pastrygirl

Would the previously frozen cream cheese melt? If you could melt it with a little extra liquid (milk, cream) and set it with gelatin you could make a no-bake cheesecake. If you really want to use this cc for cheesecake, I think it would be worth a try to warm it up and whisk or immersion blend it back together.

That sounds like a good idea - basically dilute the over-crystallized chocolate with cool but untempered chocolate. Brilliant!

Jim, with over-crystallization, I'd recommend gently warming the chocolate to melt out some of those crystals, but not going above 95F. I don't measure my seed. I dump in a first amount that I'm sure will melt, then take the temp and guesstimate based on how hot it is how much more to add. I'll admit that I often have extra unmelted bits, now that I think about it, it's odd that I'm not more precise about it!

Yes! You should stir!!! Agitation encourages crystallization, and when you are tempering chocolate, it is all about crystallization of the cocoa butter. Hoping for the best with chocolate can lead to disappointment, as you have found. Just because it is in the right temperature zone and you want it to be tempered, doesn't mean it is. I now always test a little chocolate on a piece of parchment to make sure it is tempered before using it. Sometimes all it needs is a good stir and a few minutes to get the crystallization going. There are at least a few threads on tempering chocolate in Pastry & Baking, make sure to read through those. But in a nutshell, if you are seeding, you want a few un-melted pieces left at 95F (35C? I'm fuzzy on my metric) to provide the stable crystals. Once the chocolate has cooled to working temp, hopefully the seed will all be melted, if not you can pick it out or warm it a little more until it is smooth. Don't be afraid to stir, and always do a test before you dip or mold a whole bunch of pieces. Hope that helps!

Jim, my method for wet caramel is to make sure all the sugar is moistened, then wipe the sides of the pot with my wet hand to make sure there are no stray crystals. Put it on pretty high heat, and do not touch the pan until it starts to color. Once I get color, I'll swirl the pan. But I wipe the sides before putting it on the heat rather than tend to a hot pan with a wet pastry brush, as is often advised, and I can feel with my hand better than I can with a brush.

I know some people do claim there is a difference in the end result, but I am skeptical. I always do wet so I don't have to stand there and watch it and tend to it constantly. I like being able to keep an eye on it while I multi-task, then once it starts to color I give it more attention.

Can you bring any of your foraged items, dried or preserved in some way? Or baked into cookies? New ingredients to play with are always fun, but so are new snacks from around the world...

Shouldn't we all be asking YOU this question?

Ha! Small world

GlorifiedRice, I'll send you some! (I use it to make these bars.) http://www.dolcetta-sweets.com/shop/caramelized-white-chocolate-almond-bar

I've had some success by simply baking white chocolate until it is golden brown. Put pieces of WC in a hotel pan, put into a low oven, around 250F. Bake, stirring every 20-30 minutes, until as brown as you like, iirc around 2 hours for 2-3 kg. I'll admit that I never tried tempering or molding with it afterwards, but I don't see why you shouldn't be able to re-temper it. I used it in mousses and cremeaux, and it melted and combined with cream just fine, though there was the occasional odd bit that needed to be strained out. I don't see why your toasting the milk powder idea wouldn't work. Do you have a stone grinder? You could even caramelize the sugar separately and add that too, if you have the means to get it smooth again.

You're too cautious. I hate breaking wires as well, but not as much as I hate tedious cleaning projects. I can fit a frame or the base in a commercial dishwasher, propped against one of the lower guide rails (for the dish racks). I suppose the chemicals could have an affect, but I'm willing to risk it.

I agree with Lana, the Dedy is awesome. I wipe the strings with a towel between cuts to remove bits, then the pieces go in the dishwasher. It's going to be a little more awkward in a home sink...

I really want to try that, thanks for doing the R&D work!

It's not normal, and like Shelby, it would never occur to me to ask to sample the sauce a meat was cooked in, etc. I might remember to ask a server if something is sweet or not, but needing a sample? Not yet!

Sophie, both Valrhona and Callebaut have good basic information on their websites. I'm sure you can search and get more in-depth. http://www.valrhona-chocolate.com/shop/About-Chocolate.php http://www.barry-callebaut.com/3

jmacnaughton, I agree, though it is fun to experiment with once or twice. Heck, I find myself wondering why most of the small bean to bar producers even bother, very few of them please me. Personally, I highly doubt that I'm going to make anything approaching what any of the producers who've been doing it for 100 years and conching for days are making so I stick with Valrhona and Felchlin. But I also support playing with it in order to understand why Valrhona makes it so much better than we will at home As for sugar, I believe fondant sugar is equally as fine as icing sugar but without starch.

If you want to try making chocolate for real, start with cocoa nibs or beans. I'm not sure what you mean about 'so many additional ingredients', most good chocolate is made from only cacao and sugar, with a little vanilla and lecithin, though some makers don't even use those. Agave nectar, being liquid, would give you more of a thick ganache (or even modeling chocolate, which mixes chocolate and corn syrup to make a malleable chocolate) than a true chocolate bar. Solid chocolate made from the bean or nibs has no water. If you're trying to make chocolate by mixing cocoa powder and cocoa butter, try powdered/icing sugar to sweeten - the particles are fine enough that you won't get grittiness, and you're not adding liquid.

Sifting will change the weight of a given volume because it adds air. Kim, I don't know what to tell you. Split the difference and use 4 oz per cup? If it's for an icing, you can start at the low end and add more to your desired taste/texture, but not everything is so forgiving.

I make my truffles with slabbed ganache cut on a guitar. For the chocolate festival a few weeks ago, I made a batch of each flavor and cut it into quarters for samples. Molded bonbons get cut into 6 or 8 and are the rejects of the batch. You don't have to give full pieces a la See's, and you can make people ask for samples and dole them out individually instead of leaving a bowlful. I've also seen people use a dab of ganache piped into a candy cup or scooped with a stir stick. You also don't have to give samples of every item.

Honestly I don't remember, it was back in March. I'm pretty sure I used my usual genoise recipe, with blood instead of eggs by weight. I made a birthday cake for the sous chef and served it at staff meal

Me too.

When I heard about blood's foaming capabilities a few months ago, I had to make blood genoise. Beautiful color while whipping, but it baked up brown. You couldn't really taste the blood with all the sugar in the cake and chocolate glaze on top, but it was fun to try.

Chocomom, what would you estimate the attendance is at this craft show? I think that's an important factor. OTOH, there is a limit to the number of people you can talk or sell to per hour, so at an event where there are 5000 people, you will still probably only talk to 500 of them. I've only done a few events so far, but I agree they are a crapshoot, and what you sample tends to sell. Also consider shelf life and whether people will be buying things and trying to save them until Christmas. People need a little education about preservative-free confections.

Almost always chocolate cake, with either chocolate, orange, or raspberry filling. My siblings still give me a hard time about the year I requested raspberry pie and denied them their share of chocolate birthday cake.