Archives Under "candy" (RSS)
Pate de Fruit Demystified.
7 November 2008 | Ten 01, candy, delicious, recipe | 11 Responses
I used to be mystified by Pate de Fruit (PAHT duh fruit.) I watched Tony create these candies from passion fruit puree and I was in awe. Chewy, sugary, fruity, firm but yielding. When I first started at ten-01, Chef asked me if I could make them to serve as mignardises. I of course said “Sure!” and set about learning to make them. I searched around online and came across some ratios and learned the basic components. Fruit puree, granulated sugar, apple pectin, glucose, and tartaric acid. The recipes I found were specific and complicated, and scaled in grams. I felt way out of my element. Stupidly, however, I had already told Chef I knew how to do it, so I shit my pants and dove in to swim. The importance of mise en place in this process was blatantly apparent from the outset. Ingredients were added in specific order at specific times. On the stove this shit looks dangerous; bubbling and spitting hot goopy napalm. It always gets a second glance when cooks pass by. After fucking it up a few times (too hard, too soft, grainy or burned) I started to learn the critical points. Firstly, always have a spat and a whisk in a bain near the stove. As you add the various items, you want to alternate between the two, making sure to incorporate and scape well. Second, dump the ingredients in, then whisk/scrape. At first I was adding while whisking, but the precision cook loathes unincorporated ingredients stuck to the whisk. Those grams add up quick, and this recipe requires exactitude. Next, after you get the glucose in, turn the flame down a bit. This burbling lava is hell of hazardous. Don’t let it get away from you. You have at least ten minutes before this candy reaches its finishing temperature. Don’t add the thermometer until you get past that. It’s easier to whisk/scrape without it, which you should do often. Have your molds set up and ready to go, because time is limited when you reach temp. Have a towel for the pot to land on, and your tartaric acid near by. Remember that bain you’ve been working out of? Drop your thermometer in there, and move it to where your molds are. After adding the acid, you only have a few moments to pour before it starts to set up. Cool the candy to room temperature before turning it out onto parchment to store or a board to cut into desired shape. To serve, toss them into a big bowl with sugar, and tap off the excess. The sugar will absorb into them, but you can, to a point, recoat them. A few words on ingredients: Use the good shit. Buy Perfect Puree, or an equivalent high quality puree. I’ve tried most of them, and now stick with Perfect’s strawberry and white peach, the recipes below are product specific. If you want to make your own puree, buena suerte. Use powdered apple pectin. This recipe is written for it, not the liquid shit. Glucose and corn syrup while similar, are not equal. Glucose has a higher density and while I would substitute corn syrup in brownies, I wouldn’t here. Many of these products are available to you at Pastry Chef Central, whose logo resembles Pom Pom, the most mackinest.
Strawberry (and White Peach) Pate de Fruit.
1800 g puree
180 g sugar
44 g apple pectin (46 g for white peach)
1800 g sugar (1738 g for white peach)
360 g glucose
27 g tartaric acid (28 g for white peach)
1. Weigh puree into a large heavy saucepot. Scale all other ingredients and set aside.
2. Sift togehter the first amount of sugar with the apple pectin while bringing the puree to a boil.
3. When the puree starts to boil, add the sugar/pectin. Return to a boil and add the other amount of sugar. Return to a boil and add the glucose.
4. Cook to 225 F and remove from heat. Add tartaric acid add pour immediately.
My New Favorite Robot.
20 January 2008 | Ten 01, candy, chocolate | 2 Responses
One of the most time consuming and frustrating tasks facing pastry chefs is tempering chocolate. Chocolate is a finnicky ingredient that has a complex chemichal structure which needs to be handled just right. Improperly tempered chocolate is streaked with gray, and lacks that characteristic “snap” we all love. You see, cocoa butter, the fat in chocolate, asorbs heat at a different rate than the other ingredients (cocoa, sugar, etc.) so it can seperate and “float” to the top. The chocolate needs to be melted to a certain temperature (110-115 F,) cooled to another (80-82) and then rewarmed to yet another (87-91) to work with it. This process insures the the fat molecules are melted homogenously, and that its structure in relation to the other ingredients creates that perfect gloss, hardness, and shrinkage that makes a good chocolate candy, truffle, garnish or whatever. There are several methods for tempering; seeding, marbling, in the microwave, or my personal favorite, by robot. Pictured above is the Chocovision Revolation X3210 4.8. It takes all the guess work out of the tricky tempering process, and looks dead sexy while doing it. I’ve been using it to make candies and truffles for mignardes at the restaurant. Flavors so far include brown butter, white chocolate basil, butterscotch, orange, vanilla cream. All yummy, all the time. Interested in experimenting with chocolate? Don’t have a $1500 dollar robot? Check out this site.
