pastrygirl

In Wybauw's Fine Chocolates 2, he writes about increasing shelf life by adding ingredients that bind water, especially sorbitol and corn syrup/glucose. He mentions "adding 50% corn syrup to the moisture quantity in ganaches". Do you agree that the 'moisture quantity' is whatever amount of water is in the cream or purees, so 100 g of 40% fat cream adds 60 g 'moisture' that would be bound by 30 g glucose?

thank you. I added a bunch more honey and tiny bit more cream to a dark chocolate earl grey ganache that’s been frustrating me, looks promising!

Have we talked about fluidity anywhere? Now that I have an aW meter I've been working on my bonbon centers and trying to get them within a certain range. I'm finding that my white and milk chocolate ganaches are more fluid at a given aW than my darks. I'm guessing this is a function of higher sugar and milk fat? If I get the dark ganaches down to a low enough aW, they are very thick and don't flow easily or level off in the mold at appropriate working temp. So, any insight on increasing fluidity in dark chocolate ganache without also increasing aW? Is my dark chocolate too high fat?

What's your current method? I bang my molds on the table a few times, it's not perfect, chocolate shards fly everywhere, and maybe that's why there are so many little scratches on my marble 😆 Then I line them all up on edge in the sink and spray the rest off with hot water. I do have a grease trap but still try to minimize the fat that goes down the sink, because guess whose job it is to clean it out later? 🤢

“Inspired by Häagen-Dazs” so, no.

Not that exact recipe, but a couple of tips if you decide to try this style - whisking the sugar with the egg yolks instead of adding the sugar to the liquids will make the yolks less likely to scramble when the hot liquid is added. Also have an ice bath ready for that hot custard to stop the cooking.

Following up, I just noticed mold in my 2:1 sample cup, that didn't take long at all!

How does that work?

I think they simply lack starch.

Yum! A few companies are making browned butter milk chocolate, that's another way to get toasty milk flavors in there.

I'd worry that the macadamia fat would soften everything too much. Maybe more milk powder and cocoa butter in place of some sugar? I'm looking at a box of Felchlin 49% milk chocolate, its 31% cacao kernel so that means 18% added cocoa butter, and added sugars are about 35%, so that leaves 16% milk/cream powders. What if you did like 35% cacao, 25% CB, 20% sugar, 20% milk?

I'd go with 70% or above. Are you trying to avoid milk, or just sugar?

back to the info Dom found - here I've added some graph lines to intersect at 21C/70F (room temp) and 10C/50F (display fridge temp) for 0.75, 0.80, and 0.85. Of course all this is approximate, there are other factors, etc, but I'm feeling like 0.80 is too high for my customers who keep things at room temp, I want them to have at least 4-6 weeks. In better news, if a 0.75 bonbon will stay mold free 10+ months at 10C, do we ever need to freeze them? Sometimes I have more freezer than fridge space, but maybe I don't have to worry so much about how long bonbons are in my reach-in fridge at 3C/37F?

I'd think so, because it would have still been frozen for the first few days, then kept at a safe temp. And you're going to cook it ... but I never buy ground beef, would you not normally expect it to keep a week?

the Rotronic has a ‘quick’ option that you can set the dwell time on and should be within 0.005 of the full analysis. I had not run a full one yet, am doing that now. It just finished, that sample took half an hour and was 0.003 different from the previous ‘quick’ reading. my goal is 0.75 or below, if above that is where mold starts to grow and if that’s what Kerry says is good and then I have some flavors like white chocolate caramel that is 0.70 & keeps a long time but starts to look dull after a few months at room temp from butterfat seeping through. Theres always something else 😆

Honestly so far I've been winging it and guesstimating 😳 But I feel like I can't afford to do that anymore.

I did a couple at 4 minutes then one for 15

all over the place is right ... I tested the same samples today and got 4:1 = 0.818, 0.810, 0.814 2:1 = 0.911, 0.903, 0.906 I wonder what's up with the same samples testing differently. Maybe I should actually read the instructions?

I got the Lindt 70% & tested (at 20.6C for 4 min) 4:1 choc:H20 = 0.788 ... very firm though, wouldn't want it in a bonbon. But a similar aW with added butter fat would be softer, right? 2:1 = 0.946

idk, some people on Amazon can't count to 4? I think Magnolia's success is due more to marketing and being in the right place and time than amazing recipes. Maybe after the low-fat '80s, using real butter made it special, a cut above grocery store cake.

There are plenty of other bakers doing more complex things. Simple & nostalgic sells. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I hear Brave Tart’s new book is pretty fussy, or anything by Francisco Migoya …

Probably pretty close. I believe Magnolia was founded by home bakers or people with not a ton of professional experience. A cupcake is a simple thing, why would you doubt their use of a common cake ratio?

If you're new to hotels or professional cooking, maybe something like the Culinary Institute of America's Professional Chef books would be helpful. As you noted, room service does not have to be super fancy. Many people seek comfort & familiarity while traveling, so consider where your guests are coming from.

Probably.

it was a long week in the Easter egg mines, but I'll find a Lindt bar and do some testing in a few days no ketchup though 🤢🤣