pastrygirl

Candy the pistachios then grind or chop fine?

Dammit, Jim! I mean, thanks for mentioning that, one of the sellers is in Seattle, and a few more of the turban molds just happened to be something I was contemplating on my last order before I restrained myself.

Granted, there are different thicknesses of polycarbonate. Thermo-formed molds are going to be thinner, cheaper, and more flexible than injection molds because it's a different process. Are you planning on just a few bonbons for holiday gifts or ? Sometimes there's a discount on multiple molds at chocolat-chocolat or JB Prince, and if you are in the US the exchange rate with our friendly Canadian neighbors is currently in our favor. Chocolat-chocolat and Design & Realisation are both Canadian. I recently got 8 large hemisphere molds and a bunch of cacao butter, $401 Canadian was $306 US. 🍁❤️

What are the bad reviews saying? Are they from people who actually have a clue about chocolate? I was shopping for a printer last weekend, it seems like none of them had much more than 50% 5 star ratings and even those had their share of haters. I decided that everyone hates their printer sometimes. We all get frustrated with chocolate sometimes, it's a tricky medium and not always cooperative. It sticking to the mold is not necessarily the mold's fault. But yes, Chocolate World is a very reputable brand, worth the $20-30 per mold.

The size and thinness make me think it might be part of a series or a periodical such as Art Culinaire or So Good, but that's not much of a clue. Where did you find the image?

Any solid (i.e. not flexible) polycarbonate mold in a shape that you like. Avoid silicone. Good sources for mold shopping include Chocolat-Chocolat, Design & Realisation, Tomric, and Kerekes. I recommend a simple dome if you're just starting out. Easy to clean and no corners to trap air bubbles. CW2295 is one I like - a nice size and deep enough to do multiple layers of filling http://www.chocolat-chocolat.com/home/chocolate-molds/chocolate-molds-chocolate-world/cw2000-to-cw2400/p17532691.html

Can you spray it with white first then the bright color? Backing with white works works for bonbons, not sure if it’ll work with velvet spray.

And maybe not trying to be funny, but certainly ridiculous: boba tea in a (faux) light bulb is apparently 'a thing' as the kids say. The guys I share a kitchen with were bitching about being next to a light bulb boba stand at a farmers market, marveling at the people lining up (and blocking their booths) for a novelty glass. I like boba, but ... ??? https://mic.com/articles/177453/drinking-out-of-a-lightbulb-is-the-hottest-new-trend-here-are-13-places-to-try-it#.6jn1Ak7qK https://worldteanews.com/news/ride-lightbulb-boba-wave

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/please-explore-my-conceptual-modern-gastropub-experience

A handy guide for whether or not to share that recipe https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/on-the-politics-of-sharing-a-recipe

"ze" .. or hir or zir https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ze though I guess "shit" works too

Cocoa butter is hard at room temp and even harder frozen. Cocoa butter is what makes a chocolate bar solid.

Pepino, perhaps? I have no idea what to do with a pepino melon, let us know what it's like!

Yes. Unnecessary.

... and if you did get a different formula of chocolate, you can always thin it down by adding a little extra cacao butter

See, that's why I think it's a custom, pre-printed blister in the shape of a bottle cap. I don't think you could get those uniformly scalloped bottle cap edges with a transfer sheet in there, especially the yellow one that is full color. Moonstruck is good sized (I mean, they're no Hershey's, but pretty big for a local/artisan operation), they still do a lot of hand work but cutting circles of transfer sheets to lay in individual bottle caps sounds way too tedious for more than the first couple dozen. Production-wise, if you had a sheet of blisters and could pipe a bit of chocolate into each then press in the molded part, that would go quickly.

I think you'd get much better coverage with higher PSI, and ideally a larger nozzle too. I use 0.5 mm nozzle and usually spray around 60 PSI. Cacao butter is thicker than airbrush inks or food colors, so you need more pressure to push it through the gun, especially to push it through the smaller nozzle. So for now, just keep going with more layers of color until you get the saturation you want. I initially bought an airbrush with a 0.3 nozzle and it was slow going so I bought the large nozzle and now it is much easier. But even if you didn't get the smooth color you were hoping for, they still look great!

Hmm, those are nice! I recently found out about blister transfers - a single use cavity with a design already silk-screened in CB. I'm thinking the caps must be a custom blister with the various beer logos in the cavities. https://pavonitalia.com/professional/en/b705-blister-square-b705-100456.html http://www.chocolat-chocolat.com/home/c210060/blister-sheet/c378159397/p17740333.html after a little more searching, looks like these folks could make custom printed bottle cap blisters: https://www.pcb-creation.com/?lang=en something like this for the bottle neck: http://www.chocolat-chocolat.com/home/chocolate-molds/chocolate-molds-chocolate-world/cw1001-to-cw1900/p16408072.html or this, same but a little larger http://www.chocolat-chocolat.com/home/chocolate-molds/chocolate-molds-chocolate-world/cw2000-to-cw2400/p16408279.html

Actually, big events do require a fair volume of samples, it might feel like a months worth of work! The flip side of that is, the more samples you have out, the more people will eat. Yes, they may find something they like and buy, but some people just want as many free samples as possible. (Maybe it’s just Americans, I’ve never done the Paris show.). Kids especially tend to methodically shove one of everything in their mouths. Too many choices is also overwhelming, both for the customer to process and for you to manage. I’d say pick your top 3-5 items as your main samples and have tastes of others hidden in case people ask. You can also give pretty small samples. For filled bonbons I’ve seen chocolatiers dip a tiny tasting spoon into a tub of ganache instead of cutting filled pieces, which gets messy. I do cocoa-dusted truffles and cut them extra small on my guitar - regular size is 22.5 mm square, I cut those in quarters for samples. Do the organizers give an idea of attendance? Do you have helpers? It takes time to talk to people!

Are you sure it's the chickpeas? Maybe the fresh garlic is the problem. https://home.howstuffworks.com/garlic10.htm

Happy Pizza, a Cambodian specialty: https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/mgxywp/phnom-penhs-happy-pizza-left-me-high-and-dry

combine this with Dubovic's eye and you'll have a great bloodshot eyeball for Halloween!

Oh I’ve definitely experienced adding too much cold dry stuff, having it seize up and become a giant pain to clean out and start over. That’s on my ‘never again’ list Some chocolate maker or another had posted on Instagram that they grind for 12 hours before adding sugar. It doesn’t take anywhere near that long to simply liquefy the nibs so I’m curious. I do start with the chocolate and oily ingredients and gradually add the dries - I’m not really adding everything all at once, just not waiting 12 hours to add sugar. For me, keeping everything warm seems to help. I put my machine in a large cardboard box to trap the heat it produces and create a little 90-95F hot box to keep all the fat melted and everything moving.

Extract does not have to be oil based. Even if it was, don’t plenty of hard candies use oil-based flavors? Isn’t hard candy what so many Lorann oils are for? Lollipops, jolly ranchers, etc... and don’t forget how much butter one can incorporate into English toffee. I’ve had some very good and not so good cannabis hard candies. One brand I like uses an alcohol based extract and isomalt. http://www.zootology.com/products/zootrocks/zootrocks-tart-green-apple