pastrygirl

In theory, you could add a lot of cocoa butter and end up with something that could be tempered. The problem is you can’t take those other fats out of the compound “chocolate”, so they will have a softening effect on the cocoa butter that may prevent a nice crisp shell, and you’ll also dilute the chocolate flavor and end up with something really fatty and not very chocolatey.

I have to add, you get what you pay for. Can you get great chocolate or cocoa for $6/lb or less retail? All the chocolates I use are more than that wholesale. Yes there are less expensive chocolates but I'm trying to make a premium product and I'm willing to pay $10/lb for certain couvertures. I'll try to remember to look at chocolate next time I'm at Trader Joe's and see what looks good. Also check cash & carry restaurant supply stores, they might have guittard, calleabaut, or ghirardelli but probably in large (11 lb) blocks. Natural foods stores and stores with good bulk sections might have broken-up blocks of decent chocolate at a good price point.

What is Oreo level cocoa? i agree with Chris and Kerry, fruitiness may be found in particular blends or origins, but there are plenty of chocolates without strong berry or raisin notes. Where are you and what brands are available? I, too like Felchlin but it’s not readily available to retail consumers. I prefer valrhona cocoa powder, also not sure if you can find that retail.

I think Guittard is relatively inexpensive, but like Kerry I'm accustomed to bulk/wholesale pricing. I guess any decent bar is going to be relatively high by the pound.

Guittard is decent if you can get that, or try the super dark bars at TJ. I know they have a Valrhona 85%, maybe even something darker.

I have two scrapers similar to the one linked just above. When one gets solidified chocolate build-up on the blade, I scrape it off with the other one and carry on.

@Chocolot is the tempered chocolate in your dominant hand? I’m right handed. We’re using Guittard and it is thicker than the Felchlin I use in my own business, so I also have to get used to the consistency of different chocolate. The milk chocolate is particularly thick, i thinned it with some cocoa butter and that helped when using the fork.

Yes, basically anything you want to keep dry and crunchy next to ganache needs a fatty raincoat of cocoa butter or chocolate to repel water.

Who here hand dips chocolates, either with their actual hand, or with a fork? I have a side job working with a woman who hand dips everything with her fingers in a puddle of chocolate on a sheet of parchment. She's super fast at it, I tried it but it felt so messy and awkward. I have done a little fork-dipping, so today dipped 300+ cookies with a fork and remembered why I hate fork dipping. So, anyone have any pointers, tricks, or favorite dipping forks that don't make your hand go numb? Today I used a dinner fork, I didn't have my actual chocolate dipping forks, but they have really thin metal handles that are hard to hold onto and horrible. I need like the Good Grips version for people with arthritis and pastry chefs who have done too much piping ...

Also, your room is quite warm. I prefer around 64-66F, or 18-19C when possible.

So he says it’s over-crystalized but tells you to spray cooler? 🤔

Use less liquid (or more chocolate) in your ganache to make it firm enough to handle at room temp. Or use a mold and pipe the filling into chocolate shells.

@brooksms this is what we have, a moffat turbofan, electric and no hood required. Good oven though not the biggest. I haven’t had to change anything significantly vs baking in an old gas Wolf oven. Moffat and Blodget are both good brands for bakers ovens.

Yes, I think water would interfere with browning and roasted flavors and you'd have steamed bones instead. You'll get more browned bits on the sheet pan, but you can de-glaze with water after to loosen them to either add to the stock as flavor or for cleaning. As for fat sticking to the pan ... hot animal fat is liquid, I'm not sure how it would "stick" - remember we butter or oil so many other foods so they don't stick to the pan!

I think if the recipe works for the size of cookie you're making, scaling the batch shouldn't be a problem. With cakes, it is recommended to adjust the leavening for different sized pans since a batter will rise and bake differently in 6" pans vs 9" or 12". But if you're making all 6" or all 12", the ratio should stay the same if you're making 2 or 20 cakes. But to be safe, maybe try doubling, then tripling, then quadrupling to see what a good batch size is, instead of just leaping into a 10x batch.

You're shopping for a used oven to put where? In the commissary? In your house? Do you have commercial space of your own in the works? Nothing wrong with dreaming, I do it all the time. 'Gross'-ness aside, did the oven work? Cleanliness shouldn't really affect performance, except sometimes you'll get caked-on grunge flaking off the racks and being blown into your food. Things to consider -- Is there already an available gas connection or appropriate power outlet? Our electric convection oven has a giant 3-phase plug. If you don't already have gas, the electrical upgrade might be cheaper than running a gas line. What is the hood situation or hood requirements? Here, electric ovens under 6000 (uh, kw?) don't need a hood fan. Larger, more powerful, or gas ovens may need to be under a type 2 hood. Type 2 extracts air but isn't built to withstand or put out a fire. Open flame gas cooking like a commercial gas range needs a type 1 hood and fire suppression system aka Ansul. Hoods and fire suppression are another several thousand $$ each. As for the mixer, Hobarts are generally very reliable and there are a lot of them so you'll have better odds for parts and repair. A used 20 qt table-top Hobart is on my wish list, with a budget of around $2000-2500. Most of the 20 qt seem to have a regular 3-prong plug, but the larger ones will need special outlets for their power needs. There's also the issue of weight and batch size. A 60 qt machine to mix 300 cookies all at once means over 100 lb of dough to scrape down and dig out of the bowl. Sometimes it's easier to do two medium batches instead of one huge. And of course the bigger machines are a bigger investment.

Did you butter every layer? I like filo, but feel it really needs butter, otherwise it’s just plain boring dough.

Put them in cookie jars or on plates under cake domes, and keep the ones you want to stay dry and crispy separate from the ones you want to stay moist and chewy.

Even when vanilla isn't crazy expensive, that's a lot! I'm sure 1 or 2 beans would suffice. Or is that where the 'millionaire' comes in?

😂

It was a remnant, meant to be utilitarian and already has a few nicks on the edges so it doesn't have to be a showpiece as long as flaws don't harbor bacteria. I guess it's otherwise non-porous and easily clean-able. I got tired of the warped prep tables at my last kitchen and wanted something perfectly flat and level for truffle-making, now in my new kitchen it's covering most of that weird not-really-stainless table that turns everything grey, so still an improvement. I don't want to spend more money on it at the moment, maybe I'll see what the bottom, non-polished side looks like. Or probably just live with it

@HungryChris what sort of sander do you recommend? The stone is about 30” x 60” if size makes a difference. Thanks!

Great, I might have to try sanding it smooth again for the sake of sanitation - to eliminate nooks for crud to lodge in.

It might be marble, I don’t remember. White with grey veining. The little spots are only a few mm, and won’t affect much, just odd.

I have a slab of stone, I think it’s quartz, that I stored in my garage over the summer. The garage is kind of gross and buggy, there used to be a ton of old books in there so there were silverfish and the spiders who eat them. I don’t store paper goods out there but I figured stone would be safe. Yesterday I dusted off the bug poo and dragged the stone into the kitchen. Now I’m noticing tiny little perfections all over it, little spots where the stone has been etched into and catch when I run a fingernail across. I’m pretty sure they weren’t there in May. Is bug poo caustic enough to cause this? Or am I imagining things?