Kerry Beal

Welcome @Vip89. I'd suggest to tell the difference between fat and sugar bloom - dampen a finger and run it over the streaks - if they feel gritty and disappear with the damp it's sugar bloom. Retemper that chocolate and as it starts to firm up around the edges after pouring the mold - pop it in the fridge for 15 to 20 minutes to carry off the latent heat of crystallization. Then take it out of the fridge to prevent sugar bloom. The chocolate in the second picture should temper fine - looks like just older chocolate with some form VI conversion on the surface. Can you set up cooling that is not as cold as a fridge to store your product? A wine fridge or if you are making large quantities - maybe a room with a Coolbot. I'm thinking perhaps around 15-18 degrees C so it isn't below the dew point of the room when you take the chocolate back out.

I find mango has a piney flavor.

I live in the town where Voortman's are made - Covid has resulted in the closing of their outlet permanently unfortunately. But many's the time I've gone in there and left with a dozen packages of cookies and a bunch of loose huge gingerbread men. Some to be dipped in chocolate and others to be eaten!

The chefman warmer goes really low temp - you could work on the surface. The Chefman warmer would work if you were painting on a piece of acetate. If you are painting directly onto the surface of a slab of chocolate then I can see the issue with the hairdryer.

Neat! Maybe work with a very low blow hair dryer in hand to carefully touch the areas you want to blend

When I was heading to Scotland a bunch of years ago when I had time to research food before traveling - I asked what food I should be watching for - Indian was the answer. And they were so right!

I have given away my 6 quart to someone who needed it more than I. I use the 3 quart for most everything except when I need to caramelize white chocolate - then I use the big one.

These?

Were you happy with the bottom of the loaf?

Thanks @Douglas K.

I've mixed both sparkle and lustre interference powder into coloured cocoa butter and been able to spray without difficulty. Now the decor sized sparkle I wouldn't even try.

I saw that - and I didn't tell him! It's his water heater though - my kettle gets boiled every morning for my tea. To be fair - hubby makes it for me. C'mon now - do I seem the type who can't be told what to do?

Confectionary funnel - I really like the one I have with the stick vs the one with thumb control

Water left in the tank is his concern - resulting in rust. Also he worries about the house blowing up. This is the man who wouldn't let me have one of the nice little japanese water heaters in the kitchen because it stays plugged in - until he decided he wanted water at 160º F for his green tea. Now we have one!

Since you just need melting - I was going to suggest the Keychoc. But I think it's out of your budget. Hilliards are not sexy machines but they are workhorses. I don't know how much you need to worry about temperature fluctuations if you are using compound coating.

Don't know that I've got the patience for doing that with a piping bag.

Pretty sure we've got some threads about these on eG

Thought I'd posted this the other day. These Cornish pasties from the British Baker could be used as trusty doorstops. The pastry was firm - very firm. Even a large quantity of gravy didn't serve to soften it in anyway. I got thinking about the Cornish pasties they served in the cafeteria of the hospital I did my med lab training in quite a few years back. They were fabulous. I had a rather serious MVC while I was there and ended up in Intensive Care for 9 days - the day I was leaving they were serving the pasties and I seriously considered staying another day! (those were the days when they didn't rush you out of hospital)

Hilliard makes a lot of equipment that deals with confectionary coating - lots of used equipment available as people move over to ‘real’ chocolate. Tempering not required - just heating and warmer than couverature.

If you use it to temper your ganaches you can cut them faster, back them off more quickly. I'll try to find the article by Greweling on tempering ganaches.

The pump is available through TCF sales - it suffers from the same problem that wheel machines though - all that agitation causes significant thickening. I find that using a Mold'art with an EZtemper - it works best if you keep the untempered chocolate in the meter at about 34º C - take out as much into a bowl as you need - temper with EZtemper and work out of the bowl. Add more chocolate to the bowl as needed and temper. Avoids the inevitable thickening over time. I do occasionally see the small Savage melters around. Gami makes decent machines - but you need to think about potential repairs when you get one of these European machines.

My hubby insists that I drain the air tank after I have used it each time. Fortunately mine is housed in the elevator closet which is just outside the door from my chocolate room into the rest of the basement.

I'm just picturing the frustration. Guichon manages to make it look simple and then there are we mere mortals!

Pressure filtration can help.

One of our members makes very good use of Savage kettles in addition to some other pieces. I'll ask her to weigh in.