Kerry Beal

The one I use is a Kensington - this one. Crisis I'm faced with today is powering the unit at an upcoming trade show where I thought I'd have power - but now it appears I may not. I have a little Cobra Jumpack - but it's 14V output - so I'm not sure that would be wise to use with it. I'm looking at some 12 V power packs to see if they would work for me.

I have a little inverter for the car - just plug it in to that so it continues to work while I'm driving, then plug it in when I get where I'm going.

And rolling fruit in a ball is a colossal PIA as Rodney and I found recently! I have used a maltodextrin solution and some powdered sugar with ground up freeze dried fruit as a pre-coat to build up some roundness before I start adding the chocolate with some really craggy dried fruits. Today I was panning almonds - my 5 quart kitchen aid is in the shop and so I was using my 6 quart. I should know better than to turn my back on that one - the pan works its way out of the attachment on that mixer and it hit the ground revolving - showering the floor with almonds.

Continuing prep for fun fair this Thursday - I made a couple of pans of Rice Krispie treats that I then dipped in milk chocolate and drizzled with dark. Finished up the chocolate with some ginger and freeze dried lemon bark and some almond smoked salt bark. Tomorrow I hope to make a couple of panned items and sponge toffee.

I think I've seen discussion about panning fondant covered cherries - so I suspect that the peppermint version would be a piece of cake.

Finally figured out how to edit the video (sort of - I've clearly got a long way to go) and now I'm going to see if I can figure out how to put it up here for Jim to see how I tempered the white chocolate.

Oh - I like that! Much better than nicknames I've had in the past!

You still have to melt and cool - but only cool to the higher temperature (it still works fine if you just melt to 33.5 and add it - but it will over temper more quickly). The range you can work in for milk and white is greater - so essentially 33.5 down to whatever you would normally allow - and you can heat it up again as you currently do with the hairdryer when it starts to thicken. And you can heat back up to 33.5. Oops - thought I'd posted this reply yesterday - must have forgotten to hit post.

Minas - you can make the sealing gum syrup yourself - the polish I'd probably buy. Gum syrup would be 50 grams of gum arabic in 100 grams of warm water - whisking furiously the whole time. The thermomix does a lovely job of this. Can you show us a picture of the attachment piece on this pan - I'm curious how it differs from the others I've seen? What's the diameter of that pan?

Jim - here are my notes about tempering from Valrhona. Tempering -for shine, snap, texture, correct flavour -resists melting in your hand -if cocoa butter crystals are in the ‘correct’ orientation, light will be reflected in such a way that the chocolate is shiny -keep bowl very clean with paper towel to top, heat gun to sides, and scraper to keep off excess chocolate -all scrapings go into another bowl so they don’t cause over-crystallization -first pour out a percentage into another vessel - some of which will be added back to increase the temperature after tabling -pour out the melted chocolate onto the table, move around with a single scraper, thermometer in your other hand so you know the temperature of your mass all all times - the combination of a scraper and and offset will add too much air into the chocolate -clean the sides of the bowl with the heat gun and introduce the reserved warm chocolate a bit at a time until the reheat working temperature is reached Melt Table Reheat Dark 55-58º C 27-28º C 31-32º C Milk 45-48º C 27-28º C 29-30º C White/Dulcy 45-48º C 27-28º C 29-29º C *never add cold table scrapings to the mass *never let your table temperatures get below the recommended temperature

I'm using Belcolade - and it was the bottom of a bag that had been open for a while so was a little thicker to work with than I like because it tends to take on moisture. You can hold at 33.5 or a bit lower (I'm sure I mentioned above that I've noticed when you add the seed - temperature tends to drop about 1º C - likely due to latent heat) - it will take longer to over-crystallize - but will still happen. I'd probably be adding more untempered 33.5 C chocolate when that happens rather than trying to take it higher than 33.5. I'm going to add my notes on the Valrhona tempering to the molded chocolate thread for you.

So did some white chocolate tonight and videoed it - but have absolutely no clue how to edit or upload. I'll see if I can save a few images to show how well it worked. Nope can't figure it out - will need help. I cooled about 1 kg of white chocolate to 33.5 - added 10 grams of the cocoa butter silk. Tested the temper before and after adding the silk. The test from before the silk was partially melted after about 30 minutes, the post test was in perfect temper. I went for a thin shell. I was able to unmold the chocolates in about 30 minutes - they were perfectly shiny and fell out of the mold. Went down to take a couple of pictures - please excuse the bubbles and out of focus!

I think I envisioned it as something (for the part where it simply tempers chocolate) that would bridge between tempering small quantities by hand and the Selmi. It can also be used to seed a wheel machine before attaching the enrober. I guess it has changed my habits with the Selmi - this year I didn't bother to fire up the Selmi for my easter production - just seemed like too much trouble to drag it out and clean it afterwards. I have used it - just as you suggested - with a couple of melters when I need larger quantities for the Luxury Chocolate Show. Removed all the stress associated with tempering at the last minute in a busy venue. Tomorrow, as I mentioned above, Anna N and I are headed to a charity event - we will take it along to temper white and dark chocolate - then into squeeze bottles to have the participants decorate those honking big truffles and the dipped oreos.

I posted a bit on the Valrhona workshop in Chocdoc Goes to France - but not all the details as it wasn't really mine to share. I'll do some white chocolate tonight to show you.

Jim - I did speak to the valrhona people about that (was actually trying to figure out where we had been discussing that so I could respond to you) - they said the white was very susceptible to over-crystallization so you had to take care not to scrape the last bits off the table into the bowl - keep the sides of the bowl warm and scrupulously clean. Traditional tempering requires cooling down to the point where you create a critical amount of form V crystals, then reheating to melt out the 'bad' forms without melting out the form V you have produced. In this case you are introducing the critical amount of form V crystals at a temperature where they are stable and won't melt out.

Yup - you can hold at 33.5 or so - that makes a big difference with white chocolate!

Put together a gift basket for the folks at Fuji spray guns - they provided us with a generous gift certificate for our workshop. Only thing in the basket not pre-crystallized with the EZtemper were the panned cherries.

I prefer my hotdogs in New England Style buns (hard to get your hands on where I live), dressed with yellow mustard and lots of sweet pickle relish - prefer Strub's.

So Qzina is in NJ - they handle Callebaut (therefore Cacao Barry) although like to try to sell you their own stuff. I know there are some threads about packaging around here somewhere - probably the best source of information. Papermart seems to be popular.

Finished work at 8 am today in the little town of Dunnville - someone mentioned the market was open - seemed a good idea to hit before the long drive home. Asparagus, new potatoes, strawberries - and a couple of these lovely big tomatoes. Which made a wonderful bacon, cheese and tomato sandwich.

Where will you be in the US chocofoodie?

Getting ready for two upcoming events - the 'Affair du Chocolat', a charity event for the Brain Injury Associations and a Fun Fair at a local school. I also have 3 gift baskets to produce for charity events. Liquorice sticks With the leftover chocolate from decorating the sticks - a vanilla and dried blueberry bark. Truffles - these - in addition to the oreos dipped a few days back will be what is decorated at the charity event. The leftover truffle chocolate went towards a coffee and black pepper bark.

Never did - considering taking some up to my favourite fat chemist at Guelph and seeing if he would run it through the chromatograph. Certainly would explain why it never worked well for coloured cocoa butter.

Bit expensive - but here.

I tend to use essential oils - but I have done some experimenting where I sous vide the chocolate with the item I want to infuse - straining is a bitch though.