If you'd like useful suggestions, the first thing you need to do is post your recipe.
Peanut butter cups are made by piping peanut gianduja into tempered chocolate shells, allowing the gianduja to set up, then capping with a thin layer of more tempered chocolate.
Make the gianduja by grinding 1 part roasted peanuts with 1 part sugar in a food processor until smooth, then fold in 1 part melted chocolate. The resulting gianduja will have a smoother texture and set up more quickly if you warm it to about 40C then work it a few moments on the counter with a spatula before you fill the shells.
Tempering chocolate is a topic for a different post.
There are plenty of quick & dirty shortcut methods, but the above is how artisan chocolatiers (e.g., me and my staff) teach and do it.
I’ve been wanting some pecan pie! My grandma used to make it using pecans from her tree and as a kid I never appreciated that enough. Now I have to buy my own pecans 😃
Hi, good job on the canelés. Yours do seem denser than what seems typical, though the outside looks like the right color. It looks like the Seriouseats recipe photos also show a more open structure. I’ve bought them many times and made them a few times, but with copper molds, and posted about it while back. You can check my pics and recipe for comparison if you want, though the difference in molds may result in different outcomes. www.reddit.com/r/Baking/comments/5wjnn5/canelé/
Some ideas - Did you weigh your ingredients? Was the confectioner’s sugar a poorly controlled variable in terms of corn starch inclusion? Was the oven thoroughly preheated?
I also see that the one in the cross section pic looks to have sunken in quite a bit on the sides compared to the one in the pic showing the exterior. Did that happen as they cooled? Was it cut before or after it cooled? It might be a clue of some sort, but it’s hard to say.
Thank you for taking the time to reply to my post in such detail! I checked out yours on reddit and they really do look amazing.
Regarding your advice, I made the recipe three times in the last month, weighing the ingredients, and the consistency was pretty much the same across all batches. I was only able to optimize the browning somewhat by leaving it on 500F for ~20 minutes instead of 15.
Good catch that my recipe does not include corn starch. I guess they are relying on the confectioner’s sugar including it but I checked mine and it really just is 100% sugar. I’ll try adding some corn starch to the next batch.
I don’t think I allowed the oven to pre-heat properly. It’s a pretty simple one without a fan and I put the Canéle in as soon as the heating indicator turned off. I’ll let it sit for a bit longer to allow it to heat up more evenly next time.
The one I cut in half for the cross-section pic was still warm so I might have squished it a bit. I’ll post pics of the next batch once I get around to making it. Thank you again for all your advice!
If you also are daring, leave them in the oven until they get a bit darker than what you have in this photo. The extra sugar on the outside caramelizes and adds a very distinctive but wonderful flavor.
I'd say add 5-7 minutes to bake time than your recipe calls for. After cooking, cookies should be mahogany (not blackened) instead of tan.
Flour Water Salt Yeast, by Ken Forkish, is the one I go back to over and over again to understand the why and how of bread baking. “Why does it react this way?” or “How do I modify this recipe?”, the explanations and techniques are something I find very helpful.
Bread and pastry and other delicious things
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