Marzipan

This is a paste that resembles a dough as you can roll it out or mold it easily. It will be of a hard playdough consistency when properly made. It needs to be covered at all time after it is made or else it starts to harden as it dries out.


Formula:
Equal parts almond paste and confectioners sugar, small amount of glucose.
8 oz. Almond paste
1.5 oz. Glucose
8 oz. Confectioners sugar

MOP:

• Using a paddle attachment, mix glucose and almond cream to a paste
• Add sifted confectioners sugar to the base as needed. Add it until it absorbs fully. You might not need to use all of the confectioners sugar. The dough should look stiff without a shine to it.
• Clean your workbench really well because the sugar will pick up anything that is under it. Knead the dough by hand to soften and incorporate it a bit.
• Cover with plastic wrap until ready to use.

Poured Fondant

This is usually a purchased product because it is pretty labour intensive to make from scratch. You will want to warm the fondant over a double boiler to 100-110 degrees, adding simple syrup to help thin out the mixture. If you make the fondant too warm it will loose its shine and start to crack, if you add too much liquid to it the same thing will happen.

Poached Pears

Poaching something means to cook an object to 160° - 180°F in a flavourful liquid. Essentially you are infusing and simultaneously softening an object by simmering it in a liquid. Pears are good candidates for this because they will not loose its shape when left in liquid for a long time, rhubarb is also often poached as it is another good candidate for poaching.

Things that are often used to infused a poached item in a sweet application are: cinnamon, nutmeg (has a very strong flavour), cloves (strong), lavender (strong), syrups, wine, herbs, chamomille, mint (turns black when cooked), spices, peppercorn, rosemary, etc.

White or red wine can be used. You need to be careful about the flavour profile and the aesthetic choice between white or red wine. Aesthetics: if you use a red wine then the colour will bleed into the object which you can control by making choices over things like poaching the fruit whole or sliced. Whole fruits will seep colours in at a slower rate then sliced items. Flavour profile: if you use box wine it will taste like box wine (pretty much sums it up). Zinfandel, cabernet sauvignon, and syrah are good reds to use. Riesling, sauvignon blanc, and gewurztraminer are good choices for white wines.



Formula:
6 pears, whole and peeled
1# sugar
1 pt. wine
2 pt. water



MOP: takes roughly 40 min.

• Bring sugar, wine, and water to boil in a large pot
• While this is heating up, peel pears. Slice and core if you decide you want that aesthetic.
• Reduce sugar mixture when it reaches a boil (between 160° - 180°F). Place pears into the pot.
• Cover with a parchment circle and a plate (or if you have a top to the pot you can use that too) so that the pears and liquid do not escape and do not oxidize it is also so that the pears stay fully submerged.
• Cook pears until tender, check with a knife when the knife easily breaks the surface remove from heat.
• Cool to room temperature and then refrigerate overnight. If you do not cool the liquid then the alcohol aroma will seep into other products in your store room, it is very strong.

Candied Flowers

Candied flowers can hold up for a long time. When making them you want to make sure you are choosing edible flowers though and sample the taste of the flowers because some flowers do have a stronger flavour then other ones, and it might translate slightly even after you've candied it. I decided to use a vanilla sugar to coat my flowers because I figured the additional flavour would benefit the tartness of the flowers, and I figured that the specks you get in a vanilla sugar would not detract from the natural aesthetic of the flowers. Before using the flowers, like fruits, they should be kept under refrigeration in a air tight container to prevent them from wilting.


Formula:
Flower stems
Vanilla sugar
Egg whites


MOP:

• Peel aesthetically pleasing pedals off of the flower buds. 
• Brush the pedals individually and gently with egg whites on both sides.
• Place pedals in sugar, cover both sides.
• Continue with all the flowers.
• Move flowers onto parchment lined sheet pan if you run out of space, you can keep flowers in sugar until ready to use without worrying about drying it out too much.

Edible Flowers:

Micro Orchid

Pansy

Sparkler Tops 

Lavender

 

Caramelized and Candied Nuts

This is the same process for candying and caramelizing any nuts. Both of the processes make perfect value added products especially for the holiday season. This one is demonstrated with pecans.


MOP:

• Roast 4 cups of pecans spread out evenly on a half sheet pan until the aroma is drawn from the nuts, takes approximately 5-10 minutes depending on the oven temperature. Let cool.
• Bring 1/2 cup sugar with just enough water to cover/make sandy, to soft ball (when its at a rolling boil will also do).
• Add nuts in. Stir to coat evenly. Continue stirring until the sugar seizes up. If you want, you can add salt at this point, it helps the flavour if you are using the nuts in a sweet dough application).
• Remove from stove and spread flat on a parchment lined sheet pan for candied nuts.

• For Caramelized nuts, continue to stir the nuts until the sugar re-liquifies. It will take on a caramelized colour.
• Spread the nuts quickly and thinly on a parchment lined sheet pan. It will be a little more difficult to do when its caramelized, but it is more essential for application of the caramelized nuts.

• Cool completely before eating. The nuts will retain heat after the candied sugar or caramelized sugar cools.

Pistachio Flour

You can make pretty much any kind of flour you want from any kind of solid object. You can easily make a flour by just pulsing the ingredient in a food processor, but sometimes depending on the fat content of the object this will make the flour too moist.

TPT (tant pour tant - part for part)
This method uses equal parts of ingredients to enhance the outcome of the final product by drawing form strengths of each ingredient. In the case of nut flours, almonds are high in fat so if you use equal parts confectioners sugar when making almond flour then the starches from the 10x sugar (10x refers to the grain of the confectioners sugar) then it will help dry out the fats as the almonds are pulsed.


Almond Flour - equal parts almonds and confectioners sugar. Sift the confectioners sugar. Pulse the almonds and confectioners sugar in a food processor until small flour sized bits form. Sift the mixture, return the large bits to the food processor. Continue in this manner until the chunks start to take on an oil or moist texture.

Pistachio - they are lower in fat then almonds so you can just pulse the pistachio in sections, like above, with or without the confectioners sugar.

The following information is from www.nutritiondata.com

High to low fat nuts (unsweetened, per cup): 

macadamia nuts (76g), pecans (72g),  pine nuts (68g), brazilnuts (66g), walnuts (65g), hazelnuts (61g), sesame (61g), sunflower seeds (57g),  cashew (48g), pumpkin seeds (46g), pistachio (44g), flaxseed (42g), coconut (33g), acorns (31g)

This the the left over bits once the flour has been sifted out.
It can now be returned to the robot coupe to be processed again.

This is a progression of pistachio flour. The flour to the left is 1pt 10x and 1pt pistachios.
The middle flour has been processed through a second time.
The flour to the right is straight pistachio flour without any confectioners sugar.

Tempering Chocolate

Tempering Chocolate (decorations)

Tempering chocolate is difficult because the chocolate needs to be between 86° - and 89° F otherwise it will not hold a shape or transfer long enough to be used as decoration. 

MOP: Seeping

·      Scale an amount of chocolate for tempering. Scale three times the amount of chocolate for a base. You want to use a chocolate that is high in cocoa and not in milk fats. The higher the percentage the better, using something that is 64% is ideal but you can go down to 54% and still have it work.

·      Melt the larger portion of chocolate over a double broiler. Heat to 115°F.

·      Remove from heat and temper in the smaller portion of chocolate a little bit at a time.

·      Cool the chocolate to somewhere between 86°- and 89° F. If the temperature of the chocolate gets cooler then this then you will have to re heat and re temper the chocolate.

Candied Zest

This is a simple and small sized garnish that you can place on a petits four that will give it additional height and dimension without unbalancing the pastry item.

MOP: lemon zest

• Peel a lemon only peeling off the zest, do not keep any of the pith.
• Slice the zest strips into smaller slices, about 1 mm wide.

• Cook zest in water, bring it to a boil.
• Drain the liquid from the pot.
• Fill pot to cover with simple syrup, let this cook until the liquid turns yellow.
• Strain the liquid and repeat two more times.
• Drain the liquid and remove the zest. 
• Toss zest in sugar to dry out. Let sit for at least 20 minutes, or until dry.
• Remove from sugar. 
• Use until brittle, usually is good for 3-4 days.