a couple o' finds

Sunday turned out to be the busiest Sunday we've ever had. I base all of my views on the number of transactions we make. It has nothing to do with sales dollars. Well, that's not true either, everything has to do with sales dollars. I compare the overall month, to previous months, based on sales $$ for the month. But to compare day to day, Super Bowl Sunday to last Super Bowl Sunday, I look at the count. Again, with our register setup, I'm very secure with it's reporting properties.

I also found a new favorite item here at the bakery. Our lemon tart. One had gotten damaged, either Saturday afternoon or Sunday. Again, back to eatin' outta the stale pile. The tart knocked me out! Can't imagine how good it would be, when it's fresh. I may have mentioned we don't cook the lemon filling with starch, only egg yolks. Being starch free, it doesn't get gummy or chewy. I've seen so many, what bakers call "Starch based fillngs", that after a few days will vulcanize. Kinda like a gummy bear, get chewy like your nevermind. So many times lemon pie will get soggy, not this tart. Crust was crisp, filling was firm but yielding, rather tart. Not sure if I mentioned it, we use double strength, lemon puree. We buy it frozen, from an outfit in California. I buy it, keep it in my freezer, and sell it to a few Chicago baker friends. Rather a pain, cause I gotta buy a pallet at a time to make it affordable. Our customers are worth it. Ties up a lot of room in our freezer, but there is nothing like it. It is the single reason our lemon bars are so popular. We also use "Sugar cured lemon and orange zest". Stuff is awesome! You don't get any bitterness at all, like you would from fresh lemon zest. Although, we still use fresh zest, and fresh lemon juice in some products.

Another discovery, the theory that our new cream whipper, will yield cream with more volume, proved true. For the last twenty years we've been whipping twenty ounces of creme with 2.5 ounces of sugar, to fill twenty four, strawberry paczki. That's one display pan full. Last week, I whipped the creme, the way we always have, in a stand mixer. I filled the paczki, as always. Yesterday, I whipped the creme in our new machine, I had a hard time gettin' it all in them. They were very, very full. Very cool!

Gotta get upstairs, gotta go do some snowblowing. It's startin' to pile up. Forecast for the weekend is good. Sunny, Saturday and Sunday. Just waitin' to hear about next Tuesday.