"We need bags of caramel corn" is often a phrase I say for every special event, holiday, private dining dinner.

 I think in my six plus years we have giving out more than we sell, I take with me everywhere doctors,
trips back home, to my friend in seattle, to the neighbors, I can't go anywhere now without having to bring caramel corn, my last hair cut has a trade for caramel corn. For me it's the act of doing something that no one else does I mean name me one other person who supplies a Diabetic Doctor with a sugar rush.

Every event we do as a restaurant has some sort of packaged goods to give out, but for me the caramel corn is the people request the most, we always have some bagged for when we give tours of the kitchen to customers its like a extra bonus to my new friends.

There is a couple things that make the caramel corn nice:

 we use special popcorn called magic mushroom popcorn that pops round, instead of into a clover shape it allows for better coating of the caramel when mixing, doesn't break into pieces stays nice and light. I was watching the Food Network one night and it said Cracker Jacks uses this corn, so after a couple phone calls and some googleing we had a bag.

salt is key also I like a salt with a bigger grind than table salt we use Fleur Del Sel which is a french sea salt, that when you eat the caramel corn you get these pops of salt flavor than tones down the sweetness of the caramel.

you can't count out good quality ingredients also, we use butter, brown sugar, molasses, corn syrup, baking soda, salt, and roasted spanish peanuts, thats it no filler or preservatives, no artificial flavoring.

Allow the caramel to cook, when someone makes for the first time I need to watch because they feel like the sugar is cooked to high of a temperature but I make sure they stir the pot and take the temperature in multiple spots, some time the flame can really throw off your temp, then if you mix to early it will crystalize and then you have bird feed.


So when we get open I will need baggers because we are going to the streets of Henderson hardcore and I will have caramel corn stocked and ready to roll out. Maybe one bag to everyone in the city

Sorry I have been backed up on the post, it's been a long week.

Finally made something edible out of this dough we have working on for awhile the idea is a so called "Mexican" hamburger bun. My thoughts are it should have the texture of a regular hamburger bun with the taste of tamale dough the overall idea is for someone that is opening a hamburger joint and wanted something different. Well he came to the right place we are the different bakers

First recipe we made with cornmeal it just didn' have enough corn flavor, very dense, and the cornmeal made the crust spotty. Next try we used masa de harina  and replaced some flour and water from our Challah bread, well we mixed some hockey pucks not enough water in the dough but good flavor, and the color was really yellow. 


With the third try I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do first I need white masa, so this required a trip to 
Mariana's which I got to say this place has the best costomer service of any grocery store I have been in Flamingo and Peco's they rock by the time I paid for my bag of white corn flour I had got a free demo on making Horchata 
which is a rice milk drink with cinnamon, vanilla, sugar. the reason i ask most restaurants use the horchata mix and i wanted to taste the real thing. 


Finally get back to work make the next dough same porpoations of the last recipe just added more water, it was like a coupletely different dough proofed well after shaping, looked great in the oven, and smelled like a tamale factory when they came out the oven, when you broke it open smelled just like a tamale like going to grandma's house one bakery said.


The taste was good, might need more of a corn taste to stand up against a charcoaled burger, so we are in the processes of mixing one more dough for fun with double the corn flour inside so for the next couple family meal dinners we will be eating our new bread MASACHALLAH.


The different projects are coming along good, got pushed back on my exite plan from work until September
so that will give some extra time to get everything ready. This week looking to buy a nice mixer brand new its to big for one restaurant they want to trade or I can buy discounted well so will go for it.

Some very nice people dropped me off a chef coat and pants for Joseph,
they looked so cute. At three months he could be the youngest baker ever hired.

I know there is child labor laws but is there baby labor laws? because he is read.

long day at work he just wanted to relax in his favorite shirt

Many of you have had these already so there doesn't need to write life story about these golden treats of love. What I can say is there is much love to make these waffles, not you typical mix where you just add the dry and the wet and use.

These waffles have made me very popular and basically I can sum them as a breakfast dish with love. Its one of those things we started with a idea and a recipe and starting making and adjusting, then make again, adjust again after a few trial and errors we have been rolling this out for the last 5 years here is a picture of them as a dinner dessert in the future this is how they need to be displayed for breakfast just grab a section and spread the house made jam, or beautiful "nutella" that we make from these awesome hazelnuts from my friend at Trufflebert Farms in Oregon these hazelnuts are huge so fresh they are soft like a strawberry incredible flavor mixed with some milk chocolate.

Every once in awhile we come up with a idea that makes me wonder if it's already been done, because
it seems so simple. The thought was make a milkshake that a restaurant could do that would be really great but wouldn't require making ice-cream or buying the ice-cream.

The ice-cream equipment is so expensive when you buy for opening a restaurant plus it would take years to re-coup your initial cost for the machine by then the machine will break, then you add the labor of making base, spinning base, the cost of ingredients are thru the roof heavy cream cost more that some meats and then the product waste, over a year I would think it's better to buy the ice-cream and save the money to hire another cook or porter to help yourself out.

But most people have little option in the restaurant business to buy good ice-cream in fact only one I know that is legit ice-cream maker is my good friend Patrice at Ice Boutique he is hands down the greatest ice-cream maker in the United States, and easily top ten in the world. The nicest French Person you will ever meet.

 But he is only in Las Vegas and this is for a restaurant in another state so I had to think of something......................................

Thats when the idea of making ice-cream base and then freezing it in pans then cutting into cubes came to mind almost like cubes from a ice tray, add this to a blender and add little milk to the shake to spin and there you have it milkshake for home or work, then we added a few more steps, folded into the base the pie crust, and topped with Meringue browned and guess what had Lemon Meringue Pie Milkshake. Now I just need to get the super big straws they use in tapioca tea drinks.

New goal is to fined a outlet for my friends awesome ice-cream and sorbet, he tried the Whole Foods route but not a good fit, sells all wholesale to hotels and restaurants but few place want quality they prefer stuff made with soy mixes artificial flavoring, no dairy ice-cream tons of food coloring and no taste, there is actually so much air whipped into cheap ice-cream that if melted the cheap one that cost less will end up costing more.

When I was back in Michigan I ordered a copy of Food Inc. on DVD to show to my family, and it made me remember about this summer and how we went to the movie as a group of chef's and watched what I think is one of the most insightful food documentaries.

I was again so moved by the movie that I bought three copies when I came home and sent them to a local high-school that has a strong culinary program in hopes that the chef will play the movie every year for her students and maybe pass the other movies to her friends.

Then my good friend at Metro Pizza Chris thought we need to play this movie to more people so he contacted the local university in a effort to play this movie in the theater of the school.

 After the contact at the school thought it was a great idea we brought into the the mix Doug the Pastry Chef at B&B who is hands down the king of the farmer to fork chef he is the probably the only chef in las vegas that has done anything with small farms, he started his own farmers market knows about all the local farmers.

Today we had a meeting and what we want to do is play this movie at the school, around April 12th
a Monday night the week of earth day, try to have a farmers market at the same time maybe earlier.

Now things are just started we had our first meeting today but boy I can't stop thing about the event
we want to make this a free event open to the public enjoy the movie then have a question and answer segment after.

Like I said its the beginning stages just wanted to get the idea out there, its something that is huge in
other cities and something we want to start here.

 

Its the winter season and not to many fruits in season that people will actually buy so we made a nice banana cream pie. Banana's are that go to fruit that never really has a season and can go with many things well. This time we wanted to just let the banana stand on its own, banana cake, banana jam, and banana mousse, garnished with caramelized banana's, we also have slices of fresh banana baked into the cake, sprinkled with ground banana chips, so one tart 6 different styles of banana.

Most our pastries have nuts inside either almond flour, hazelnut, walnuts we are huge nut fans, so we wanted to have a non nut item also wanted to stay away from chocolate even though I love chocolate we need some non chocolate items for those people that are weird.


We added caramel whipped cream and dried vanilla bean, in the bakery for the next couple weeks

Working on some small pretzels to go with cheese fondue really easy just can't be scared of
 the lye which if you ever ate a pretzel that is dark in cooler, shiny on the outside and has that pretzel flavor well you ate lye. Whenever we make I always think "who was the first person to come up with this idea and convinced someone to actually eat it" anyways they came out great and easy will have on the menu.

Pretzel dough shaped into a log, then we cut into bite size pieces.

then we spray a sheet pan with pan release, place the dough bits on there and allow to proof, when fully
rising we freeze.
take the froze dough and dip in the lye bath onto a sheet pan with pan release don't use parchment paper the lye will cause the dough to stick and you will be eating paper.

After dipping sprinkle with a course ground salt we use Malton very clean flaky pieces and nice texture,
then bake right into the oven after sprinkling with salt.
Pretzel bites, like golden brown nuggets of love, they almost didn't make it to the next photo

No cheese this time, but some really great french mustard.

Streusel Topping is one of those things we use on many applications, here is a way we made it a little easier.

 Most recipes say to mix until crumble stage then stop and break into small pieces.

Until one day one of the guys in the bakery had a idea to run it thru the food processor. From that day forward for the last four years we have been doing it this way and it comes out so nice.

Mix everything together until one dough then place on a sheet pan and score into pieces that will fit into the machine, then freeze. When frozen pass thru the grater on the food processor.

Made my way back from Michigan, it was a long week, was able to have a few bright spots.

Did some crazy snow shoveling its a good form of therapy, rode the go-carts around really fun in the
snow. The fresh air was incredible almost forgot what it was like.

So this week it's back to doing what I love to do that is work, meeting monday with some folks from the
coffee company Intelligentsia I want to use there product for the bakery really strong up and coming brand
they supply some really good restaurants in Chicago and L.A.. I went on a tour of there facility in Chicago
over the summer really nice people committed to making a great product.

Then Wednesday doing a walk thru of a new spot that used to be a bagel cafe, nice location on a very busy road in Henderson, small only 1400 sq. ft so it will be cozy and thats what I want full in your face product, that you can smell from the parking lot.

Its funny how many places I walk into and it doesn't smell like what they are cooking, we will always have the smell factor in place.

Well thank you for the kind replies for my mother, I was looking thru some old pictures of the birthday cakes she used to make me boy, they where really nice she made a Sock in the Box cake where the clown pops up in the middle for my second birthday that I wouldn't even know where to start if I had to make. I got two years to practice until Joseph gets ready.