1,573 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 78 videos

This site uses only a few technical cookies necessary for its operation. By continuing to browse, you accept their use.
To find out more...

Tranché, dissociated, failed, in short... missed!

When preparing a sauce or a cream, there's always a (small) risk that the creamy preparation you're working on will suddenly separate into two parts of different textures: a liquid part, for example, and a more or less solid part, or even become lumpy.

It's terribly frustrating, but we'll see that it's not always irremediable, and that you can try to make up for it with a few simple gestures.

14 K 5/5 (2 reviews)

Keywords for this post:Sauce Cream Tranché Missed Catching up Tip Trick Recovery

Last modified on: June 19^th 2023

For this post: Comment Follow Ask me a question Send to a friend

Tranché, dissociated, failed, in short... missed!

I've already talked to you about the rather special case of warm emulsified sauces (béarnaise, hollandaise) and how to make up for them in the event of tragedy, so I won't go into that again, but this time we'll concentrate a little on creams.

Tranchée?

When a cream "tranche", a french chef word, it's simply no longer homogeneous: instead of a single part, there are several parts in the bowl or saucepan, of different textures, liquid and solid in general.
That's just what "tranchée" means: the taste is unaffected, but the texture is completely, and we amateurs simply say "missed", "failed", "screwed up" or many other terms...

What's happened?

It's difficult to make a general rule but it can be summed up as "There was too much..." or sometimes "There wasn't enough...".
Too much can be an ingredient, a duration, a temperature.
Too much of what? Well, that's where it becomes very much a question of the preparation you were doing, so let's look at a few emblematic cases.

The custard

the custard you started with suddenly turns into a big lumpy mess, you've probably overcooked it by more than 185°F (85°C), or cooked it too quickly (over a hot fire).
To make up for this, try giving it a good whirl with the mixer.

crème anglaise

A ganache

A ganache that tranche is very often a temperature problem: the chocolate begins to set on its own, resulting in lumps, because the temperature of the mixture is heterogeneous.
To make up for this, try putting it in the microwave for a few seconds, before whisking or even mixing vigorously, to bring the mixture back to an even temperature.

ganache chocolat

A mixture of cream + an acidic ingredient

If you add lemon juice directly to crème fraiche (for example), there's a great risk that it will curdle, which is normal, and therefore slice. To avoid this, you can 1) use liquid cream, for which there is less risk 2) add a pinch of bicarbonate of soda to the lemon juice, which will foam up a little but is harmless.
Note that in this case, cream that curdles is unfortunately irrecoverable: your cream has turned into cheese.

crème et jus de citron

To sum up: although cream curdling can be very stressful during preparation, it's not always irreversible, and can often be remedied by a simple gesture.

Lasts posts

The other use for bowl scraper

Your kitchen or bakery utensils may include a horn (left) or a pastry cutter (right). These practical utensils are normally used to scoop the contents of a bowl or salad bowl - the horn - or to cut dough - the pastry cutter. But they also have another, very practical use - let's see what it is.
May 9^th 2026534

The strange foam of potatoes in milk

As you may have already noticed, when you cook potatoes in milk, especially in small pieces (slices or cubes) for a gratin for example, a surprisingly abundant white foam forms on the surface. Where does it come from?
April 26^th 2026939

A little leftover butter

Very often when you're making a cake, your recipe will tell you to melt some butter and mix it into the batter - a classic for cookies, cakes, moelleux and the like. And every time you do this, you'll have to butter the baking tin to prevent the dough from sticking during baking. Naturally,...
April 16^th 20261,0165

A tablet holder

Perhaps you too cook by consulting your recipe on a tablet or phone, and putting it down on your worktop? It's practical, but not the best solution. Here's a look at how you can make an inexpensive, almost universal stand.
March 14^th 20261,7495

Pre-calibrated pastry dough

When making pie dough (shortbread, shortcrust, sweet...), it's always a good idea to make a lot at once, and then divide it into pieces, which you can freeze. I've already pointed out the mistake not to make, which is to form a ball before freezing. It's difficult to roll out afterwards because...
March 9^th 20261,5585

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Other pages you may also like

Cleaning endives

If you buy your endives elsewhere than in supermarkets, and in this case the best is of course from a market gardener, he or she is the one who planted and harvested them, in this case you will have endives full of earth or sand, depending on where they were grown, which is normal and reassuring, we...
March 24^th 202028 K4.6

Egg yolks and caster sugar

We often come across recipes where we need to mix egg yolks with caster sugar. This would appear to be a very ordinary and simple thing to do but, be warned, these two ingredients can behave oddly together.
February 15^th 201885 K 24.3

Is it really necessary to cream egg yolks?

Let’s try and answer a question that crops up in cookery and patisserie, even if it verges on the existential: do the egg yolks in a custard recipe really need to be beaten until pale, or not?
February 28^th 201845 K4.3

Salt and yeast

Let's take a look at an old baker's legend: You may have already read that somewhere in a recipe that uses baker's yeast(bread, pastries, leavened doughs in general) it is often specified "Don't put salt in contact with the yeast, you'll kill it (the yeast)"! Well, that's a belief, and there are...
March 15^th 201975 K4.3

Small, regular pieces

When we cook, bake or pastry, we often have to cut food into small pieces, often cubes, to incorporate them into a recipe or preparation. How do you get regular pieces fairly quickly?
November 28^th 202013 K4.5