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Merry Christmas all! Heading to Topeka in a a few hours to spend the day with family.

Christmas in Catalunya … starts on the 25th. So, tonight just some friends over for pica pica. First a dirty martini for the cook … I prepared truita de patates … Some coca (flatbread) with roasted onions, peppers and aubergines, topped with sardines. And one with beixamel, goat cheese, honey, sopprasata and pine nuts … Some giant prawns with garlic & parsley … Cold cuts … And the usual suspects: crisps, olives, pickles, octopus, croquettes and strangely some freshly baked German rye bread … Nice new discovery: A relaxed evening before the big show tomorrow 😎

I'm really a big fan of this book! can't recommend it more highly. She makes baking feel less intimidating, so far everything I've made has turned ouy well.

Traditional cold Christmas lunch. Forgot to chill the Aldi sangria so will have that along with the Pavlova for tea

Spiced Meat Loaf (from Season by Nik Sharma) with Braised Brussels Sprouts and Roasted Potato Wedges - Season has interesting recipes with often many influences and flavor layers like for this meat loaf. It’s made with ground beef, onions, garlic, ginger, garam masala, coriander, cayenne pepper, grated Granny Smith apples, mint, parsley, bread crumbs, eggs and Worcestershire sauce. The glaze is mix of ketchup, pomegranate molasses, light brown sugar, amchur and cayenne pepper. The brussels sprouts were quickly braised with shallots and vegetable broth. The roasted potatoes were pre-cooked and then roasted in the oven just with olive oil and thyme

I am getting ready to turn out the lights and bid all a good night. Just realized that I have been making these Best of Bridge overnight pull-apart cinnamon buns for 29 years now. They are a must have for Christmas br4eakfast/brunch. One year I made my own dough but decided there was no diffrence since it is all about the butter and sugar, so have just used the frozen rolls ever since as Christmas Eve is generally kind of busy.https://www.bestofbridge.com/land-of-nod-cinnamon-buns/

The flu that is going around is pretty severe. Apparently a new strain that the flu shot doesn't cover. My daughter who is an ER nurse says she has never seen so many people, and particularly children in the ER due to flu. I have heard good things about the White Spot Christmas meals - hope you are able to enjoy it. Why does our heating shut down in midwinter instead of in the fall? Our only 10 year old furnace packed it in two days before Christmas last year. Remarkably the company that we bought it from sent a technician at 9:00 am on the 24th and he fixed it!

I'm using a silicone stamp I made from pouring silicone molding material into the cavities I'm coloring, it's the same size. Then I just add color and swab the stamp to get the pattern I like. I guess the question I have is does this interfere with good crystallization even if the cb is well tempered. That's a reasonable suggestion about testing, I'll check the butter on parchment next time I try this. I would think that the fact that most of the surface of my bonbons is very shiny would indicate the cocoa butter is tempered. And I have used the first method successfully on cocoa butter applied by my finger, everything released and the chocolate came out quite shiny. The first problems I had with sticking were when I replicated one of Andrey Dubovik's techniques, blowing on drops of cocoa butter in the cavities. Most of the bonbons came out fine, but a few stuck, see the image below. Then it continued when I made the stamp. What is truly puzzling me is why the stamped bonbons I made today and rolled over to inspect just after shelling were perfect, but then got stuck after adding ganache, capping and de-molding. I don't think the ganache was warm enough at 75F to melt the cb, but I suppose it's possible. Capping wouldn't do it would it? And if it did I would expect sticking near the point where the shell joins the cap. My interpretation of the Harvey method is that you destroy all crystals, then allow only V to form as you never drop the temp low enough for any of the others to do so. At first I didn't get the part in Method 1 about lowering the temp so far, why let any of the other forms proliferate? But recently I ran across a nerdy/science vid on YouTube that explained the reason was that the further below the melting point of V you go, the faster the V crystals form. Even though you get down low enough for IV, V will proliferate very quickly, faster than if you stayed up at 92F or so. Raising the temp back above 78F kills off the IV and you have built a much more extensive network of V in less time. I'm going to try using sylk the next time I mix colored cb, it's the method I've used without fail on bar chocolate and I have lots of sylk. That would take the temperature manipulation regimen out of the equation. Thanks for your feedback, on Christmas Eve no less! Hope you enjoy your holiday. Phil

Christmas Eve dinner. Baked two Tourtiere this year so I would have some to freeze. I froze slices last year and Moe liked having them in the freezer for breakfast or dinner. Served tonight with mashed potatoes with pork gravy, broccoli and Moe had his with the Chile Sauce I made last week.

Hello, I'm a tea love, and I'll share my daily tea brewing experiences and teaware in here.

I like rougui tea that is a kind of oolong tea, this tea has a thick flavor and intense aroma.

As a start, could you say more about what you mean by using a stamp to get the colored cocoa butter into the cavity? What sort of stamp? Are you referring to the hugely popular silicone stamps that make a pattern in the cavity or something else (a sponge perhaps?). I know it's a nuisance, but another check would be to test the cocoa butter before using it. Spread a little on stone or parchment or just waxed paper and wait to see if it firms up and turns from shiny to matte. If it does, then it's tempered regardless of which method you are using for tempering. The traditional method for tempering includes the third step of raising the temperature back up to working temperature (the theory being that all types of crystals formed as you cooled the cocoa butter, so you have to melt the I-IV crystals, leaving type V). Kriss Harvey's method (also used by James Parsons) is not typical, but it seems to work--although I don't quite understand the science behind it.

This looks fabulous, @Duvel. Might you (please) give us a few proportions of ingredients?

Hello All, brand new to this forum and this is my first post. Sorry it's a bit long. I started making chocolate from beans this past October, lots of fun and I've been fairly successful. In the beginning of December I started on bonbons with colored cocoa butter and it's also been fun and for the most part successful. Early attempts at hand brushing and airbrushing colored cocoa butter in the polycarbonate mold cavities were fine, everything was releasing OK. About a week ago I started having problems with the color sticking to the mold, almost always at the crown of the hemisphere. I'm working with colors made from mixing fat dispersible pigments (Roxy and Rich) at around 10%. I've read a number of posts on this forum and elsewhere about it, people point to improper tempering most often, with mold and ambient temperature mentioned as well. I've tried two of the most suggested techniques for tempering the butter. First was heating to 105F (40C), then cooling to 78F (26C), then heating back up to 86F-89F (30C-31C). Today I went with the technique mentioned by Kriss Harvey and others, heat to 100F (38C), then cool to 86F (30C) and use. I had failures in about 1/3 of the 24 cavities of the mold in BOTH situations. The overall process: The molds are washed in warm water with dish detergent, dried and fastidiously cleaned with a cotton puff. With the mold at room temperature I use a stamp to put the color in the cavity, repeatedly working it to get the pattern. Then spray a thin coat of white. I refrigerate briefly then let the mold sit for a couple hours at room temperature. For the shell, I've used both white chocolate and dark, it doesn't seem to matter. Shell thickness is not terribly thin or overly thick compared to what I've seen in demo's online. The shell chocolates are properly tempered with sylk. I refrigerate for 10 minutes after shelling. Then let the molds sit for a number of hours at room temperature before adding ganache (at 75F usually), then refrigerating briefly until the fill sets. Then I cap, again with tempered chocolate at around 89F (32C). After scraping once I add a small amount of chocolate and an acetate sheet, and spread flat with the spatula. Once again I refrigerate briefly. I've been going into the fridge right away and wonder if I should be waiting a bit beforehand, I've seen this suggested but in my lack of experience I don't know why this should matter. After this I have tried waiting just an hour to de-mold, and also waiting about 4 hours. I still get failures here and there. In the early attempts before this problem showed up, I was de-molding within an hour of coming out of the fridge and had good releases, but that wasn't when I was using the stamp to manipulate the color so I'm wondering if that is a factor. Also, I live in the Pacific NW and its been pretty rainy lately, so humidity is high outside, but only around 50% in my home. **Here's something that I did today that puzzles me, and may indicate where the problem lies. After shelling and cooling, I turned over half of the shells in the mold. All were perfect. But after filling, capping and releasing, some of those stuck (???). I expect there is a wealth of experience here, if anyone has anything helpful I'd appreciate it. Thanks in advance. Phil

Tree decorating dinner. Baked potato w Mexican chorizo And what's left of a flancocho for dessert

Grandma style pizza for Christmas Eve dinner.

I didn’t buy it - for the same price I can get two Bresse rabbits … you know, I am a price buyer 😎

With a round of Reblochon from our journey yesterday I opted forTartiflette for dinner … Potatoes, onion, ham, (Catalan) white wine & crème fraîche, all topped with Reblochon - and baked until golden 🤗 Enjoyed with said white wine. Very good and very filling …

The early bird catches the worm. I missed out.

Yes and he's growing up so fast! Also, I've never seen a chicken like that.

Damn that looks so good

Chicken => O.K. Burlap => not so much.

It's Poulet de Bresse! Of course it's expensive!