Quest for the Best

 

best

/bɛst/ Show Spelled [best]  

adjective superl. of good with better as compar.

1.

of the highest quality, excellence, or standing: the best work; the best students.

2.

most advantageous, suitable, or desirable: the best way.

3.

largest; most: the best part of a day.

adverb superl. of well with better as compar.

4.

most excellently or suitably; with most advantage or success: an opera role that best suits her voice.

5.

in or to the highest degree; most fully (usually used in combination): best-suited; best-known; best-loved.

We have been trying to focus as much as possible on recipe testing. The rental kitchen is working out pretty good. If you are looking to start a small business with a little bit of money its good to go. This time we took on some cakes and tarts.

We have been trying to perfect a pate choux recipe ( I want them to look like FAUCHON pinterest.com). ( The below was a nice try but no cigar). I have been making pate a choux for years with the same recipe with decent results but was never 100% happy. There are recipes with whole eggs, 1/2 eggs 1/2 yolks, some with whole eggs and egg whites, some with bread flour, some with pastry flour, some with milk some with water, some with butter some with shortening. There are some with baking powder and some people steam them slightly before baking. What I want is a consistent smooth shape, not cracked and rough. I want the shell to actually taste so good that you would want to eat it without the filling and glaze and I want it to be nice and hollow to allow for the proper filling to pastry ratio. The "Quest" continues.

We did another tasting for my one partner and his wife. Things went pretty well again with a few comments. We presented the cannoli cream again which they seemed to like but (I think it still needs to be perfected). Vanilla birthday cake- great, mocha torte- great, lemon tart- great, Lady finger cake- great, coffee cake- not so great, tiramisu torte- needs work. It's really nice to have people to taste your food that actually have a palate for it. We get great feedback and it is really making us better.

 I am also on a quest to create the best coffee cake ( presenting a  few day old one was not a good idea). Talking to everyone in north Jersey they all say that B&W bakery in Hackensack has the best yelp.com  . I disagree, the crumb was to thick, not enough cake and I could feel the shortening coat the roof of my mouth. For those of you who are not familiar with coffee (crumb) cake there are two types yeast raised and cream cake style. To me yeast raised coffee cake is not a cake but a Danish. When I think of coffee cake I think back to being a kid and walking to 7-11( to buy my mom cigarettes and using the leftover change, they were .75 a pack) and buying drakes or Entenmanns. The cake is soft but slightly dense and buttery and the crumb is thick but not to thick, crunchy on the top and soft toward the cake part and doesn't all fall off when you bite it. So far I have made about 6 or 7 different kinds and am still working on it. It WILL be the best, look out B&W.

 

 

                                        Can't wait to get into my kitchen and bake for real.
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