pastrygirl

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!

6" chocolate cake for a catering today, theme: trees!

Valentines collections- gold are milk chocolate salty caramel, black are caramel mocha, red & white have amarena cherry and hazelnut.

Not the new chocolate, they are just throwing the men of the world a bone, so to speak.

Me 4? 5? If it is super cold in the kitchen I might wave a hair dryer over them, orherwise no heat.

Will it later be enrobed like an almond joy? Can you cut slivered almonds and put them together on top of the coconut to form the numeral? Slivered almonds are cut like a julienne, about 1/8" square by the length of an almond.

Creaming has nothing to do with water, longer mixing of the butter and sugar creates more air bubbles, which make a finished product lighter and fluffier. Good in cake, but if op wants a denser dough, adding less air is one way to go.

It may just be under baked since you say it is soft, though in my convection oven 30 min at 160 C should bake most cookies nice and golden. How thick is the layer in your baking pan and what is the pan made of? Working the dry ingredients for 2 minutes sounds like a very long time. Cream the butter until it is smooth, it doesn't have to be super light and fluffy for most shortbread. Then mix in the flour just until it is combined. Focus on how the dough looks and feels rather than on time, both for mixing and baking.

Discard chocolate? The horror! No need to do that, you can dump it back into the bowl. Yes, it will cool the mass a little but just keep an eye on it. You can dump it on parchment to save for later if you want, but you have to temper a lot more chocolate to get the job done if you're not 'recycling' it. 5 molds isn't many, the chocolate should stay in temper for that long unless your kitchen is really cold. A heating pad can help, or I keep a hairdryer handy so I can warm chocolate a few degrees - my kitchen has been in the 50's F lately, so I need to warm the chocolate frequently to keep it in temper. And it's not that much chocolate. 40 pieces per mould must be pretty small, so even if you are making solid pieces I doubt you need more than 2kg per batch. Workflow: seed/temper chocolate while polishing/decorating molds and making ganache. Cast shells, fill with cooled ganache once set. Do something else for a few hours until ganache is crystallized. Re-temper chocolate and cap/bottom molds. Depending on the kitchen, you may be able to find a spot perfect for keeping chocolate warm - an oven or french top with a pilot light. Then you need to find a place to keep your finished bonbons cool and away from snackers!

Your link says the man experienced chest pains in the first mile, leaving another mile and a half between him and the dozen donuts. So apparently it was the running, not any eating, that led to his demise.

Yes, Restaurant Wars made me love Shirley even more. I totally agree about the mess and the other team.

I would also suspect that since fat conducts heat better than air. But the linked recipe doesn't have butter, so I'm not sure where the OP is going with that. If you want to add butter, add butter! It will brown a bit in the roasting, and brown butter & pecans is a winning combo in my book.

Cute, and no doubt fun to watch them made but I avoid anyplace selling blue ice cream. Yes, with more surface area exposed they would melt faster on a warm day.