emmalish

This is great, thanks Tiny! I feel like I'm taking the course through you. I've never made butter ganache either, but now I want to try it.

I have both these and the odd size set. I checked the tbsp, 2tsp and tsp measures this morning, and they're all accurate. Phew. One less thing to worry about.

If anyone's interested, I heard back from dr.ca the following day and they say they're in the process of redesigning their website and making it more search engine friendly. I've also noticed that after I asked them a question about one of their products, within a day the website had been updated to describe the item more clearly. I haven't ordered anything from them yet, but I'm already very impressed by their customer service.

Could you post the recipe? ← I'd love to see the recipe too.

I've got two more on the way from Chocolat-Chocolat. And one of them is magnetic, so I can play with my transfer sheets too! edited to add I had a package waiting for me when I got home. Woo! And I lied – I'd ordered three molds. Totally forgot about one of them. This weekend I'm going to make Kerry's caramels again. Maybe the following weekend I'll try the Chai Tigers in the molds.

I was thinking that too. Thanks for confirming. Next time I'll make it a two-day process (sigh). I also made the buttercrunch toffee recipe this weekend. I've been making David Lebovitz's buttercrunch recipe since I discovered it. Peter Greweling's is completely different. While David's is stirred as little as possible and includes baking soda, Peter's is stirred constantly and has no baking soda. I think I like the flavour of Peter's better, but the texture of David's. Must do a little experimenting...

Of course, I had to do it all in one day. I made the ganache, and while that was cooling to room temp, I tempered the chocolate and made the shells. then filled the molds and backed them off with piped chocolate. I'm working with a microwave to temper my chocolate and still quite new to tempering. It's probably not as big a deal as I think it is, but I don't want to do it multiple times for a single recipe. Even with lemon rather than lime, it makes me think "mojito" too. A place near me makes a lemon/basil truffle – it's a really nice combination. I'd like to try to recreate that one. Thanks Tammy! I have to say, it was very satisfying to see all the bubbles rising to the surface as I banged my molds against the countertop!

Alright, here they are, my first molded chocolates... I'll try to take a new picture tomorrow – I just realized I have the iso on my camera set waaaay too high (was playing with it for something else and forgot to set it back – oops). I made the lemon mint ganache and just let it cool to room temp for piping into the molds. I have to say, molded chocolates? Very messy. I had chocolate dribbles all over the place. And my scraping down of the molds needs some work. I cut the recipe in half and it filled my two molds twice each. The first set, I overfilled the ganache so many of them leaked a bit (they'll be the first eaten). The rest were much better, but my bottoms turned out really messy looking, almost like they collapsed a bit while the chocolates set up. Also, my ganache seemed fine until I piped it into the mold, and then it looked almost like it was separating a bit. But it seems to have set up fine in the end. When they first came out of the mold, the filling was nice and gooey. You can see it's set up solid now. I have to say that so far I think I prefer enrobing, mostly because once the chocolate is in temper, I'm constantly doing something. With the molds, there's a lot of waiting for chocolate or ganache to set up before continuing to the next step. It would probably flow a lot better if I had more than just the two molds so I could keep them rotating. I really like the flavour of this ganache. Next time I may make it as a slab (as it was intended) and see how that works out. Does anyone know how long these should keep? Should they be stored in the fridge, or at room temp?

They need to talk to their web designer, they've never come up in any searches I've done and I do a lot of searching. ← That's for sure. I'd never even heard of them. I've been bemoaning the lack of Canadian online suppliers too. edited to say that I just sent them an email about it.

Kerry Beal recommended Metal Supermarkets when I was trying to find caramel rulers. They have an online form to order things, or you can call a local store. Looks like they're all over the place.

Thank you again! My molds are a bit fiddly, so I'll adjust the ganache to thin it. Fingers crossed... I'll post pics and let you know how they turn out.

How would you thin it? Would you leave some of the chocolate out of the recipe to begin with?

Thanks everyone! I'm looking forward to trying out my molds this weekend. Still haven't decided which recipe to try. I'm leading towards the chai tigers, but I'm not certain...

So, would you recommend modifying the recipes to get a thinner ganache?

Thanks Kerry, I'll experiment with it a bit this weekend. I have a question regarding the recipes in this book. If I want to use one of the truffle or slabbed ganache recipes to fill molded chocolates, would I need to modify the recipe at all? On p.92 it says "The ganache used in hollow-shell truffles typically contains approximately 25 percent less chocolate than a piped or slabbed ganache." Would I delete 25% of the chocolate from the recipe, and then follow the instructions for hollow-shell technique on p.93?

When I picked up my supplies on the weekend, I asked for coloured cocoa butter, but I didn't look at it until I got home. It's actually AmeriColor Oil Candy Color. Dang. I've checked their website and it says it can be mixed with white chocolate. Do you think it would be safe to mix with cocoa butter? Or can it be brushed into the mold as-is? Or do I need to experiment?

I don't think I'd want them any harder than this. They're really the perfect consistency – soft and chewy, yet firm enough to hold their shape. I'll just keep the "imperfect" ones for myself. I brought a bunch in to work to share – HUGE hit. People can't stop talking about them and asking for more. I've told them the first taste is free, but if they want another hit they have to pay for it.

Thank you! I thought it was okay – I was very careful with the tempering process and watching my temperatures, but I wasn't completely sure. Everything I've read says the chocolate should be shiny, but mine has more of a dull finish to it. Is that right? It looks pretty much like the photo. But there are no streaks or bloom. I knew it had to do with the chocolate contracting while it set, but I hadn't seen anyone else post anything like this, so I thought I'd done something ridiculous along the way. Good to hear it's not just me! I had trouble with some of the caramels falling off my dipping fork and back into the chocolate... would that have caused those caramels to warm up enough to cause this problem? Interesting. I'll try that with my next batch (I will be making these again, definitely). Many people upthread said that their caramels lost shape fairly quickly. Mine held their shape well, but were also quite soft. I loved the consistency. I let them sit for a day before pre-coating and cutting them. I used a sharp oiled chef's knife to cut, and got a nice straight edge on them all. They sat on my kitchen counter from the time I made them until the time I dipped them, so they were definitely at room temperature. Oh, and quick question for Kerry. How long will these keep? And how best to store them? What about if they're not enrobed? Thanks again for this wonderful recipe! I know I'll be making it often.

I made Dorie Greenspan's Peanut Butter Crisscrosses this weekend (mentioned upthread).

I made the caramels this weekend – as amazing as everyone else has already said! The only variation I made from the recipe was to add a couple tsp of fleur de sel with the cream. I decided dipping them in dark chocolate could only make them better. It was my first time tempering and enrobing, so I may have done something wrong. I think my temper was okay – the chocolates have a nice finish and my leftover chocolate set up nicely with a good snap. But as the dipped caramels set up, many of them started to ooze out a little bit of caramel here or there. Is this normal with soft caramels? Something I did? Didn't do? They're not all doing this, just some...

It's from Baking: From My Home to Yours. We've got a thread going here.

My favourite right now is Dorie Greenspan's Peanut Butter Crisscrosses with peanuts and chocolate chunks added. Crispy and buttery, melt in your mouth texture. I'm actually planning on making them tomorrow (was going to tonight, but got lazy).

Clever! I'm stealing that.

Oooh, I hadn't seen the tempering demo. Thanks for that link. Well, we've suddenly got a great dump of snow here in Vancouver. I'm going to hold off on the trip to Sugar Arts until we've got better weather. It's a weekend to stay home, not drive an hour through the snow. edited to say never mind, the snow was coming down hard and getting deep last night, but this morning it's almost all gone. So I'm going to get my toys today after all. edited again to say I've been, and Patrice was wonderful. I got a couple molds, a stencil sheet (want to try those buckwheat beehives), dark, milk & white chocolate (pellets), some coloured cocoa butter, powdered cocoa butter (he recommended this – anyone else use it?), glucose, trimoline, & praline paste. For the latter three, instead of buying the huge 5kg pails, he suggested I go to the corner store and pick up a tupperware container and he sold me a smaller amount, which was a huge help. He didn't have the caramel rulers (would have to special order them), but he did have some bottomless cake forms so I got those (and I can use them for baking as well). AND, as if that weren't enough, he gave me a couple transfer sheets so I can play with that too. I had a great shopping day! I can't wait to play with all my toys! I'm still planning to make caramel this weekend. I'll save the molded chocolates for later, after I've read through the book more thoroughly and decided which recipe I want to try first.

Essential oils! Excellent. Can always use those. What do you use for a scraper? I've seen some instructions say to just use the edge of a chef's knife. I was thinking of using an offset spatula. Got all the other equipment already except the heating gun. When do you use that? Chris, I saw earlier when you said you had problems with the heating pad. I was meaning to ask you how you kept the chocolate liquid throughout the enrobing process. Thanks! That makes sense.