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Neil, Sorry to pry, but I was curious what sort of Flexipan you're using - perhaps a Savarin? Cheers,

Saturday's experiment in transfer making involved: adding white color powder to my cocoa butter mixture in an effort to make it more opaque; making sure the consistency of the mixture was sour-creamy rather than liquid; and using a plastic bench scraper to apply more pressure to the "ink" to force more through the screen. The results were encouraging. Adding more white helped "darken" the color. Using a less liquid "ink" and applying more pressure seemed to push more onto the acetate. It's still not as strong an image as I would like, but it's far closer than any previous effort. The thicker "ink" helped, but I still got some smear on the plastic - probably from applying too much pressure. I'm also thinking the screen I'm using is too fine (bought it already in a frame at an art store), and the cocoa butter is having a tough time "oozing" through. The lines of the screen fabric are also visible on the finished image. I'm going to look around for something less fine. Also - does anybody think using a roller rather than a straight squeege (like the scraper) would work any better? Making incremental progress. Maybe pictures soon. Cheers,

Wendy & Keith, thanks for the input. Today I tried to just paint my colored cocoa butter mixture directly onto the acetate to see how it opaque it really is. It took two thick coats to get a nearly solid layer onto the medium. The transfer was better than through the screen, but still not nearly as bright as a commercial transfer sheet. The idea of adding white to the cocoa butter makes a lot of sense, as it should add density to the base. I'll try that next. I've got some PCB colored cocoa butter here, so I'll try that too. Thanks & cheers,

I'm not sure how white chocolate might work. Until I started this project I'd never done any screen printing at all, so call me NEWBIE. Cheers,

This screen printing business to make chocolate transfer sheets is way harder than it looks. But I think I'm making progress. 1) I designed a logo in Pagemaker, then printed it in black ink onto a transparency sheet. 2) Next I prepared the screen by laying down a layer of emulsion front and back, letting it dry, then exposing the transparency for 17 minutes with a 300w light source. Developing was just a matter of washing the screen with lukewarm water. I used regular emulsion, rather than food safe, because this is just experimentation at this point. 3) The third step was to make the actual transfer sheet. For these early trials I used art store acetate as the base medium. I melted cocoa butter and colored it with Chef Rubber powders (going for a yellow-gold). 4) After the stencil was dry I poured tempered chocolate over the logos, let them set and pulled them up. Here are some of the things I've learned so far: - Steps 1) and 2) are really easy. Success is almost 100% assured. - Step 3 is fraught with opportunities to fail. - Make sure that your cocoa butter is not too liquid. Lloyd says it should be the consistency of sour cream, and Lloyd's the man. I had a lot of trouble getting it to that viscosity and more trouble holding it there. - I started off using a standard printing squeege. This seemed to force too much material through the screen, so that the edges smudged badly. - Then I tried a small palette knife. The smudging wasn't so bad, but it was still a problem. - Next I tried a small artist's sponge, daubing the cocoa butter into the stencil. This seemed to give me more control, with cleaner images, but I wasn't always able to get enough color onto the acetate sheet. - So then came the ultimate test - pouring chocolate onto the acetate and see what happens. Well, what happened was that the image transferred nicely, but it was so dull and dark as to be nearly invisible. That was disappointing. Now it's back to the drawing board (or the mixing bowl) to try some other variations. I'm thinking that my colored cocoa butter isn't saturated enough - that the color needs to be stronger and more opaque. I'm also going to try a different kind of plastic as the transfer sheet medium. My chocolate, BTW, was 58% Cacao Berry couverture. Any thoughts from fellow e-gulleteers would be most welcomed. I'd attach photos, but there's nothing particularly photogenic as yet. Cheers,

We've had great success with the focaccia recipe in Peter Reinhart's BREAD BAKER'S APPRENTICE. It's hard to say if your gray dough is from grease or metal. With our 80qt Hobart we sometimes get the paddle or hook scraping against the bowl, with a resulting gray streak in the dough. If the entire mass of dough was gray I'd be inclined to go along with the grease idea. If your paddle or hook is scraping on the KA, there is an adjustment that lets you raise or lower the attachment so the rubbing stops. Check your instruction book or go to the KA website. Cheers

I searched the Demarle sites with no luck. Can you provide a direct link? Cheers,

We've got 20 of the Silform baguette sheets and the bakers are very happy with them. They hold up pretty well, but we have a couple that began to fray a few weeks after we started using them. We tried the metal pans, but are much more satisfied with these. Cheers,

I read about a chocolatier in Santa Cruz, California, Lloyd Martin, who uses his computer to make designs, then prints them onto sheets with food safe ink and transfers the images to his pieces. Check out the article in the local paper. I know there are printers that cake bakers use with "icing sheets" that you can lay on top of the product, but Martin prints finely detailed logos and such to transfer to his chocolates. Does anybody have experience in using this medium for transfers? Cheers

In CHEZ PANISSE FRUIT, Alice Waters writes: "To extract the kernels, first roast the pits in a 350 degree oven for ten to fifteen minutes: this makes them easier to crack open and also destroys an enzyme that generates poisonous prussic acid when 'noyaux' (the kernels) are mixed with water. Use a nutcracker or place the pits on a hard surface and tap with a hammer. To be absolutely sure the noyaux are safe to eay, roast them again for a few minutes after they have been extracted." Cheers,

Have you tried www.abe.com? They have a couple thousand book sellers from all over the world. As of Monday afternoon they showed 16 Calvel baking books, though none appear to be the one you're after. Good luck. Cheers,

We've got a Taylor 104, the 3qt. machine. My preference would have been the Carpigiani, but money was tight. The Taylor turns out fine ice creams, but there's no easy way to add things like chunks and nuts and stuff. The extruder is very basic (the little gate always reminds me of Hannibal Lector's face mask, with the bars over the mouth). In terms of cleaning, it's not so bad - disassembly is pretty easy. And in terms of reliablity, it's been running well, no problems. Still, if you can afford it, get a Carpigiani. Cheers,

Scott123 is right - go to a bakery to buy fresh yeast. But check it out carefully. We get shipments every week, but even then we sometimes get a box that's not in very good shape, probably because it wasn't kept at the proper (i.e., refrigerated) temperature during storage or shipping. You must keep fresh yeast cool and it's always a good idea to keep it tightly wrapped. The stuff will deteriorate with age - you'll see it in the color. It will go from a lightish beige brown to a darker brown., losing some potency in the process. If it begins to grow mold then just chuck it. A pound of fresh yeast is, for the home baker, a huge amount. We can go through a pound or more an hour, but we're mixing 50-80lb batches. A typical home receipt is only going to use an ounce or less. If you do buy from a baker, see if they'll sell you less than a pound. We often have small 4-8oz blocks in the cooler, so I assume other baker must too. Good luck. Cheers,

Neil, My guitar came with such a metal sheet. Are you cutting first, then sliding the sheet under the product, rotating it and sliding the sheet back out? I can see how that might work with temper coated ganache, but what about pates? Cheers

Gary, Therein lies the rub. The base on my guitar does not rotate, so the product has to. Matfer sells special pieces of plastic called "guitar sheets" which help facilitate the turn. The plastic is really soft, so the wires simply push into the sheet after cutting the product. After you lift the frame, you can rotate the guitar sheet 90 degrees and make your second cut. We found that cutting marshmallows was easier without the plastic, but it helps a lot for ganache and the pates. I'm not sure about caramel. Cheers,

A guitar is really quite a handy instrument to have around. It makes cutting pates de fruits square a zip. And I can't imagine cutting marshmallows without one. Many chocolatiers use them for cutting pieces of ganache prior to dipping. Does it warrant the expense (mine cost about $1200, with three cutting frames)? There are others ways of getting the job done, to be sure. But it does save a lot of time. And it makes your pieces look more professional because they are uniform. I'm glad I bought one. If you have a good hand sprayer and lots of hot water, they're not too bad to clean up. Ours happens to fit nicely in our triple sink, so sanitizing is a snap. The wires loosen up with time, but most guitars come with tools to "tune" them back up. Occasionally a wire will break, but it's no big deal to replace it. Before attempting to build one yourself, at least see one up close. These things tend to be built like brick merde-maisons. Cheers,

Mel, Congratulations on reaching 20,000 views! Cheers,

Mel, Pregel makes two different pistachio pastes - the neon green one that tastes disgusting and the Scilian, which isn't bad at all, and right there in town if you need it in a real hurry. Cheers,

Mel, Have you tried Pregel's Sicilian Pistache paste? I got a sample from Provvista right there in Portland. The flavor is good and the color seems reasonably natural. Cheers,

We feel your pain here in Northwestern Montana. Gangbuster Christmas then, WHAM! It's like everybody is hibernating, awaiting the coming of spring (alas, not until May up here). I can't blame them for hibernating - it's going down to minus 25 tonight. But still, you'd think somebody would want some fine baked goods. We're having an "Islands Festival" this week, promoting eight days of "Carribbean specialties," like callaloo soup, Jamacian jerk chicken hot pockets and Meyer lemon and key lime desserts. It just started today. Like most shops, we're going to promote the heck out of Valentine's Day, but also will push Super Bowl Sunday and even Presidents' Day (how about "Lincoln Log" cakes, based on a classic buche?). We'll hang in there if you hang in there! Cheers,

You should be able to get a decent refractometer on E-bay for well less than $100. If you're doing pate de fruits, you need one in the 40-80 range. While one of these "scopes" is not necessary, as others have said, it sure takes the guess work out of making pate. I use a thermometer now just to monitor when to add my ingredients. Once they're all in I switch to the refractometer. You want to aim for 72-75 Brix. When you've hit that, turn off the heat, add the tartartic or citric acid, stir quickly, then pour. A properly made pate will begin to gel almost immediately. A kilo of puree will make a full Half Sheet of pate de fruit. Good luck and have fun. Cheers,

If you're going to be making a good bit of bread over time, try this: Get a cheap ice chest (either styrofoam or plastic). Lay the chest on its side. Put a 25w or 40w bulb on a clamp socket and put that into the chest. If you have a probe or instant read thermometer, put that in there too. Open, or remove, the lid and use cloth towels drapped over the top and down the front to regulate the heat inside. With practice you should be able to control the warmth within +/- 5 degrees over a range of 75-120 degrees. When you don't need this "mightywonder proofer" just pack it up and store it. Cheers,

Jason, Fascinating stuff. There's a lot on the web about making this stuff, but mostly for demo purposes. Dan Sherman in Oregon thought about an LN ice cream parlor. Check him out at: Dan Sherman's LN Ice Cream Page This is something I'd like to try at our shop. Anybody know of anyone else doing this on a commercial basis? Cheers,

Gingerbread can be funny stuff. We discovered that we could drill, cut and sand ours. Keith, the cabinet maker, was able to make very accurate cuts using a band saw and a jig saw. Of course, you need quite dense g'bread, but not too mosit. We also discovered that a thickness of about 5/16ths of an inche was best. Thinner and you risk structural collapse. Thicker and you get an undesirable heaviness to the finished piece. Make sure you let your pieces dry absolutely flat, or your walls and roofs will warp. Cheers,

Here's one photo of our completed gingerbread house - I'll add some more soon. A friend who is a professional cabinet maker (and perfectionist) cut the pieces out (after baking) and did much of the wall and roofing work. We think it turned out pretty well for a first effort in this medium. Check my earlier post for a description of some of the techniques we used. Happy Thanksgiving to all. Cheers