HQAntithesis

Refrigerating it is fine in my experience. I've even just let it sit at room temperature then just poured a joconde over it. It does depend on how important it is to you to have a very sharp design (eg: stencilled designs or straight lines): if that's the case then it's better you have it as cold as possible in the fridge so you lower the chance of damaging the design when spreading the sponge on top.

As far as in Australia goes, they only became available in the last two years.

The way I learned it was that the agitation provides crystallisation: whether it be from airbrush, spraygun, paintbrush or fingertip. But it's not guaranteed: - if applying with a finger or paintbrush and your finger/brush/mould/cocoa butter is too hot, the crystallisation may not take place or may not be adequate - if applying through spraying and the cocoa butter/air temperature/mould is too hot, the crystallisation may not take place or may not be adequate You're best off precrystallising the cocoa butter, but only a little bit and letting the mechanical agitation finish the process.

I've only had one fondant buttercream that I've liked for as long as I can remember. More that because it's the only one that I've had in ages than the fact that I'm a fussy eater though haha. It was made by a Belgian chocolatier though and he was pretty happy to share the recipe because it was so basic, the main trick, according to him, being having it come out well. Don't quote me on it, but I think it was one part fondant, one part butter, one part chocolate (in his case it was milk chocolate) and then alcohol to taste. I think the difficulty in making a recipe like that is that you want to maintain the emulsion of your butter while, at the same time, having it warm enough that the chocolate incorporated without graininess. ---------------------------- Here's a sample recipes from 'The New International Confectioner', published by Virtue publishing house, that has similar ingredients: 650g butter 400g fondant 200g kirsch 650g milk chocolate 560g white couverture Combine the butter, fondant and milk couverture. Add the kirsch. Make white chocolate discs with the white couverture then pipe the fondant on top. ---------------------------- It's quite a dated book and the instructions aren't great. As a first attempt, I'd heat the butter and fondant to 30-31C then aerate it or combine it (depending on what you're after). I'd then temper the milk chocolate then overheat it to 30-31C to melt out almost all the crystals then incorporate it into the butter mixture. Then I'd add the kirsch.

Meep! I must've expressed my idea badly: I don't have any experience with using tempered chocolate with mousses. I don't think they're practical on a large production basis because they'd set faster and I'm not sure how I'd heat my whipped cream to the required temperature without deflating it excessively. I think they would make a slightly firmer mousse, if everything else was done the same. As to the originating issue with the semi-frozen mousse/chantilly chocolat. I think if the recipe were altered to have at least 35% fat (butterfat + cocoa butter) and the recipe itself was at least 18% cocoa butter, you'd be in the clear. If you can't get a chocolate that has the required percentage, you could just make up the difference with cocoa butter. Also note that it's probably best to freeze the mousse after having it sit in the fridge for at least an hour, unless the mousses were definitely to be eaten semi-freddo (no chance it would sit out at room temperature for longer than required).

I think the idea of the tempering the chocolate is that you don't then add the boiled cream to it. You either heat the cream up from the fridge to 28-34C, or boil it and shock chill it down to that temperature. That way you still have your beta crystals. The alternative is heating the chocolate up and throwing in cold cream which'll cause a 'wild' crystallisation but, if the temperature finishes at 29-32C should melt out the unstable crystals with further mixing. As far as tempered chocolate in a mousse goes... theoretically speaking, would the only desired effect that tempered chocolate gives be a more stable mousse (doesn't bulge much or at all) that you couldn't otherwise get without changing the flavour (adding more chocolate) or the mouthfeel (adding more cocoa butter). On the downside, I think you'd have to work REALLY quick to make a mousse with tempered chocolate. It would start to set rapidly as soon as all the elements are combined wouldn't it?

As said above, the starch molecule is a combination of sugar molecules. So I guess the decomposition of the starch implies it decomposes to sugar which then caramelises, which is a part of th maillard reaction?

Oh thats what an interference powder is, I just thought it was another name for metallic powder. My bad .

1: If you want to spray 'neutral' cocoa butter first you should make sure it's a nice thin layer. An airbrush should be good for that though (as opposed to a paint sprayer). 2: You can overlap coloured cocoa butter/chocolate sprays. Try not to go overboard though because the layers of fat aren't pleasant to eat. Two to three layers isn't excessive though. 3: You can use the metallic powders before the first coat (for a prominent metallic look) or between coats. Keep in mind if it's between, say, coats 2 and 3 you won't much of what you put in (though the effect would be good). 4: Before adding a metallic powder, let the cocoa butter layer set until it's at least dry to the touch, if not the powder will cling to the unset layer and give a blotchy effect. To add the metallic I use a brush to pick up the powder then tap it into the mould, to save on powder you can place the next mould on top, flip the two moulds and bang out the excess straight into the mould. (yes that could probably be explained clearer... ) 5: If you back a white spray with dark, you'll get grey. Visually it's pleasant, but not necessarily appetising. 6: You don't have to mould in dark chocolate. Milk or white works too. Or, if you wanted a colourful dark chocolate you could even spray the coloured cocoa butter, brush the inside with white chocolate and then mould with dark.

Don't know sorry, that's just the formula we use for syrup 30B at work. The baume scale makes little sense to me.

500g water brought to the boil with 900g sugar will give you 30B.

My scales are a bit unreliable for smaller weights but I think you'd be looking at around 1.5T of matcha powder for that much ganache. It may be easiest to start with a very conservative amount though and to keep on tasting. Be sure to sift the matcha powder or, preferably, immersion blend it into the ganache to minimise any chance of lumps.

Do you think it's possible to airbrush a thinned out egg white mixture onto the flowers instead of brushing it? Would that help get a thinner more even layer?

That's a fair enough point Chiantiglace. After all, what you sense when you eat the product is the most important thing after all. I'm speculating here but I think the thought is that there are degrees of emulsions. The finer the water particles in the fat or vice versa, the better the emulsion and the better the shelf life. Also that machines, when used properly, do not incorporate air. Without getting a microscope and actually analysing though, I'm just relying on hearsay. You mentioned a marble to make your ganaches, do you table them then?

Personally, I like using hand-held immersion blenders because I work with really small quantities. Some MOF chocolatiers don't like them though as to get a homogenous emulsion with an immersion blender you have to lift the mixing head up and down: thus 'breaking' the emulsion. I think this is discussed a bit in Kestener's class at the French Pastry School. 'Blenders' like the robotcoupe etc circulate the ganache on it's own in a continuous movement and supposedly makes for a more thorough emulsion. There are videos with Wybauw demonstrating the thermomix on the Callebaut website. At the Bajard school I hear they use a thermomix in class combined with the 'hot chocolate' technique explained in Ramon Morato's book (pouring heating chocolate into cold cream) for a really good result. Besides the convenience factor with weighing/heating/mixing in the same unit, the only observable benefit is the high rotation speed of the blades: roughly 10,000 per minute whereas my robotcoupe only goes to 3,000. I'd love to know if there are any unique features to this machine that contribute to a superior ganache though as I've gotten in contact with thermomix and am getting them to do a demonstration but I think they can only tell me the capabilities of the machine and it's up to me to figure out why it's good for ganache.

I'm intrigued, how do you make your ganaches Chiantiglace? And when you say the machine-made aren't any better, are you referring to texture and shelflife?

I could be wrong but I think the difference between powdered/atomised glucose and dextrose is that the former can vary in it's dextrose equivalent, or DE. Glucose is available with varying proportions of dextrose to maltose and certain confections are best made with a glucose with a higher proportion of maltose. Dextrose, on the other hand, is 'pure' dextrose.

I go two wet spoons. Preferably weigh it onto a powder or something, if not straight into your cream so you're not losing any by getting it stuck onto your weighing dish. I think if you had atomised glucose you could use 90% of the standard glucose weight and replace the other 10% with water. Powdered dextrose isn't the same as atomised glucose (something about the proportions of dextrose to maltose I think)though it probably really wouldn't make any major difference.

Just to check, are you warming the gun before using it? If it's quite cold and you try to spray the mix it could clog enough to make it splutter, but not entirely block up.

Valid point, I just rechecked the typical analysis percentage. The weird thing is though, that the nutritional information only marks it as 69.3g/100g sugar. So the typical analysis, when compared to the nutritional, doesn't really match. As far as I can tell anyway.

The product really isn't so bad. The thing that 'lowers' sweetness is the maltodextrin, but it's not so much a sweetness inhibitor as something that just isn't as sweet: a bit like what dextrose is to sugar. It's reasonably similar to glucose too: the difference being that the molecules in maltodextrin haven't been broken down that much compared to glucose. At least from my understanding anyway. Eg: Dextrose powder = DE 100 Glucose = DE 21-100 Maltodextrin = DE <20 For people with diabetes, it has a similar effect as dextrose.

Twisting the mould slightly should work. If not, rest it on a tea towel with the opening facing the tea towel and knock the mould firmly along the edges.

Honey in itself has a good shelf life, so if you're just going to mould it then it shouldn't be a problem. Keep an eye for the honeys that have a tendency to crystallise though: it may or may not be desirable. You could also consider using creamed honey. Supposedly you can also add 10% tempered cocoa butter to the honey to help stabilise it but it didn't work the last time I tried it.

It'll melt above 30C regardless of how much gelatin is inside. As you get closer to the temperature it should get softer and softer but it's pretty unlikely it'll not hold at all. Why not leave one out as a test?

I haven't heard of Lorann before but most flavourings have a recommended dosage that you could use as a rough guide don't they? I took a quick look for Lorann's website and couldn't find a suggested dosage but they did have some recipes which should give you a pretty good idea: Lorann