pastrygirl

So your mom can eat eggs and pork, you just prefer not to cook them? If she likes sausage for breakfast and the fat and sodium aren't problems, look for chicken or turkey sausage. Likewise there are lots of non-pork "bacon" type things out there. And if you can stand to boil a pot of eggs once a week, she can have hard boiled eggs for breakfast or snacks, they will keep in the fridge for several days.

Agar agar should work. It doesn't take much, and it does need to be heated to melt and activate. As with gelatin, high acid and fat can weaken the setting strength, but a sweetened lemon curd shouldn't be too bad. 1 tsp powdered agar per cup of runny liquid usually worked for me. Since your lemon curd is partially thickened already, maybe cut back to 1/2 or 3/4 tsp per cup. Do you want it to set enough to be slice-able, like a tart?

You can cut the shapes with round cookie cutters. Since I'm a believer that doughnuts are fried, no pans needed. Even if you are going to bake them, try without a special pan before you invest.

@Franci I love the way you tied it with string. Looks just like salami!

I've had decent luck with the little Terro ant bait stations. And yes, you will likely want to treat the yard or at least go all around the house at the foundation. And you may need to do that a few times over the long term, like quarterly, for best results. http://www.homedepot.com/p/Terro-Liquid-Ant-Killer-Bait-Stations-6-Pack-T300/202532940

With bonbons, shelf life is a big issue. Do they have a cool space for storage? How often will you be delivering fresh? Does the customer have refrigeration? (I know, not always ideal, but can be helpful) Is it a one-time thing or ongoing? My wholesalers all have different mark-ups. I do 50/50 consignment at one place, had a favorable 60/40 arrangement at a holiday shop last year. Other retailers don't fully double my prices, but then I have one who wants a 60% margin (i.e. they want to buy chocolate bars from me for $2 and sell them for $5) which I do not agree to. OTOH, I work with chefs who barely mark things up, my prices for them are more like @JeanneCake's 20% off. I think for the chefs & caterers I work with, there is a huge convenience factor so they are not as concerned about making profit on the desserts as having the desserts done well by someone else. They'll make their money on the room rental and alcohol. Are you making custom or exclusive flavors for them? I don't see any real harm in letting them put their branding on, but you should definitely have your name on them somewhere. "Handmade by Ani for XYZ" There is certain info that all food packaging is supposed to have, like where it is made, net weight, and ingredients. If you don't already have ingredients labels, they are easily done on sticker sheet or label templates. Make sure to list all potential allergens - milk, wheat, peanuts, tree nuts, egg, and soy.

How about foil? Not plastic, still keeps the chocolate fresh.

In season here at 47.6N, 122.3W: hothouse rhubarb! It's been available for a few weeks from local farms. Otherwise nothing local but last fall's apples and pears. But the flowers are blooming and it's beginning to feel like spring.

I sell online a little bit and I set my website to charge just a little bit over the cost of USPS to cover the box, etc. It probably does turn some people off, and I feel a little bad when someone pays as much for shipping as they do for product.

Wow, thanks, Kerry!

Yeah, my understanding was that soft and easy to incorporate was the main bonus - having silk kept warm, ready, and easy to use. If it hardened back into some super cocoa butter with amazing powers, that would be one thing. Otherwise, chunks are chunks?

Kerry, a question on CB silk ... I recently read a blog post about silk ... the author said you can use it right away or let it solidify and shave off bits to use as solid seed, a la Mycryo. My question is, is the solidified silk more effective seed than if you had tempered and cooled CB without the lengthy silk process? Is the solid silk higher in beta crystals and therefore superior to CB tempered in one of the usual ways? Or is it a waste of a day to make silk then let it solidify before use? It seems like everyone here uses silk in the softened state ... Just curious. thanks!

Let's see if this works:

Option c, blue painters tape!

Today I tried a new (to me) technique I saw on Instagram - the yellow splatter was done by dripping the cocoa butter from the bottle and using the airbrush to blow it at the mold. Effective and you don't have to clean the airbrush

If I wanted to cost out single hazelnuts, I'd weigh out a few different ounces then count the nuts and get an average - if there are 20 nuts in an ounce and they were $8/#, then each nut cost 2 1/2 cents. If they are big nuts and only 15 per ounce then it's 3 1/3 cents per nut. When considering a whole recipe, I might do a super precise cost but then round it up by 5-10% to allow for waste. So maybe I'd go ahead and cost that nut at 4 cents each, because sometimes you get halves in the bag and sometimes I need chef snacks. But I'm not that precise Labor is the bigger factor, and more unpredictable. What's your most expensive ingredient? You could do solid Valrhona and your max food cost for a 14g bonbon is 38 cents (at $12/#) I guess some liqueurs are expensive, but sugar, cream, and butter are relatively cheap. The years of practice however ... priceless! As for getting audited, I've heard the main thing is that your numbers look realistic. They're looking for people who are claiming huge gains or losses that aren't supported by evidence. I think they start to wonder if you claim losses too many years in a row. And back to pricing, I had forgotten about a custom order I have this week. They want 40 monogrammed salty caramels, 20 "A" and 20 "C". I figured that'll be kind of a pain, so I quoted them $3 each, not packaged.

Oh, pricing! Remember when we all though tempering was the tricky part? Definitely depends on location/demographic. Here in Seattle, around $2 per piece is about average, so that is what I usually charge. But I did a Valentine's pop-up with one vendor who charged $5-7 per piece for her "apothecary" truffles infused with all sorts of organic herbs. I was a little stunned, but people did buy them and in talking with her, that is what she needs to charge to make it worth doing. Another maker does hand-dipped vegan confections and the price on their website is $7 for a box of two. The mistake I make is that I look at the big producers who I want to compete with. Around here, Fran's is well known for high quality chocolate https://www.franschocolates.com/ They are good and elegantly packed, but they also have a factory with an enrobing line and four retail stores, so they are operating on a far different scale. Still, when a chef of a hotel restaurant contacted me about Valentine's chocolates, he was hoping I could beat Fran on pricing, and I did (there is actually a Fran's shop in their hotel). So for that order, two piece boxes were $4, not a great margin because the little boxes are 50 cents each but I consider them sort of wholesale and it was 100 boxes so volume discount. I sold more of the same at pop-ups for $5. Should they actually be $6 or $7 if I want to make money? Yes! And when I sell on consignment I do bump the prices up a little so my half is not too small. But live and in person I still get stuck on wanting things to be an affordable luxury and not gouging the customer. I raised prices on my standard items (bars and cocoa-dusted truffles) last fall and I don't think it hurt sales at all. I think I need to get over worrying about seniors on social security and go after all the tech and weed money here!

I like it but then I like yogurt. The rhubarb is nice and not too sweet, I haven't tried the flavors you mentioned.

Add enough white chocolate or cocoa butter to make it solid enough to cut and handle.

I have seen some US makers producing thinner bars, but they tend to be bean-to-bar chocolatiers with most likely custom molds. Why selection is limited usually boils down to supply and demand. I was looking for a 50 gram bar mold, lots of options out there but only 2 that fit my needs for proportion, depth, ease of cleaning, and visual appeal. I plan to order custom so I can get exactly what I want.

That was suggested, was it confirmed?

Sounds yummy! But I have to ask, what does baking do for the pie? If the clear jell thickens pretty immediately, and there are no eggs or starch to be cooked, could you pile the filling into a pre-baked pie shell and call it good?

What are the other dishes? Maybe they would do better staying warm in the dehydrator while the lamb rests. Is your oven very small, or do your dishes require vastly different cooking temps?

Correct, not really an issue for solid pieces, except you have a little less time to shake the bubbles out.

Molds that are too cold can cause your shells to be too thick because the chocolate will crystallize rapidly when it hits the cold mold. A good working room temp and therefore temp of your molds is around 65-68F. If room temp is below 60, that's when you need to work extra quickly. Lately my kitchen has been around 55, at that point it is cold enough to make a difference. And in the summer when it gets up into the low 70's, molding becomes a challenge due to heat. You may want your chocolate at 90 degrees, but not your molds or your kitchen!