MelissaH

Yes, I did. I've been using plastic piping bags, which I then heat-seal (no vacuum). I can put them straight into the fridge. I can also snip the tip and use them, and then carefully push the filling out of the tip, re-seal, and stash in the fridge for later. After the second sealing, though, I have to transfer the contents to another bag for further re-use because I'd wind up with too big a hole if I cut the end off again. I'm finding it a mixed blessing: my chocolate seems to thicken up too quickly for me to get a nice thin un-lumpy coating inside my molds. I suspect I'll have less of a problem next time I try it, as the weather's heating up at last. The intended recipients said that my fillings were spot-on for the flavor I intended. Which is good. MelissaH

I tried again at home today. (Well, I made most of the fillings a while ago, and they've been chilling out in my fridge until this morning.) Here are the results: I had better luck making the shells this time---more chocolate melted did the trick. My main problem seems to be keeping the chocolate melted and fluid for long enough to fill more than one mold at a time. By the second mold, it was thickening up enough that my shells were noticeably thicker, and I was fighting it the whole rest of the batch of shells. I used dark chocolate this time, in part to help me differentiate this new batch from the older batch, and because I wanted the dark chocolate flavor. The other issue I found was that my fillings were much colder than the chocolate. As I said, the fillings were, for the most part, made and stashed in the fridge. I let them sit at room temp for about an hour, and everything loosened up enough to come out of the plastic pastry bags fairly easily. The biggest problem I had was that the fillings were not really loose enough to flow by themselves---the strawberry jam with kirsch butter ganache that I'd made for the first batch really needed to be pushed into the shell with a cornstarch-coated finger. I don't know if the cold fillings caused any temper issues. As far as fillings: I made one filling this morning, to make up half of the shot that was bought for my husband at a local watering hole. I did a half-batch of Greweling's "spiked eggnog" butter ganache. I'd read in another thread about eggnog chocolates that this particular filling wound up tasting more like spices and rum than like egg. So since I'm aiming for the flavors of Captain Morgan Spiced Rum in my filling, I figured it would do the trick for me. For the spices, instead of nutmeg and vanilla bean, I used half a teaspoon of speculoos spices that I purchased (as a mix) in Belgium. And because I was only doing a tiny half-batch, I mixed it up in a bowl by hand, not with a stand mixer. I didn't necessarily want to get the filling tremendously aerated, since I'd be putting it into chocolate shells rather than piping pretty little stars on top of chocolate disks. I made some chocolates with this spiced rum filling alone, and others in combination with one that I'd made earlier, by following the flowing caramel recipe but using brown sugar instead of white. I was aiming for a butterscotch flavor (rather than caramel) and I think this did the trick. (Thanks, isomer!) The brown sugar started out dark enough that I couldn't use color to judge when it was fully cooked; next time I make caramel I'll need to use a thermometer so I know about what I'm after. I did some with just the butterscotch filling. And others I did with the caramel I'd made originally, so I can do a head-to-head tasting. Once again, everything unmolded. I discovered today that it really helps to clean off the top of the mold while the chocolate is still melted, because it helps the finished candies to unmold cleanly. It's becoming obvious to me that a slightly warmer room could be a benefit, in that the chocolate won't harden quite so fast. In another month, I'm sure it won't be a problem here, in my non-air-conditioned house. MelissaH

And, interestingly enough, my favorite coffeehouse here uses only skim milk when they make chai, because they say it holds the foam better. MelissaH

What time of year are you thinking of, Steve? MelissaH

And I guess it wouldn't be out of the question to actually measure the volume of my molds, via the mass of water they hold, and extrapolate to an amount of filling. I actually had a little bit of an issue with chunkiness. When I tempered, I did it in the microwave using the seed method, and I always wound up with some remnants of solid chocolate that never completely melted. Because I didn't have a whole lot of chocolate to begin with, I'd wind up with chunks in my mold that didn't always come out. I'm guessing that I either need to start with more chocolate to begin with, so I can avoid scooping out the chunks, or I need to make a point of pulling them out before I try to fill the molds to make shells. The chunks either stayed in the shells as solid lumps of chocolate (not necessarily bad, just not what I was after) or when I pulled them out, left voids in my shells (bad). BTW, my 8-cup pyrex measures are just a little wider than the widest of my molds. It was much easier to work in a square container over the weekend! Do you think it's worth actually doing something to thin out the chocolate that I use for the shell, like adding extra cocoa butter to it? Although, given the tiny scale I work on, it seems like a waste to dedicate a batch of chocolate specifically to making shells. I'm guessing that part of my issue might be that the chocolate is setting before I get rid of the bubbles. My kitchen does tend to be cool (some might say chilly) at this time of year. (Have you warmed up yet, Kerry? ) Maybe I'll try painting in next time, if I can find a non-shedding brush. MelissaH

Good point, Kerry. Fortunately for me, I have only chocolate-colored chocolate. That's a lot less scary than green. Fuzzy, however, would still send me running. MelissaH

I'm even more in awe of what happened over the weekend, now that I've tried doing some chocolate-making at home. (I should explain: I'd seen it done many times, even in my own kitchen, but until the weekend workshop I'd never actually tried it myself.) The successful parts: Tempering went smoothly in the microwave last night, both for the milk chocolate (for shells and fillings) and the dark chocolate (for fillings) I used. This morning, I did a second batch of milk chocolate, for capping. I love having an IR thermometer, and hope the friend I stole it from doesn't remember that I have it. I once again made a batch of flowing caramel to (IMHO) exactly the perfect amount of caramelization. I'd had practice, because isomer, merlicky, and I made a batch on Saturday, but this went a lot faster because I know my stove better than I know the portable burner we used. The caramel cooled nicely, and even set up with a little bit of a "skin" because I let it sit (uncapped) in the shells overnight. I made another half-batch of raspberry log filling. Except that this time I used seedless strawberry jam and kirsch, because that's what I had in the house. For whatever reason, this time it mixed together more smoothly and set harder than the batch we did in NOTL. I don't have rulers, so I just put the batch into a piping bag. Every last one I made released from the mold. Nothing leaked out the backs of these, so I must be getting at least a little better at capping. My fillings stored quite nicely in sealed plastic piping bags---and I was even able to clean out the chopped-off tips and seal them up again so I have in-the-bag storage the easy way. The kitchen didn't wind up with chocolate smeared everywhere, and my husband was only minorly annoyed with me using up so much kitchen space at dinnertime. I remembered to write down which filling went into which mold, so we don't need to guess later. I had fun doing it all. The less-successful parts, or What I Learned: The third filling I made wound up more firm than I'd have liked. I'm trying to figure out a butterscotch filling, and it made sense to me that a butter ganache would help to amp up the butteriness of whatever else I used. So last night after I made the strawberry filling and made my shells, I weighed the leftover tempered and melted chocolate (both milk and dark), added about a third of their weight in room-temperature butter, and once those were mixed up I added a bit of DeKuyper Butterscotch Burst schnapps. (Hey, I live in a college town, and here, this is considered "good stuff!") But (duh!) by this morning, it had hardened more than I would have liked it to. In retrospect, I probably should have added a bit of cream, to help keep things softer. And if I'd really been thinking, I would have browned the butter first also. This will definitely need some more work on my part, because the butterscotch flavor is more subtle than I'd like. Maybe ditch the chocolate for a gooey caramel made with brown sugar? I don't yet have a good feel for how much filling I need to fill a mold's worth of shells. As a result, I have lots of extra fillings (albeit in easy-to-store-and-reuse piping bags in my fridge). I don't think I melted enough chocolate to properly fill the molds I used, because I kept hitting the bottom of the bowl with my ladle. But here's the catch: I do this at home, on a teensy-weensy scale. I don't necessarily want to keep tons of candy around, because my husband and I certainly don't need to eat it. So, what to do if I only want to fill three molds? Air bubbles in my shells are becoming the bane of my existence. I don't think I tapped the molds against the table enough, when I was in the process of making the shells last night. (The relatively tiny amount of chocolate I had available also didn't help.) My caps didn't leak, but they aren't perfectly flat either. Again, I think this is related to the fact that this morning I didn't melt a whole lot of chocolate, since I only needed to cap three molds. (The leftover, I poured out onto a parchment-lined sheet pan, let it harden, broke it into pieces, bagged the pieces, and put them in with the rest of my supply to use next time.) So, here are the end results: The entire collection, ugly bottoms and air bubbles and all. The clovers (back right) have the flowing caramel, the truffley-looking ones (back left) are butterscotchish, and the triangles (in the front) have the strawberry-kirsch filling I cribbed from the raspberry log recipe. A few of them, from the top... ...and more of a side view. I probably don't have to worry about shelf life, as I'm sure they won't last very long. MelissaH

Glad you liked them. I took a sheet of acetate (8.5 by 11 inches, the sort that could be used on an overhead projector, held landscape in front of me) and used a fairly wide paintbrush to paint wide stripes of yellow (or was it orange?) cocoa butter (quite warm, therefore quite runny) across at the top and bottom. In the middle, I put a wide stripe of warm runny red cocoa butter, taking care to leave a small gap between the stripes so as not to contaminate the brush. Then I twisted the cotton on a q-tip the way Brian showed us, to be sure I wouldn't leave cotton fibers behind, and "scribbled" up and down across all three stripes all the way across, starting at the right edge and moving towards the left because I'm left-handed, to blend the colors and open up some other areas. And then I set it aside to cool and harden. I really like the way the colors show up on the white chocolate! Thanks for getting the photo so I could see the end result, John. Great to hear that you bucked the odds and your luggage arrived with the icewine intact! MelissaH

Absolutely, if I can get there and afford both the time and the fiscal cost. Very important, see the part about "if I can get there." I somehow got lucky that (for once) an event was being held within a reasonable driving distance to my little corner of nowhere. But near a major airport might also work, and the DC area would certainly qualify for that. MelissaH

No, it wasn't me. But if anyone has some extras that they'd like to donate, I'd take 'em! MelissaH

And---since I wasn't there to see the end product---what did they wind up like? Did they actually cut into squares that you could handle, or were they all something that might have been better off just piped into shells? MelissaH

Amen to that! So, how were the raspberry and slab ganaches? Because I had to get back home, I didn't get to taste those finished products. But I'm glad to see that the transfer sheet you painted up worked beautifully. (Does anyone have pictures of what happened with some of the other transfer sheets we had fun painting with colored cocoa butter? Did the ones with thicker painted designs work OK, or was thinner better?) MelissaH

Some of them have a raspberry butter ganache spiked with a touch of black pepper essential oil, and the rest have a flowing caramel. What you can't see from the picture is that the caramels have milk chocolate capping them, and the raspberries are capped with dark chocolate, so I can tell them apart. You also can't see that I obviously need to work on my capping technique: six of the nine were leaky. So that's one thing I'll be practicing. I'd also like to figure out how to add a black pepper flavor to a butter ganache without using essential oil. It wouldn't be a problem to infuse cream with black peppercorns, which then get strained out. But this particular recipe (one of Greweling's, minus the pepper) doesn't use any cream, just butter. MelissaH

I had a great couple of days with everyone, finally getting a chance to put names to faces. Probably the most important thing that I learned is just how much I have to learn! (And I so wish I could have stayed for today's session.) Here's a photo of what came home with me. I used every airbrush in the room! So, when's the next conference? MelissaH

Any idea why she might have used self-rising flour with the yeast in there? MelissaH

What about gougeres, with lots and lots of cheese in them? I realize they can be more crisp than fluffy, but all that puff must count for something. MelissaH

*bump* My husband and I will be in Lille the Saturday before Easter. (We're going to watch the end of the Paris-Roubaix bike race on Sunday!) My main concern is that we're going to find things closed for the holiday. Will we have trouble finding something to eat? We're cheap travelers, and in most cases we just look for a market/supermarket/deli/bakery where we can buy food. Thanks, MelissaH

I don't have the book in front of me, but I remember a recipe in Alton Brown's first book that I made once and thought, "These are like homemade Wheat Thins!" MelissaH

I'll just add to the chorus of those who now feel a need to visit Estonia. We'll be sure to bring our woollies. MelissaH

We have a 36-inch GE Monogram range. Ours is dual-fuel (gas burners, electric oven) but I understand they do an all-gas version as well. We love it. MelissaH

Have you ever tried this soup with blood orange juice? I'm thinking strictly from a color viewpoint. MelissaH

We watched the first episode, which didn't do much for me. Ted came across as snarky and insincere to us, although some of that could have been attributed to his stiffness and apparent discomfort in the host role. My biggest complaint is that they always seem to throw one ingredient in that doesn't go with the others. I realize that Project Runway is a different beast completely, but many of the comments from those judges revolve around the need for the designer to edit themselves. In Chopped, the chefs are required to use all the basket ingredients---they are not permitted to edit. I realize that forces the contestants to be wildly creative, but is there ever a chance that the dish would be better (whatever that means in this context) if they were given the option of using (n-1) of the n ingredients given? Especially if their justification for omission wasn't edited out? That said, my husband and I had great fun discussing what we would have done, both with and without a single-ingredient omission, especially given the thirty-minute timeframe. Has anyone used a pressure cooker yet? MelissaH

Gordon, Are these recommendations still accurate, as far as you know? My husband and I are planning to head towards Rochester tomorrow, and wanted to eat something for lunch that we don't see around here unless we make it ourselves. Of particular interest: Indian food. If that isn't a good bet, I'd settle for banh mi or pho. MelissaH ← Chinese and Indian suggestions are still fine. Although, call ahead for hours. Thai/Vietnamese? Pho Duong and Dac Hoa are the only players currently. Buon Apetito ← Well, as it turned out, the weather prohibited us from going anywhere on Friday. Saturday was better, so we got up and headed east, did what we had to, snagged something to munch on at Wegman's, and then hightailed it back home before the weather got nasty again. On the bright side, we will probably be making a cauliflower curry ourselves, to try and get our Indian fix. MelissaH

Gordon, Are these recommendations still accurate, as far as you know? My husband and I are planning to head towards Rochester tomorrow, and wanted to eat something for lunch that we don't see around here unless we make it ourselves. Of particular interest: Indian food. If that isn't a good bet, I'd settle for banh mi or pho. MelissaH

As long as you're talking Syracuse restaurant supply, I prefer Central Restaurant Supply (642 N Salina St) to Smith's because they seem to have more of what I'm typically looking for. I did get my current supply of baking parchment from a place in Rochester whose name eludes me. They weren't set up for the general public, but they were happy to sell me a giant box of sheet-pan sized pieces of parchment, which will probably keep me baking for the rest of my life. This was a couple of years ago, but I do remember they were somewhere in the SW part of the Rochester area, not too far from RIT in kind of an industrial area. They were open on Saturday morning. Not too helpful, I know. MelissaH ← Is Central the one in the big red brick building and has the coffee shop and the big knife display? That may be who I actually mean. I think you're referring to Tadco in the Genesee Regional Market on Jefferson rd. ← Smith's is the one you can see from I-81 and 690 with the big sign on top of the building. We haven't been there in a while, so I'm not sure about the coffee shop or knife display. Central is slightly off the beaten path, in kind of a run-down area of older shops. The one in Rochester, whatever its name, was most definitely not in the Genesee Regional Market. It was further west than that, but not far from Jefferson Rd.