pastrygirl

lol, @Jim D. I have a whole fresh spool when I need it. I caramelize the sugar then add warmed cream, etc. For 90 pieces, heat 600 g heavy cream, 150 g butter, 170 g lyle's golden syrup (or whatever liquid sugar), salt and other flavors as desired. Caramelize 700 g sugar as dark as you like then add liquid*. I cooked to 258F, poured into a 9" square pan & cooled at room temp overnight. It was a nice mid-high 60's in the kitchen today, finally better pastry-making weather! I could see it not going as well if the caramel was soft and the kitchen is warm, or hard caramel and cold kitchen. And you probably need to wrap as soon as they're cut, they do stick together a little bit so I wouldn't cut them and leave them sitting around. But the caramel wasn't any firmer than the butter ganaches I make, and a far cry from the semi-solid gianduja that I've broken too many strings on. *I always do wet caramel and just keep an eye on it while I do something else.

Not so much the what but the how. I have always been utterly convinced that cutting caramels on my guitar would be a disaster. I had this image of a sticky mess with a ton of broken strings then having them all stick back together anyway. So I've cut thousands and thousands of caramels over the years one at a time, by hand. Six strips per pan then each strip into 15 pieces. This morning when needing to cut three more pans after doing two yesterday and dreading not only the cutting and wrapping but all the carefully tucking into boxes, I decided to face my fear and cut caramels on the guitar. Other people manage to do it; I needed to try it. I started slow, with one strip of 15. Lo and behold, it worked! The next pan, I cut the six strips on the guitar then two at a time for 30 pieces at once. Tomorrow I'll spread out all the wrappers and try the whole pan at once - two cuts instead of 89. I'm a new woman. The hours I'll save! The profit I'll make! The less I'll resent caramel eaters! I mean, I still have to wrap each one of the little fuckers, but cutting 30+ at once ... why oh why didn't I try this sooner? It's never too late to try something a new way. Work smarter, not harder! And how much is a caramel wrapping machine?

In addition to what Jim said, it can also be used to make "chocolate" out of other ingredients. For example, I made a batch of raspberry white chocolate by grinding freeze dried raspberries, sugar, and cocoa butter together. Regular white chocolate is sugar, dry milk, and cocoa butter. As long as you temper it, the cocoa butter will add structure to whatever you mix in. You can cook with it like any other fat. As noted above, the Mycryo fine granulated CB is recommended for high-heat saute-ing in savory cooking. CB can also be useful when cooking for special diets and vegans.

They should still be good. A half pound is about a year's supply of vanilla beans for me. I've had some get dry and brittle towards the end of the bag, but still smelled/tasted good.

Merlino Foods in Seattle. They are generally super nice and fair so I'm sure it's market price. I'll have to stop dumping so much of it into my vanilla cupcakes ... or maybe everyone is getting lemon or gingerbread cupcakes this fall instead! If or when the price goes down, we must remember to stock up

Today I paid $81.62 for a quart of Nielsen-Massey vanilla extract. It was even more expensive than the 3kg bag of Valrhona Dulcey on my order! In early June, the same item from the same purveyor was $56.74. I know price spikes happen every few years with vanilla products but ouch! Just felt like sharing in case anyone wanted to commiserate.

I was in the kitchen this morning so got a photo of the Felchlin CB bits. Teaspoon for scale. I tasted it too, didn't notice any particular chocolate flavor, just neutral fat.

How much do you want? I could sell you some, PM me to discuss price and shipping.

Yeah, it's weird that Mycryo isn't really aimed at pastry chefs. I believe it is thoroughly deodorized for that reason. I haven't tasted the Felchlin CB just plain, will have to do that! I did already use it with some freeze dried raspberries, that was bad form of me to not taste it first But the raspberry chocolate came out nice.

Mycryo http://a.co/fhqokiX Or I just got a big bag of Felchlin CB chips from Albert Uster. It's not a fine powder like Mycryo, more like mini chocolate chip size https://secure.auifinefoods.com/cocoa-products/cocoa-butter-100-grated-7500210000

Oh my I know it's a fair ways from Houston, but hopefully the hurricane situation doesn't keep people away. Good luck!

News to me too. Prices never seem to go down! http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/swiss-scientists-ruby-chocolate-new-flavour-barry-callebaut-a7930046.html I share the skepticism of the "expert" in the link above, who noted that Valrhona made a similar claim about Dulcey being a revolutionary fourth type of chocolate - blonde. So that makes Ruby the fifth, no? It is interesting how the chocolate makers are expanding their options so rapidly these days. 10 years ago, Valrhona had like 5 products, now they have all these estate and single origin and even added another formula of blonde chocolate. Plus, didn't they have one that was made form some albino cacao or something? Barry-Callebaut and Felchlin have both jumped on the blonde/caramelized white bandwagon, and Felchlin is introducing some new vegan crap that they aren't even allowed to call chocolate - from their facebook post: "Do you know all about our recently launched ‘Vegan Choc’ - The real alternative to a chocolate for a Vegan lifestyle? Produced with cacao butter from the Dominican cacao beans & rice milk powder, our Vegan Choc Blanc 38% has a full-bodied finish with vanilla, well balanced with a touch of almonds and coconut & our Vegan Choc Brun 44% has the harmonious cacao notes with a touch of slightly toasted hazelnuts rounded with a spicy finish. Our Vegan choc is an organically certified confectionery mass which is not classic couverture nor chocolate but still tastes exactly like chocolate."

This was the first I'd heard of it. I'm not clear on what it actually is - it's dark chocolate made from cacao but pink in color and fruity tasting? Does it taste like chocolate, though? I think the color is ugly, so that's not a selling point for me

Maybe something like Birds Custard Powder? A U.K. product, but I know I've seen it in the U.S.

No, not so far. I'm partial to the jewel line - white diamond and black onyx are on the square mold a few posts above. I did have some bronze that seemed more viscous, but I think my issues that day were from dropping my new needle first thing and bending it or maybe a bit of debris. Things were all sputtery and unsatisfying. This was the larger nozzle that I was hoping would be a game-changer - we're not there yet - for now I'm blaming operator error. You can thin with plain cocoa butter if needed. The 'airbrush colors' aren't cocoa butter, they're for cake decoration, I would think they are water-based.

That's one way to put it. I have another. Yeah, I was thinking much less ... polite Mostly because salad isn't crafted, it's a bunch of ingredients. Putting quinoa, edamame, activated charcoal, acai, and whatever other "superfoods" are trending on a salad bar isn't crafting anything. Curating, maybe, but that would still be silly. Unless they bake their own bread from scratch, maybe they have hand-cut croutons. To me, craft requires transformation. Pouring bags of spring mix and cheese crumbles into hotel pans for people to serve themselves ain't it.

I do want to do more bonbons - hence the airbrush upgrade - but not for wholesale because shelf life. I think bonbons online or in person only.

Locally, Theo is the largest, I believe they distribute nationally, they also do various inclusions and some caramels and stuff. They are everywhere now so not seen as special anymore. Definitely can't match their pricing. Couple smaller bean-to-bar folks too but lots of confectioners. Fran's is the big fancy-ish but mass market confectioner, they are mostly known for chocolate covered salted caramels and their stuff is $40-50/lb. I feel like their quality has gone down as they've gotten bigger but is still pretty high. And Seattle Chocolates, which I think are gross, they do "truffle" bars that have coconut oil meltaway fillings. So those 3 local companies are everywhere. The nicer grocery stores do carry $6-9 artisan bars - Dick Taylor, Raaka, Manao, Chuao, Valrhona, etc. I talked to someone at a wholesale show recently about what the large markets require - there's a bunch of 3rd party certification that I don't have yet. I figure getting into 10 or 20 small boutique or specialty stores that don't need all the extra stuff is the first step, then I can scale up from there. Packaging design isn't finished but here's the work in progress, package is about 3 x 4-1/2":

@Teo, I see what you're saying about plain, maybe I can do a unique blend or a really fine inclusion that will mix in for one-shot depositing.

Since we're being unhealthy, can I get a side of nacho cheese sauce with mine?

For basics on bread shaping, here's a nice demo: I think 3-4 oz of dough should be enough for a 6" sandwich. Make the baguette shape but 6". They will rise up and out when proofing and baking but length won't really change.

How strange. Maybe we are getting different things? Or is a perfect demisphere somehow so highly technical that they have to farm it out to CW? If I upgrade it's $500 to re-do the tooling in metal, not sure what it was done in for this round. The chocolate life continues to provide us with mysteries! But thanks to all for the enabling, I'm just about convinced to go big. I've been trying so hard the past few years to keep my spending super tight, especially in the summer when sales tank, but this is probably actually worth it.

Can't say I've heard of anyone doing that around Seattle. Is it widespread in SD or one shop's specialty/gimmick?

Yes, they all have layers of filling, I don't do anything plain. Since I'm not making bean to bar but using already made chocolate, I feel like I have to add something special. It would be much easier to just fill it up and be done, but nooooo, that's not my style Thanks for the link, though - some beautiful packaging!

Interesting, I had not gotten that impression, and was just quoted this when I asked about volume price breaks: For the .125” polycarbonate: $19.95/mould for 10-49 moulds $17.95/mould for 50-99 moulds $16.15/mould for 100 -199 moulds $14.50/mould for 200+ moulds Maybe the .125" is still not actually injection, just thicker? Do you know the thickness on the molds you're getting? This is exactly my concern. I think I'll be happier in the long run if I go with the heavier, just sort of kicking myself for my indecision costing me extra.