While I am still in awe of the beautiful pastries and breads they display in this book, the recipes I've tried to used so far are a bit too....too for me.
Take chocolate glaze, for example. I was testing a "triple chocolate muffin" variation yesterday (more to come on that fiasco) and decided to glaze them before taking a batch down to the library.
Thomas was sitting right by me in the kitchen, as all God-like mentors should, and so I turned to the index. Chocolate Glaze: Page 377.
(A minor bit$ch about the size of the pagination font. The rest of the book is nice and readable but FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON, they decided to go down to an eye-straining 5-point font (it could be in micrometers for all I know) for the page numbering. I only know that I CAN'T READ THE DAMN THINGS.)
(Minor bi$ch over.)
Chocolate Glaze (Glacage au Chocolat)
110 grams 70% chocolate (check!)
10 grams 100% unsweetened chocolate (check!)
112 grams heavy cream (check!)
300 grams neutral glaze (what the ???)
So I go back to the Index and check for Neutral Glaze...because this is one of those book where multiple recipes are embedded in each master recipe. (Possibly explaining why there is a waiting list to dine at Thomas Keller's restaurants. The man doesn't just melt Nestles chips with a TBL of crisco.)
Neutral glaze is NOT in the Index. Neutral glaze is a product they BUY called "Caullet neutral glaze" (see link). Since it was 60% of the finished product, I couldn't just skip this ingredient, so I simply made my basic ganache of heavy cream, dark chocolate and a bit of Karo.
Speaking of... I jumped to BB's ganache. That recipe required Trimoline which is an invert sugar. They use Erstein Trimoline. I happen to have a bottle from the cake/candy store called....Invert Sugar. But since it's not fancy enough to have either Trimoline OR Erstein on the label, I suspect Mr. Keller might not approve.
Oh, that recipe ALSO called for glucose, which I ALSO happen to have, but by then the thrill was gone.
I totally get that they are trying to provide reproduceable recipes and bless their heart for trying. But if I can't make a basic glaze without a french import, I'm not sure how much use I'll get out of this book.
Thank goodness I'm going to wait until there are used copies out there. Hopefully some other fool will be as frustrated with the paging font as I am and sell their book.
http://www.lepicerie.com/Neutral-Glaze.html
Take chocolate glaze, for example. I was testing a "triple chocolate muffin" variation yesterday (more to come on that fiasco) and decided to glaze them before taking a batch down to the library.
Thomas was sitting right by me in the kitchen, as all God-like mentors should, and so I turned to the index. Chocolate Glaze: Page 377.
(A minor bit$ch about the size of the pagination font. The rest of the book is nice and readable but FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON, they decided to go down to an eye-straining 5-point font (it could be in micrometers for all I know) for the page numbering. I only know that I CAN'T READ THE DAMN THINGS.)
(Minor bi$ch over.)
Chocolate Glaze (Glacage au Chocolat)
110 grams 70% chocolate (check!)
10 grams 100% unsweetened chocolate (check!)
112 grams heavy cream (check!)
300 grams neutral glaze (what the ???)
So I go back to the Index and check for Neutral Glaze...because this is one of those book where multiple recipes are embedded in each master recipe. (Possibly explaining why there is a waiting list to dine at Thomas Keller's restaurants. The man doesn't just melt Nestles chips with a TBL of crisco.)
Neutral glaze is NOT in the Index. Neutral glaze is a product they BUY called "Caullet neutral glaze" (see link). Since it was 60% of the finished product, I couldn't just skip this ingredient, so I simply made my basic ganache of heavy cream, dark chocolate and a bit of Karo.
Speaking of... I jumped to BB's ganache. That recipe required Trimoline which is an invert sugar. They use Erstein Trimoline. I happen to have a bottle from the cake/candy store called....Invert Sugar. But since it's not fancy enough to have either Trimoline OR Erstein on the label, I suspect Mr. Keller might not approve.
Oh, that recipe ALSO called for glucose, which I ALSO happen to have, but by then the thrill was gone.
I totally get that they are trying to provide reproduceable recipes and bless their heart for trying. But if I can't make a basic glaze without a french import, I'm not sure how much use I'll get out of this book.
Thank goodness I'm going to wait until there are used copies out there. Hopefully some other fool will be as frustrated with the paging font as I am and sell their book.
http://www.lepicerie.com/Neutral-Glaze.html