pastrygirl

@EsaK good to know and consider. I wouldn’t be hosing water through the machine, but would want to clean it if I had something strongly flavored or contaminated with allergens. I don’t want to just get the cheapest one possible, but if the screw isn’t really necessary I have other things to spend money on.

how much heat they put out is definitely something to consider!

The heater and thermostat are on the bottom of the unit, small volume is fine. They heat relatively slowly but I think if you kept the melter around 40C it would keep your dumped-out chocolate warm enough to add back to the Delta.

"Please note that this model does not have the removable screw feature and is not recommended for any chocolate that has additional inclusions, oils, or flavors added to it." Although I don't currently add inclusions directly to my chocolate, I do make a couple of Christmas items with added oil flavors (orange & peppermint). The removable screw just looks so much easier to clean. It's hard. I quit my day job almost 7 years ago and have been scraping by, paying myself close to nothing while slowly building business and always trying to improve efficiency in methods and packaging. I started out with beautiful, expensive custom packaging that was a pain in the butt at any kind of volume and a 6 kg melter. Graduated to the 24 kg melter and EZ temper a few years ago but still thinking about every stir, every ladle, every stopping to temp the chocolate. 10 seconds times a thousand adds up. My kitchen gets really hot in the summer & I was looking at air conditioning so I could do more production year-round but now I'm thinking a Selmi would be a better investment - make more product, make more money, do the AC in 2022. I agree with Kerry that I'll probably want the enrober - yeah, of course I do, who doesn't? 😂

Sooo, less than 6 months later and I'm here to eat my words 🤣 I'm back on the Selmi lust ... yes, I can do a lot by hand and the EZ temper helps but lately I've been making a ton of bonbons and thinking about how much time I spend maintaining the temper in the melter. Fill 4 or 5 molds, dump them back in, re-heat the chocolate from 88 to 90, repeat ... my production days could be so much more efficient. Are they really as fast as they say they are? The Selmi Color EX claims to temper 12 kg in 7 minutes, seems like decent capacity and better on the budget but I'm wondering if in a few years I'll wish I'd gotten the 24 kg Plus EX.

I don't think she thins it, it may be the particular couverture and settings on the machine. She's a Callebaut ambassador but I'm not familiar with which of their chocolates are most fluid.

How low can you go? I'm skeptical that feuilletine will stay crisp with any amount of available water.

As in solid, hard caramel? No.

Does he give the resulting aW after each change?

Didn't they go bankrupt then get bought out by someone? I vaguely recall being excited by the pending liquidation auction for all their toys a year+ ago but the auction never happened ... so probably new evil corporate overlords charging 🤣 edited to add: they were acquired by Breville in 2019 https://www.geekwire.com/2019/months-significant-layoffs-joule-cooking-device-maker-chefsteps-acquired-breville/

So disappointing! I haven't worked with Ruby, so I don't know if it acts any differently from 'regular' chocolate. Was it a blend of Ruby and white? For me, 72F is bordering on too warm, I prefer my kitchen (and my molds) around 65F. To clean your molds, put them in the freezer for 15+ minutes to force the remaining chocolate to contract then bang it out and wash the molds as usual.

I don't know. IIRC, WA used to have the same rule - no chocolate at home, only oven-baked items, but I believe that has changed. I think to a certain extent, chocolate and confections aren't always well understood by health inspectors. They're so focused on meat cookery, hot holding, and proper cooling while chocolate has a whole different set of needs. Or maybe they just don't trust "home" cooks enough when there is no "kill step" or heat pasteurization? I'd be curious to know what food borne illnesses have been tied to chocolate, and whether it was contamination or something else. Is there more that can go wrong in a bonbon than just mold?

How cheap? They're $14 at JB Prince, which I consider reputable, I have several of theirs from my restaurant days in that same size. https://www.jbprince.com/flexible-silicone-molds/orange-n-s-24-mini-hemispheres.asp

Did you shell them in strawberry or just use that in the filling?

I'd look for a recipe using some proportion of low fat ricotta and cut the sugar. Cheesecake doesn't need to be too sweet, let the cheese be the star.

If you couldn't smell the cinnamon immediately, you probably need new cinnamon! That said, a little cinnamon can work in savory sauces. It's in many garam masala and ras el hanout recipes.

I'm sorry about your feet, that's going to hurt for a while. But the sauce 😱 NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

The teaspoon each baking powder and soda seems like more than enough for that much batter, I don't see the point of using half self-raising flour. So possibly too much leavening, definitely too small of a pan. Do you have a deep 8"pan such as a springform pan, close to 3" deep? If not, try a 9" round or square. In general, you don't want to fill your pans more than about 2/3 full so the cake has room to rise.

I only use pure cane sugar.

if you're putting toppings on them a la Rockefeller, I don't see why you couldn't use a small vessel or a larger gratin style dish and bake or broil them to heat through

@Jim D. I’m sure you’re right that colors will be much brighter with a white backing, I just meant they don’t get totally lost on dark chocolate. for example, this is green sphene on dark chocolate these are half splattered, half sprayed with gold

I think it depends on the formulation of the colors you're using. Are you mixing your own or purchasing them? I use Chef Rubber and Roxy & Rich colors, most of which are opaque, especially metallics (silver, gold, bronze). I pretty much never back with white. You could color white chocolate, but anything mixed into milk or dark will get lost in all the brown.

Welcome! If there was a cheap and easy way to get the same effect, far fewer of us would have invested in airbrushes My advice is to explore techniques other than smooth full color coverage. Paintbrushes, sponges, finger-painting, throwing CB at molds abstract expressionist style, luster dust, contrasting shades of chocolate including fruit couvertures, magnetic molds or hand dipping plus transfer sheets ... lots of ways to get splashes of color into your assortment.

What format is your active ingredient? Does the whole batch of chocolate have to infuse at 115 for certain length of time, or are you just wishing the whole heating and cooling process was faster?

Another option I found recently, nice sturdy set-up boxes made in USA https://tap-usa.com/collections/rigid-boxes