pastrygirl

@JeanneCake those look great!

If you understand crystallization in sugar, chocolate is essentially the same. If you get an undissolved bit of sugar in your caramel it will crystallize, with chocolate you're substituting un-melted cocoa butter crystals. If you make fudge or fondant you have to stir at a certain temp to get crystallization, same with chocolate. Stir, stir, stir. If it seems like it should be tempered but isn't, let it cool a little more, stir a little more and test again.

2% sounds like a good starting point. See if that helps, you can always add more.

yes

I like a much cooler kitchen, around 18 C. My tenants are all bundled up and probably hate me but if the chocolate is happy, I'm happy. I'd say don't rush the un-molding, give everything time to fully crystallize.

I use CW2295, 29 mm diameter 21 mm deep. I don't think of them as particularly problematic ... I love how easy to polish they are and haven't had anything too stubborn lately.

You can have mine, I'd rather have dry storage space

It's probably high enough sugar content to be fine. Unless you're shipping to the tropics, it shouldn't get much above room temp in transit.

glerup revere has paper backed foil that is sturdy and confectioners foil that is thinner (no paper side)

Whipping egg whites in plastic is generally not recommended because plastics can hold onto fat residues that interfere with the process. Is the Ankarsrum plastic bowl easier to get squeaky clean than others?

This is the gravity feed grex, with the cup on top. https://spraygunner.com/grex-tritium-tg7/ I initially bought mine with the 0.3mm fittings, that was slow going, eventually upgraded to 0.5 and finally the 0.7. It's not hard to change out the needle and nozzle, if cake colors are more fluid than cocoa butter you might want to start in the middle. Do you know what size your other airbrushes are? https://spraygunner.com/grex-0-5mm-nozzle-kit-tk-5/ As for keeping the cocoa butter from clogging up, that's always a challenge. I keep my gun warm in my ez temper or an extra melter and warm it with a hairdryer as needed to keep it flowing.

Such as what, zabaglione and hollandaise? Ok, true, a torch won't help you there. But I use it frequently in pastry applications where I want to soften butter a bit. Whether creaming butter and sugar for cookie dough or re-fluffing previously made buttercream, warming the bottom and sides of the mixer bowl with a bit of fire is a really easy way to loosen things up. Is this the one? https://www.kenwoodworld.com/en-us/products/kitchen-machines/cooking-chef/cooking-chef Max temp is 285F, that seems pretty low. If you're going to make polenta or risotto or something, how quickly does it boil a quart of water?

save a few hundred euros and get a propane torch

https://www.webstaurantstore.com/ for tables & speed racks & such - they actually also carry Roxy & Rich colors! Get 30" deep tables, 24" is too shallow, by at least 6'. Will you get commercial refrigeration? Ventilation is so important, don't skimp on your exhaust hood. What will you do for dish-washing, do you need a 3 compartment sink and a grease trap?

Today Facebook suggested I join a private group dedicated to hot chocolate bombs with 21k members, so yes, they are a thing! (I didn't join)

@Dark side thanks! The white is white chocolate mixed with enough white cocoa butter to make it a brighter shade of white. Yours look great, I wouldn't change them. What size mold are you using? I think the problem with adding liquid liquor would be the marshmallows and the dry mix soaking it up more than the chocolate shell. Can you make a boozy marshmallow instead?

Kate's been killing it with Carl, had him in Nieman Marcus and an airport kiosk last year, there's also Carla, who is peppermint IIRC. Inspired by Kate, I've made a single-serving version for a few years but am leaning heavily towards not this year. It does seem like a few more people on Instagram are making them. I use a 50 mm hemisphere mold, which is on the small side, 60+ mm might be easier to handle (and fit marshmallows in). I don't use marshmallows but I'm probably weird that way. I don't like them and my balls are too small. Pros: They're cute, fun for kids of all ages, highly giftable, and people love the idea Cons: yes it's just 2 hemispheres filled with a dry mix and stuck together, but doing that neatly is apparently beyond me. If one leaks then suddenly there's dust all over everything. You need a good lip on both halves of the mold to get a full seal. I solved that by sealing each half via some chocolate and acetate trickery, but that's an extra step. They're fragile so not great for shipping, which I expect to do a lot of this year. Finally, I feel like they don't actually work that well. In some of the videos where they just pour hot milk over, you can see it takes a bit before it melts. I've found you need to either do it on the stove-top or stir like crazy and get it super hot or you get sludgy bits in the bottom of the cup, which bugs me. Carl/Carla is big enough that you'd have to do it stove-top but for single serving I think people want to make it in the mug. If you can put together something that's easy to execute (and you're neater with the cocoa mix than me), people will love them and you too can be insta-famous! edited to add - I also coated mine in white to cover my messy joins and called them snowballs, more unnecessary steps! 🤣

The #1 reason why I haven't defected to Oz 😂 Good luck!

@Nikos those triangles look like an utter nightmare to polish fantastic blues and purples though!

More nice shine. It’s been cold and dry, that probably helps. I was worried about the orange ones, my cb smears didn’t crystallize as quickly as desireable, but I only lost a few to flaking flavors are salted caramel, cardamom, orange, and honey

What are they doing with all this colored white chocolate? Maybe its more of a hotel/high volume thing, to quickly make colorful garnishes. Admittedly, I rarely shell in white, but say you're making three colors of bonbons. You can temper three colors of cocoa butter then temper a bunch of white chocolate for the shells then temper it again for the bottoms, that's 5 things, or you can temper each of three colors of white chocolate twice, once for the shell and once for the bottom, that's 6 things. (which only takes a moment with the EZ temper but is a drag if you're doing it by hand 😉) I guess you could bottom them all in white, thus saving 2 steps ... I think they're just trying to sell you more color! 🤪

Of course! But I'm curious why they suggest these for coloring white chocolate specifically, and what the difference is between their brix and fat dispersible powder color. Just marketing?

It would save a step, but then you’d have a bunch of excess colored white chocolate sitting around. Or if you often do multiple colors, having one solid color backing instead of white will change how the top colors look.

I used valrhona yuzu inspiration here. With frozen purées, I tend to thaw them first - at least partially - rather than chipping at ice blocks