A few baking questions

[drooel]

1) What does commercial sour cream mean? Is itr just regular sour cream?

2) Is orange zest orange rind?

3) Whatr is Paste food colouring compared to regulat foof colouring

4) What is dark and white chocolate confectionary coating. At first I thought it might have been like regular confectioners' sugar but my recipe says to melt it.

Thank you

[chefATL]

1. Commercial sour cream has a slightly higher fat content. Regular should be just fine though.

2. Pretty much the same, just make sure your not using any of the pith which is the white part of the rind.

3. Can't really answer this one as I'm not much of a baker.

4. Confectionary coating is also called couvature. Dark chocolate should be 64% and white chocolate 35%.

[drooel]

Thank you very much.

[momoreg]

Paste food coloring contains less liquid, and you can find it online. Just google it.

Coating is not couverture. It has added fats, which means it's easier to use. It is not 100% chocolate, so it is much more forgiving than real chocolate. You can find it in craft stores, or any store that has a Wilton section.

[panini]

and usually does not need to be tempered

[sucrechef]

There are actually two different kinds of paste food coloring and it does make a difference which one you use. The difference is that although most food products are water based or water soluable, some are fat based or fat soluable and if you try to add a water based food coloring to a fat based product it will not mix properly and you will get little streaks or tiny dots of color rather than a uniform blend. (The same will happen if adding a fat based coloring to a water based product). Think of it like trying to mix oil and vinegar ... they don't mix well or stay mixed.

For most food products, which will be water based, either liquid or regular paste food coloring will be fine. However, for any fat based food product like chocolate or most cake icings high in fat content you will need a fat based food coloring (commonly labeled as icing coloring). You can usually find this at any store carrying Wilton products.