pastrygirl

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

Does it matter when you add sugar? Will I get a different result if I grind the nibs alone for a while vs adding everything into the melanger at once?

Welcome! I've been talking with another edibles confections start-up - it certainly seems like a growing market, especially if you can expand to other states. I do wonder how the sales and marketing is different ... you still have to get into stores and hope for good shelf position and high turnover, but you're also really relying on the budtenders recommendation. It seems like there are more options in edibles all the time, what will make yours stand out?

I had wanted to try keto with the theory that it would allow me to eat cheese 24/7 ... I guess not if I also want to live a long life. Tough call 🤔😂

I have not used them, but was recently shopping at chocolat-chocolat and noticed they carry fat soluble colors. For those in Canada or who want to comparison shop vs chef rubber. http://www.chocolat-chocolat.com/home/c210060/c378157873/c378157875/index.html

I’ve never had a problem. If you’re baking something such as bread with a heavy dusting of flour then the fan will blow some of those particles around. Or if you never clean it you may get some dark bits floating around.

@tikidoc which melanger do you have that’s not compatible? My mini bowl has been shipped so I guess I’ll find out soon enough if it fits mine ...

Both the presenter's accent and the rapid cooking suggest that may have been 450 C, not 450 F. They claim it heats up to 500 C, and the temp gauge show has C as the default (in larger type than the F temps). Is 842 F hot enough for ya?

In recipes like that I'd add the gelatin to the hot eggs instead of having to heat another ingredient. But if your semifreddo is to be served frozen, you probably don't need gelatin at all. Chocolate alone will thicken a mousse considerably, and the freezing will take care of the rest. I also agree w/ Teo & would add the gelatin to the hot eggs instead of the cream, if you must use it.

I'm surprised it's that much sugar. I had a sample a few months ago and found it reasonably tart, less sweet than typical white chocolate. But I'm sure the freeze dried passion fruit juice is pretty intense so it's just a matter of balancing the particular fruit. Fresh unsweetened passion fruit is quite pucker-y, not as naturally sweet as say, a strawberry. Looks like the almond and strawberry are both around 40% sugar, with 14% dried strawberry vs 30% almonds.

Strange. The recipe says to melt the chocolate in the hot liquid before adding everything to the blender. Chocolate is not that hard to melt, but maybe that's the problem. Strain the base through fine mesh after blending and see if you get any chunks.

Was there a particular recipe you meant to link to? I'm skeptical that the cocoa powder is the problem. I use Valrhona cocoa in many applications and have never found it gritty, even when dusted on ganache and eaten straight. Do you detect the grit in your base before freezing, or only in the finished product? Are you already straining it through a fine chinoise?

I didn't know you weren't supposed to eat raw morels.

My latest experiment is a dark milk chocolate made from nibs, cacao butter, a lot of nonfat dry milk powder, a bit less heavy cream powder, and only a little sugar. Works out to about 50% cacao but less than 10% sugar and extra protein from the milk. It's not bad! Not ready for market, but not bad