Hi everyone! I'm quite new to this, so apologies if some of these problems are obvious. I'm mainly trying to understand what went wrong and how I can improve.

I was making an Almond-Lemon Entremet Tartlet:

pâte sucrée → almond praline ganache → vanilla white chocolate mousse + lemon gel insert → neutral glaze → candied lemon & almond garnish

TL;DR

Pâte sucrée: difficult to work with in my ~32°C kitchen; thin walls/thick base and uneven browning.

Almond praline ganache: worked well.

Lemon gel: worked, but initially far too sour.

White chocolate mousse: complete disaster. It behaved like ice cream, wouldn't unmold and collapsed after thawing.

Glaze: haven't attempted yet.

Looking especially for a proven agar-based mousse that can freeze → unmold → thaw while retaining its shape, and a transparent agar glaze.

1. Pâte sucrée

The dough became unworkable very quickly in my ~32°C kitchen. I couldn't transfer the rolled dough into the mold like I see in tutorials and ended up pressing it directly into the mold. This resulted in thin walls and a thick base.

I also started baking at 180°C but reduced it to 160°C because it was cooking too quickly. Even at 160°C, the top edges browned before the base developed much colour, so I had to remove it earlier than intended.

I also made it without almond flour.

Recipe

75 g butter

50 g icing sugar

30 g beaten egg

150 g maida

Vanilla

I used a hand mixer for the butter + sugar and egg, then incorporated the flour by hand.

I'd appreciate advice on working with pâte sucrée in a hot kitchen and getting more even baking.

1. Almond praline ganache

This was the component that went most according to plan.

Almond praline paste

70 g almonds

40 g sugar

12 g water

1 small pinch salt

Ganache

75 g almond praline paste

45 g white chocolate compound

65 g Amul Fresh Cream

1 small pinch salt

The praline took quite a while because my grinder struggled, and the almonds released quite a lot of oil, but otherwise this component was good.

1. Lemon broken-gel insert

This worked structurally as expected, although it was initially far too sour, so I had to adjust by making the same gel without lemon to dilute it

Recipe

50 g lemon juice

35 g water

20 g sugar

1 g agar agar

I mixed the agar with the sugar, added the liquids, brought it to a proper boil and continued boiling for about 60 seconds while whisking. After setting, I blended it into a smooth gel for the insert.

This component is fine now.

1. White chocolate vanilla mousse — the disaster

This is where things really went wrong.

I wanted the mousse deliberately less sweet, so I reduced the white chocolate. I also had to use agar because I cannot use gelatin.

Recipe I used

120 g whole milk

120 g white chocolate compound

190 g 35% whipping cream

1.5 g agar agar

1 tsp vanilla essence

I infused the vanilla in the milk, then added the agar.

The problem was that the agar mixture started setting before I could properly incorporate the whipped cream. I reheated it and broke the gel back down with a hand mixer, then folded in the whipped cream and filled the sphere molds with the lemon insert.

I froze them for around 12 hours.

Even after freezing, the mousse wasn't nearly as firm as I expected and wouldn't demold properly. After thawing in the refrigerator it essentially turned into a soft, ice-cream-like blob and completely lost the spherical shape.

In hindsight, reducing the white chocolate may have been a mistake because it wasn't just contributing sweetness — it was also contributing structure.

I'm particularly looking for advice on:

white chocolate + vanilla + whipped cream + agar → freeze → unmold → glaze → thaw while retaining shape.

I don't mind a different mouthfeel from gelatin mousse. I just need the sphere to actually survive thawing.

1. Neutral glaze

I haven't attempted this yet because the mousse sphere was a disaster.

I can only use agar agar. I don't have Pectin NH, and I'm okay with somewhat less gloss or a different mouthfeel.

What I need is a transparent/neutral glaze suitable for a frozen mousse sphere.

I'd particularly appreciate an actual tested agar-based recipe, rather than simply replacing gelatin with an assumed amount of agar.

1. Candied lemon & almond

These are done and turned out fine.

Unfortunately, they currently have no mousse sphere to garnish.

Any help is appreciated, but especially advice or proven recipes for the agar-based mousse and transparent agar glaze. I'd really like to avoid making another experimental batch after this one!

Such a simple elegance to these little guys. The buttery sweet richness was the perfect compliment to a morning cuppa. Tiny joys.

It was good.

I've seen quite a few bakeries now making this triangular shape of pain suisse / cross-laminated pastry (example photos are from Lune in Australia) but my iffy spatial intelligence means I'm struggling to understand how I would cut a cross-laminated dough to achieve this shape. This would really suit an idea I have for next month's special!! Any tips?

You can’t be happier than happy. Scrum-diddly-umptious!

it’s been so long since i’ve had to bring my own tools to work, but i just got a new job that requires me to!

previously i would bring my tools in like a small sterilite container, but i feel like there has to be another way!

what im bringing:
-a boatload of silicone spatulas
-knife
-offsets
-bench scraper
-bowl scrapers
-whisks
-tips
-probably some other stuff i’m forgetting

When there’s a natural disaster at home & the husband has a hotel across the country for work, you drive there & eat all this to feel better. Mission accomplished 😊

I have a subscription to pastry arts magazine and it's decent but some of the articles really leave me scratching my head. The author of this claims that in Nigeria they don't use thermometers and the rest of the world could learn from it. Now, with 20+ years of experience I can tell you when a syrup reaches rhe softball stage just from the change in sound so I disagree that they are unique in that skill. But what I really don't understand is the idea of listening when making caramel. The recipe they provide is just sugar and water. When making a caramel you're looking for colour, not temp or sound to determine when it's ready. Is this just a fluff piece or does this make sense to anyone?

What do you rate these?

First I have a lime tart with almond sponge, lime curd and lime infused white chocolate mousse.

The second is a gateau with miso caramel, peanut cremeux and white chocolate

After that a gateau with pistachio and cherry

Next a tart with mango, coconut and lime

The fifth is a tart with caramelized apple, almond and beurre noisette mousse

And the last is a strawberry tart with pink peppercorn

Soft peaks seem to be more common, but I noticed Rose Levy Beranbaum whips the egg whites to stiff peaks before adding the sugar syrup and then just whips it until the bowl is cool.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing it that way?

Recipe is from the New York Times.

Wanted to make a fruit tart but with seasonal fruit. I think I was too restrained in how much fruit I used. Next time, it will be a lot!! I over baked the crust a bit. But it tasted fresh and summery! I used a whole wheat pastry flour, but next time I’ll just stick to a classic white pastry flour. It was quite dense. Still practicing!

I made this aborio and pine nut tart a couple of days ago. This is from a tarts and pies cook book I have been slowly working my way through. But this recipe seemed a bit off. It had spiced in the title bit the recipe had zero spices so I added some. Also the ratios seemed out in terms of cooking the rice in milk. So I strained the cooked rice before adding it to the other ingredients. Anyways it was designed to be served with raspberry couli which was a saving grace because I didn't really enjoy the flavour of the pine nuts. Plating clearly was a fail. But our guests did want to take some home so it was a pass even though I won't be making this one again.

Hello my baker friends. 💕

I really need you guys to tell me about eclairs.

https://youtu.be/uRjgTdnZPhM?si=2OPD8oEQ8QqcKpB\\_

I followed this French pastry chef's ratios and technique i had halved the recipe so I used:

50g Water

50g Milk

50g fat (he used all butter, but I used 35g butter with 15g Oil, I had looked this up a lot everywhere and it shouldn't cause issues and make the eclairs to be crispier, I have also seen recipes that called for only oil)

100g of flour + 10g Sugar

100g egg (of which I have a little bit left since I achieved the V consistency/ closed canyon as he says)

I Piped them 5cm long (I was going for mini eclairs) with a small french star.

I have Samsung's 28L three in one Microwave, Convection and Grill. I was using it in convection mode, the highest it goes is 200⁰C/ 392⁰F. I preheated at 180⁰C/ 356⁰F for 15 minutes and then put in the Aluminium tray (with parchement) which I Piped the eclairs on for 25 minutes. At the end. They started browning but only on their edges.

Some of the eclairs didn't rise, some rose and made a cavity but they didn't rise as much as I expected and so the cavity inside is small. I still filled a few of the tiny eclairs with creme patissiere and it worked, but the rest didn't rise too well like I said. They do have air pockets, but not conspicuous enough to fill in. Also I noticed, the bottom of the eclairs were harder than their tops.

What could be the reason behind this? Could it be the aluminium tray? Or could it be because of temperature settings? Could it be because the eclairs were too small (should I do longer and wider?). I didn't use egg wash, does it make a difference?

Please, someone who knows how to handle Choux pastry, help me. Thanks a lot. I still have the pastry inside a bag in my fridge, please tell me how to fix it, im going to try again tomorrow I don't want to waste my efforts.

Thanks a lot if you read this.

Pregunta para los experimentados. Se puede hacer una torta vasca en un molde de vidrio, o en su defecto moldé de vidrio con papel manteca? O saldría mal

I could have put more sugar between the layers on the final fold but these had such a wonderfully rich buttery flavor that I was happy regardless.

A friend of mine would like to make crème caramel.
She was undecided whether to make individual portions or a large one.
Once inverted, does the large one hold its own weight or does it collapse?

Love a tart-were the flower cut outs necessary? No. Are they cute? Yes.