of cookbooks (most of them on patisserie/french cookery in general) to go through although some I wouldn't actually use due to their age. That Countess of toulouse book for one...

>>14830807
Its a scam.

>>14837541
As in, she doesn’t actually teach anyone, its a front to get investment money and/or sponsorship deals.

>>14837455
>Can I ask where you're based/from?
I won’t say directly because of people ITT want to fuck me in the ass, but I will say that my mid-therm goal is to get a scholarship by the Fondation Turquois

>>14837064
>Don't be afraid of cleaning the edges of the glaze with your fingers
Alright I keep that in mind, thanks.