pastrygirl

@tikidoc which melanger do you have that’s not compatible? My mini bowl has been shipped so I guess I’ll find out soon enough if it fits mine ...

Both the presenter's accent and the rapid cooking suggest that may have been 450 C, not 450 F. They claim it heats up to 500 C, and the temp gauge show has C as the default (in larger type than the F temps). Is 842 F hot enough for ya?

In recipes like that I'd add the gelatin to the hot eggs instead of having to heat another ingredient. But if your semifreddo is to be served frozen, you probably don't need gelatin at all. Chocolate alone will thicken a mousse considerably, and the freezing will take care of the rest. I also agree w/ Teo & would add the gelatin to the hot eggs instead of the cream, if you must use it.

I'm surprised it's that much sugar. I had a sample a few months ago and found it reasonably tart, less sweet than typical white chocolate. But I'm sure the freeze dried passion fruit juice is pretty intense so it's just a matter of balancing the particular fruit. Fresh unsweetened passion fruit is quite pucker-y, not as naturally sweet as say, a strawberry. Looks like the almond and strawberry are both around 40% sugar, with 14% dried strawberry vs 30% almonds.

Strange. The recipe says to melt the chocolate in the hot liquid before adding everything to the blender. Chocolate is not that hard to melt, but maybe that's the problem. Strain the base through fine mesh after blending and see if you get any chunks.

Was there a particular recipe you meant to link to? I'm skeptical that the cocoa powder is the problem. I use Valrhona cocoa in many applications and have never found it gritty, even when dusted on ganache and eaten straight. Do you detect the grit in your base before freezing, or only in the finished product? Are you already straining it through a fine chinoise?

I didn't know you weren't supposed to eat raw morels.

My latest experiment is a dark milk chocolate made from nibs, cacao butter, a lot of nonfat dry milk powder, a bit less heavy cream powder, and only a little sugar. Works out to about 50% cacao but less than 10% sugar and extra protein from the milk. It's not bad! Not ready for market, but not bad

@Rajala think white chocolate but fruit powder instead of milk powder. Same as Valrhona Inspirations. I've made some with freeze dried raspberries and it was delicious but expensive. Freeze dried fruit compacts down to nothing once powdered!

I've been doing a little R&D, and finally succumbed to temptation and ordered the micro-batch grinder last night. For $100 including shipping, how could I not? It'll be nice to be able to make tinier test batches! Thanks to @Tri2Cook for finding it on sale.

Lol, potatoes, so bland and innocuous ... until they go bad!

Looks like they're all the thin hobby-grade, but Kerekes has a Judaica selection. https://www.bakedeco.com/dept.asp?id=1269

Do you mean leave the excess dough around the top edge and instead of trimming it before baking, fold it over the edge of the tin and trim after baking?

I never make things that require blind baking so i don't have to mess around with weights 😊 oops, except for mini tartlets, but I have some smaller tartlet tins that I put inside the larger dough-filled ones instead of messing around with tiny scraps of foil or parchment. They have sloped sides and slip out easily after baking, wouldn't work with vertical sides.

Part recipe, part technique, I'd imagine. As Rajala mentioned, some bakers cut a separate strip of dough for the sides of the tart to make an even thickness and square corners rather than putting dough in and smooshing it up the sides. They also use a microplane to clean up any rough edges after baking. Maybe they use weights and just aren't showing every step? It does seem hard to believe that the sides stay vertical in the oven without support. I've also seen some posts of a tart shell forming and baking machine where you put a blob of dough into each cavity then the top part of the machine comes down and presses it into shape then bakes it.