cmflick

Thanks for the tips! I hadn't thought about spray distance making a difference, but it kind of make sense. Did he say anything about getting air bubbles trapped if the mold is too cold? That seems to be my problem. Also, did he say anything about how he warms up his molds? When I use a hair dryer, I seem to have problems with getting hot spots in the mold and then trouble with unmolding.

I just got my Badger 250 airbrush late last fall after reading a lot of eG posts! Most of my colored cocoa butters are from Chef Rubber. I especially like the ones from their "jewel" collection that have a real shimmer to them. Before airbrushing, I used the Chef Rubber colors a lot for finger painting and brushing into molds. You can't beat the Badger 250 for the money. I got mine on Ebay for $20! I'm still studying compressors at this point. I just can't decide. Meanwhile, I'm using Badger canned air, which gets pretty expensive after a while, and comes with a whole set of problems of its own.

Very, very cool. I love the splatters. The white chocolate (I assume that's what the shells are) really set off the splatters. I'm not sure that I understand it when you say "I heated the molds and wiped and scraped afterwards". Did you finish your spraying, then hit the molds with the heat gun before wiping off the over spray? I just have terrible luck with unmolding if I use the heat gun (or in my case, hair dryer) once I have cocoa butter or chocolate in the molds.

I'm no expert, but I've been spraying and when I'm done with that I start working on tempering the chocolate. By time that is done, about 45 minutes or so, I go ahead and make the shells. I've also done the spraying and let them sit overnight at room temperature before making the shells. That has worked well also. The only time that I had a problem was when I hit the mold with the hair dryer before making the shells. Whenever, I use the hair dryer I seem to get hot spots and have trouble releasing. I suspect I'm untempering some of whatever cocoa butter or chocolate is in the mold.

Those are awesome! Can you describe your techniques? It looks like the lilac and white ones are airbrushed, but I can't really tell on the others.

I've read that ginger is good for treating motion sickness in dogs (and people), so maybe it's time to travel!

One of my starters has been going strong for about 18 years now. It always seems to revive quickly and is very active. It hasn't sat in the refrigerator for longer than about a month or two between uses. What I have found is that it has become less sour over the years. I have a second starter that I just started last fall and it is very sour. I wonder if the sour-producing Lactobacilli die out with long term maintenace and refrigeration.

I wonder if the ones used in Belgium were anything like these: click ← Hmmm. I get a link to the Canadian Tire Corporation with that link, but I don't see anything about paper towels! ← Interesting - I checked it before I posted and just checked it again and it works fine for me. If you can get to CT then do a search for "shop towels". ← If you don't already have their cookies on your computer, the link leads to a 'Welcome' splash page where they ask that you put in your postal code. I just copied the sample one and pasted into the field. You're then taken to the Shop Towels page. ← Thanks, John. I used the sample postal code like you suggested and it took me right to the paper towel page. I think that I have seen these in stores, so I'll have to check them out.

I wonder if the ones used in Belgium were anything like these: click ← Hmmm. I get a link to the Canadian Tire Corporation with that link, but I don't see anything about paper towels!

I cannot provide a direct link since access to the video is restricted to those who have viewed previous videos. I think they store some cookies on your machine that indicate which videos you've already viewed and which, therefore, they will allow you to see. Go here ->Cacao Barry Chocolate Videos to register. Then you can view 'Advanced Courses' and then, 'How to mold bonbons' (I'm doing this from memory since my computer skips this step after viewing the first video. - Yes, they made me view a video about tempering first. before letting me access the advanced courses.) I reviewed the video and, yes, they say you need to temper the spraying mixture because it's cocoa butter. They're using something called 'Barry Glace' which I've not used before, but apparently it's mostly cocoa butter. As a side note, the English translations are hilarious in spots. They hired someone with a lovely British accent but, évidemment, no culinary experience. What should be translated as 'fat bloom' is translated as 'greasy whitening.' ← They say that Barry Glace is 64% cocoa butter on their web site.

John, the spray booth is excellent. Very clever. The shower curtain is a great idea. When I spray, I cover all the counter surfaces with freezer wrap. I have a "spray booth" made from a large box that is covered with freezer paper. By the way, freezer paper is great for dealing with chocolate. I cover the counters with it whenever I work. It has a shiny plastic coated side that releases chocolate really easily. You can just scrape off any spills when they harden and then roll the whole thing up and throw it away. I don't have access to any kind of exhaust fan and that has been a problem. I turn my oven on to warm for about 5 minutes, then turn it off. It heats up to 110-115F. I stash my airbrush in the warmed oven and that seems to have eliminated my clogging problems. I like this idea. What kind of paper towels are these? The ones that I use are not really smooth and I think that if you pushed anything across the surface they would just tear. I have tried wiping across the top with paper towels and it just doesn't seem to get enough off. I've been just leaving the overspray and cleaning it off after I unmold the chocolates. This makes for a difficult cleanup though and some of my molds have a definite color cast to them from overspray. I usually clean the molds by soaking in hot water and wiping with a sponge. The cavities are fine as when the chocolates release the color comes with them. I'll be interested to hear what they have to say. I haven't been worrying too much lately about temper, just heating whatever I'm spraying to about 35-40C. Since I've been obsessing less about keeping things in temper, I've had less problems with release from the molds! My biggest problem with airbrushing now is that I'm getting air bubbles on the surface. I suspect this has to do with my molds being too cold when sprayed. They're stored in the basement at about 55F. I guess that I need to hit them with the heat gun before airburshing.

I'm still trying to get the hang of airbrushing. I tried out using an angle when airbrushing to get two tone chocolates, but I guess that the angle was too steep. I ended up with one color on one side and the other on the other side. And then when I put a layer of white in back, I ended up with a white stripe down the middle! On top of that the orange cocoa butter was much thinner than I expected when I sprayed it and it started to pool in the bottom of the mold. I guess that it was probably too hot. Kind of an interesting effect, though. This is obviously going to take a lot of practice! The green ones were just green backed by white. Sorry about the over exposed picture. Photos of my work are not my strong point!

Did you cook the nougat to 311F as Greweling recommends? When I used his recipe and cooked to 311F, the nougat came out much harder than I like. I routinely use Greweling's recipe, but cook it to 280-290F and the consistency is excellent. I give a temperature range, because I cook to a higher temperature when the weather is more humid, lower temperature when the humidity is low. When the weather is humid, my nougat tends to be softer so I cook to a higher temperature. Maybe humidity is why your batch was softer when you made it last summer. Maybe, someone else can comment on whether I'm crazy about my humidity observations and how I deal with them.

Those macarons look great! I've been dying to try them for a while now, but haven't worked myself up to it yet. Any advice for a total beginner? ← Patience. And remember that even the failures taste great! Seriously, I would highly recommend using an Italian meringue and baking at a low temperature (I bake for 20 minutes at 300F). A lot of recipes using a French meringue and bake at 375F. I've never had success with this type of recipe Also make sure to let them dry out before baking. I left these for about 50 minutes at room temperature after they were piped onto parchment. The surface needs to dry out before baking (it loses its sheen). That also means that you need to avoid trying to make macarons when the weather is humid. I only do it in the winter!

I check on two thermometers and haven't had any problems with too soft pate de fruit until I started trying the apple juice recipes. I have checked both thermometers and one is dead on and the other reads a degree lower than it should (checked against boiling water). I always compensate for the degree off on that thermometer. I suppose that I could try cooking to a higher temperature than Boiron recommends. I don't have a refractometer, so alas I can't check the brix.

And the saga of the new Boiron pate de fruit recipes using apple juice continues. I got hold of some pasteurized apple cider and tried the recipe again (see my post above about using 100% apple juice from concentrate). The pate de fruit were a little firmer this time, but still too soft in my opinion. At least they didn't end up being jelly on my toast this time! After 5 days of drying in my house (where the humidity is very low), the pate de fruits are still a little sticky. The pectin that I use recommends using 1.0-1.2% pectin for pate de fruits and the Boiron recipe has 0.875% pectin in it. I'm leaning towards thinking that the recipe just needs more pectin. The flavor is good, but very mild compared to recipes that I have used without apple juice added.

There have been a lot of cold winter days, so I've had to keep busy: macarons filled with a strawberry/balsamic vinegar ganache and passion fruit pate de fruit.

Ditto for me: my rye starter just lives in the refrigerator. When I'm ready to use it, I pull it out and feed it every 12 hours for 2-3 days before I use it. I don't add caraway seed to the starter, but that's an interesting idea. The starter seems to survive well as it has gone over a month quite a few times between uses. I have found that starter seems to keep better and revive faster if it's stored in the refrigerator as a stiff starter, i.e., about 60% hydration. You also don't get that yucky dark alcoholic liquid (which you can just stir back in) that sometimes shows up on the top of more hydrated starters after they have been in the refrigerator for a long time. As for starting my rye starter, I used a white sourdough starter as the seed. After feeding it with rye flour only about every 12 hours for about a week, I had a rye sourdough. Basically, you dilute out all of the white flour by feeding it over and over with rye flour. Note added: the stiff rye sourdough seems to revive faster if you increase the hydration to about 100% the first time that you feed it out of the refrigerator. After that you can bring it back down to 60% hydration or leave it at 100% depending on what your recipe calls for.

I always ship USPS 2 day priority mail. I've shipped from the East Coast to the Midwest, Colorado and California and had no problems. I don't ship anything between late May and September, though. Too much risk of heat somewhere along the way.

I have taken molded filled chocolates with me on planes quite a few times and had no problems. I don't use box inserts, but just candy cups so that the chocolates don't rub against each other. I pack them as tightly as possible in the box so that there isn't room to shift around. I put pads above and below the chocolates. I wrap the box in bubble wrap. I've both carried them on the plane and packed them in checked luggage (between lots of clothes). Both methods have worked perfectly well and I've had no damage. I ship boxes of chocolates packed like this 2 day mail quite frequently and have had no damage from that either. The only problem that I have ever had is with hollow molded figures like Easter bunnies or chocolate Santas. I haven't yet figured out a way to carry them safely on a plane or ship them without some breakage.

The new Boiron recipes using apple juice are on the web now at Boiron . Click on the "Confectioners" link. There are some interesting recipes for fruit caramels too. I also just made one of the fruit ganaches (Guava) for molded chocolates from a chart in the "Chocolate Makers" link on the same web page. It was excellent.

I tried the new Boiron recipe this weekend. I used the new Boiron recipe for passion fruit PdF using 1000g passion fruit puree, 1000g apple juice, 200g/400g sugar/pectin, 1900g sugar, 400g glucose, 30g tartaric acid. Needless to say, I scaled the recipe way down. Otherwise I'd be eating the same batch of pate de fruit for the rest of the year! The acid was added immediately after the glucose, before cooking to 107C. Boiron suggested using non-sterilized, no acid added apple juice, but all that I could find was pasteurized with ascorbic acid (vitamin C) added. I did use the yellow pectin that I described in a post above. Much to my amazement, the PdF stayed very liquid throughout the cooking and was very liquid when poured into a frame. This would be great for filling silicon molds. I can't comment on the taste or texture yet as they are still drying out. I did cut off a corner yesterday to get a little taste (I couldn't wait!). My first impression was that the taste is very mild compared to most of the PdF that I make. Most notably, the taste seemed much less tart. I suspect that came from diluting the fruit puree with apple juice. From handling the slab (flipped it over this morning for drying), the PdF seems quite soft. I'm going to dry for two more days, then sugar. At that point I'll report back on taste and texture. ← The new Boiron recipe was pretty much a failure. On the bright side, I have quite tasty jelly for putting on toast. It was way too soft and just fell apart. I have two theories for what caused the problem. First, it could have been that the apple juice that I used was 100% apple juice that was sterilized. The apple juice said that it was reconstituted from concentrate. I wonder if what the recipe calls for is more like what I would call apple cider. My concern is that the the apple juice may not have had much if any pectin in it, whereas cider might. The second theory is that the recipe just doesn't call for enough pectin. The pectin that I use indicates that you should use 1.0-1.2% for pate de fruit. The Boiron recipe only has 0.875% pectin in it. That doesn't seem like that big of a difference, but it's a 22.5% difference. I usually make pate de fruit with about 1.1% pectin and the consistency is fine. I'm going to try increasing the pectin to 1.1% in the next batch. On the flavor front, the flavor is very delicate. Usually my passion fruit pate de fruit is very tart and strong flavored. This batch wasn't. It's quite tasty, just very different.

You could use a Q-tip or something soft like that to wipe some of the airbrushed color off. I use Q-tips to apply color sometimes and you can get a pretty defined line with them.

I moved over to callets last year. Blocks were just too hard on the hands to chop, not to mention the mess. To me the ease of using callets is worth the extra cost.

I have a couple of questions about spraying chocolate and/or cocoa butter and temper. Does the cocoa butter that you mix with chcolate for spraying need to be tempered? I have cocoa butter that I bought from a cosmetic supply company (labeled food grade), that I don't think is tempered. I also noticed that in a post above, Kerry said that she wanted her chocolate/cocoa butter mix to spray to be at 50C, which is obviously not going to be tempered. Does this mean that you don't need to have tempered chocolate or cocoa butter to spray? I got my first airbrush last month and having been playing around with spraying colored cocoa butters. I've been careful about not overheating the cocoa butters as I didn't want to get them out of temper. This has lead to annoying clogging of the airbrush. Do I really need to worry about the temper of the cocoa butters?