Kerry Beal

Might want to do a little test - on frozen fondant vs cold. You could probably use some freeze spray on the fondant before you spray. The velvet effect will stay - just have to be careful you don't touch it as it's melty.

Hmmm - they are from thermoworks

Took 4 of these favourite spatulas, was careful to put them back in my box after they were washed each time - came home with none! Spent a better part of the afternoon yesterday going through the entire place to see if we could find them. Can everyone check their stuff.

On Saturday my photographer friend Robert Irvine and his SO Irene came to take some pictures for us. Bob does the setup for my ad's for So Good and Pastry Arts, as well as a video that we did for Pastry Art's a few years ago. @Anniebakes fruit chews Making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Taking the interference powder from our sponsor Easy Leaf Products to hide the bloom on the molds that were made with less than perfectly tempered chocolate. Not sure what they were finding so funny - but they do indeed look amused. Someone tempering cocoa butter with a titch of EZtemper silk. Hey shut the lid! And of course - since Robert is a photographer - you gotta have the artsy shot!

@Diana D making a bonbon with her brandied cherries and a boozy syrup. Caramel covered popcorn brought back from the other site - hopefully someone will be able to post pictures of that production. They made a big batch of stand up caramel and the popcorn. It was done in the Firemixer14 - caramel was perfect - some details need to be worked out around the popcorn because the corn itself needs to be warm and stay warm during the syrup application (or even be warmed further) - and also if you cook the peanuts in the syrup - it's not going to come smoothly (or at all) out of the spout! Panning demo by @Alleguede @VistaGardens cutting a blackcurrent PDF to pan. @Chocolot showed ?English Toffee to the group - I'd call it buttercrunch. What ever you call it - yum! @YetiChocolates working on a variety of things - one a ? candied ?roasted pineapple and home dried cayenne piece. @RanaMN's halva - not as crystallized as she would prefer - but much closer to what she's after - perhaps another day or two sitting might be all it needs? @VistaGardens orange rinds coming out of the instant pot. Hoping that she will give me the instructions so I can try this at home.

Saturday breakfast Saturday lunch - @alleguede surprised us with a wonderful mushroom quiche and croque monsieur And how could I forget - lunch dessert - flan - plain and black sesame

Val, co-owner of the Cake Collective, along with her sister Maria - is as much of a gadget person as I am. I happened to notice that she had a big old homogenizer sitting on the counter (she had picked it up at an auction a few years back). I had brought a jar of MEC hazelnut paste that was about half oil and half rock solid nut material. Required a bit of work with the homogenizer - but once done - had a lovely runny nut paste that Val was able to make use of for a cake that required it and they are thinking about using it to emulsify their vegan caramel sauce that seriously needs emulsification.

PDF of Daniel's recipes. Daniel Stubbe biorecipes 2024-05-17.pdf

Should be OK in your carry on I suspect.

She’s making candied orange rind

Dinner at Gouter. First there was the show and tell - Wasn't very good at taking dinner pics - I'm a little out of practice. Wonderful gelato dessert.

A delightful young man who was baking his product at the Cake Collective kitchen today left us a box of his product to try when he rushed out today. One of the products that Kriss Harvey organized for us - along with Boiron Purees - was vanilla from a company called Prova. They are represented in Canada by AB Embulluxe in Quebec. They sent us samples of nice fat vanilla beans, some paste and a new product - this Fusion Vanilla, Fusion Rhum and Fusion Cafe. These are strong extractions of flavour in a cocoa butter base so they can be added directly to chocolate and other fat based products without adding any water. I put them in the EZtemper to soften up to make them easier to incorporate. I did a small experiment with some milk chocolate leftover from a dipping session - I added the Vanilla Fusion to it, along with some crushed Trader Joes Vanilla cookies. I forgot to take them out of the fridge before I left - so there might be some condensation in the morning.

And it begins - starting the first morning with a demo by Daniel Stubbe - a German trained konditorei (?sp) who has a lovely little shop here in Toronto who is showing a couple of his recipes with a long shelf life and talking business at the same time. Notice the Or Noir - exclusive chocolate designed by Daniel and made in France at the academy - one of the things that Barry Callebaut is able to do for chocolatiers.

If I haven’t put it here before - address today is 1021 Meyerside - unit 2

Plan seems to be if you are at the hotel to meet at 8 in lobby - with plan to get to the Cake Collective at 8:30.

Not me sadly - haven't eaten out since 2020.

Distillery district a bit touristy - Rodney likes a mexican place there El Catrin Destileria

Fabulous!

Turns out that we only have power for one Selmi - so we will run dark chocolate. We will have the enrobing line on it. Rodney is going to have to rewire the plug tomorrow evening. I’ll bring melters for white and milk.

You still driving that lovely little sports car?

We were there today to determine just that. There are scales, bowls, spatulas, two microwaves. Totally agree you'll want your own recipes, mold scrapers, dipping fork, and empty containers. Bring molds - there are none. Apron or chef coat or both. We will start to get there at 8 to eat Rodney's treats - then start up around 9 on Friday. With last minute drop outs and additions we are around 22. This is a shared kitchen so there might be a customer or two in there doing their thing while we are working.

Not looking like it's available anywhere here.

I'll add tahini to the list! What is the brand you prefer?

About all I can add to this is the running back and forth and packing all sorts of stuff in my car. If I drop a load off today then fill the car up again - I'm starting to wonder how I'm going to get it all home again on Sunday! Setting up with all the amazing donations we received from our sponsors - Barry Callebaut provided us with pretty much all the chocolate we will use for the this weekend along with a bucket of Cara Crackine which will be fought over I'm sure. The Selmi's will be getting filled. Around 5 melters will have milk and white, some Ruby to use for ganaches etc. Also some wonderful nut pastes from Rodney's good friend 'The Gelato Guy'. There's a lot of moving things into place then tucking them away somewhere - it's a shame we don't have a nice clear shelf to put all our ingredients on, where everything can be easily seen and all left there through the entire event.

I have had my eG family since 2006 and my eG chocolate and confections family since 2009 - so by now you all know I'm like a dog with a bone. So yesterday morning - after taking care of some family stuff - I ran out to Brampton to pick up some soapwort from a place called Botanic Planet. There is apparently a store in Burlington (where I live) called Botanic Universe - but I was unable to locate it at the given address and the answering machine instructs you to leave a number - so that was out. I didn't know if they had it anyway. So driving home from Brampton I saw Rana's message about the bitterness and panicked a bit with my 1 lb of soapwort on the seat beside me. I licked the bag and only detected a hint of bitterness so hope still remained! (I didn't really lick the bag - I licked my finger and picked up some of the powder on the outside of the bag) Last night I took 25 grams and put it in a pan with water and started it boiling, then started reading which said to rinse it well before cooking - so dumped that batch, and started again with a fresh (now clean) 25 grams and about 500 ml of water. Didn't take long to boil it down to around 75ml. Tasted for bitterness - only a hint - so feeling hopeful. I popped that in the fridge overnight and this morning before work I made the natef - 400 grams of sugar with 200 grams water, a 1/4 tsp of citric acid, cooked to 115º C, then added 125 grams of honey that I had heated in the nuke and brought to 121º C. I drizzled that into the beating soapwort solution (most of it - lots ended up on the counter) - need a pan with a spout. Tasted the natef - again only a hint of bitterness. Heated 500 grams of tahini to around 60º C, put into a short, wide stainless bowl I have (riffing off the pans they were using in the video) and mixed everything together using a flat silicone spatula. Pressed into a silicone bread pan - flattened as best I could - I think the video said 18 hours was the ideal time for unmolding - but I suspect it will be either 12 or 24 for me. Forgot to add any vanilla - and did add one drop of citrus flower essential oil (my rose water and orange flower water didn't smell that good - the new ones I bought for the workshop were in the car). All this to say - I think we will be able to continue the experiments at the workshop using this source of soapwort!