David J.

Everclear is an interesting idea but I'm not sure that it will work as the highest proof I can buy in Michigan is still 25% water. I also don't want the flavor profile to be strong on alcohol. My wife has a food dehydrator in the basement that hasn't been used in years but should be in working condition. That will make it cheap and easy to dry some raspberries and powder them in a spice grinder for a test. I will let you know how it goes.

I'm looking for a way to add an intense fruit flavor (raspberry, strawberry, or cherry) to a ganache without adding free water because I'm making a novelty bon-bon with pastry rocks and they will disolve in any moisture. I started with a 300 grams of basic white chocolate and butter ganache and added 60 grams of ground naturaly flavored hard candy, but that resulted in only a mild flavor while adding a large amount of sugar. I thought of fruit compound but I'm only creating small batches and don't want to purchase large amounts that won't get used. Is there a way to boil down puree until it contains very little free water without ruining it? What would you suggest?

Hi Stuckey, First, putting the setting chocolate in the freezer is guaranteed to throw it out of temper. It will cool too fast and unwanted crystal types will form so that when it is warmed back up it will loose any snap it had from being frozen. Allow your test to cool around 68 F until it looses its sheen before placing it in a slightly cooler environment if you are impatient. You can hit your mold lightly with warm air, but be careful not to bring them up over 90F. I used a heat gun to do that and an infrared thermometer to verify I didn't get mine too hot. That's not required however, it just helps get that perfect shine. If you are impatient stirring the callets try using an immersian blender. It will do the job very quickly. Let your molds start to set at room temp. You can refrigerate them briefly after setting has begun, but not for long and stay out of the freezer! David

Does anyone have a conversion chart for pastry tip numbers? I know the US and European numbering system is different, but I don't know what the equivilants are.

Point taken about trapping stuff in multiple screen strainers! I managed with my gold coffee filter and a spatula but it required more time and effort than I like. I was also concerned that it eliminated every bit of pulp leaving only the juice and that it might be wasteful. So far this canning device seems to be a real contender for speed and ease of cleaning.

I think that I'm going to look for an extra fine mesh chinois with wooden pestle. The trick will be finding the proper model as a bit of web searching has uncovered quite a few. Some reviews state that the mesh in some particular model isn't up to removing small seeds and one product description actually mentioned raspberry puree and a triple mesh: http://www.bridgekitchenware.com/moreinfo.cfm?Product_ID=873 It looks like I would have to find a pestle to fit it though as non is pictured. Does anyone have a favorite?

I've been looking at a chinois before for this sort of thing. Now the food mill looks like a great idea since it seems to be designed for making puree, but I'm still wondering about the tiny raspberry seeds making it through the disc. Does anyone have any experience with this that they can report?

I made raspberry puree according to "Artisan Chocolates" where Andrew says to blend raspberries and sugar, then put the mixture through a "fine mesh strainer". Just how fine a strainer would you use? The first time I used a standard kitchen strainer and it passed the little seeds which ended up in my pate de fruit. This time I used a "Gold" mesh coffee filter and it caught the seeds, but pretty much caught everything but the juice too. I ended up tossing a fair amount of pulp and I don't know if that was intended.

More progress to report: I've drilled all the cap screws and strung the frame! I wrapped one end of the wire through a small washer to hold it in place: The other end went over a loose 1/2" rod, back through the frame, and around the screw: I didn't have a chance to try to cut the rod in half and found that it works just fine as it is. I was afraid that the combined tension of the wires might bend the frame a bit, but I don't have any evidence of that at all. I installed the wires from the outside in and non of them loosened as the others were put in. That shows the frame could be widened out to 15" or 16" without having to get thicker angle aluminum. Nuts secure the cap-screws in place to keep them from backing out: Finally here is a shot of the frame with the cutting board: I bought some JB weld glue to attach the handle with, then I've got to create the hinge and base to mount the cutting table on.

Does one have to use overnight shipping or would 2-day delivery work out just as well? I'm wondering about the feasibility of freezing the chocolates prior to shipping and including a frozen gel pack. With an inch or so of insulation wouldn't that last long enough? The savings would be significant for a hypothetical 1'x1'x1' 3lb box: For me to ship from Michigan to Maryland it would cost $58 overnight or $25 for 2-day by FedEx. For three business days the charge drops to $20. For an even better deal USPS will overnight it for $24.50 or 2-day for $6.40. That's a pretty large savings.

Making your own mold is quite easy. You can get food grade silicone casting materials at: http://www.culinart.net/silicone.html They have a little in the way of instruction, but more comprehensive instructions for molding can be found at: http://www.hirstarts.com/moldmake/moldmaking.html They show various techniques for copying different types of objects. While they use non-food grade materials the techniques are the same. David

Hi David J: You actually are referring to the recipe for the 'Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough' under the 'Mix-Ins' chapter, which are soft nuggets of dough intended for adding raw to a finished batch of ice cream, rather than baked into cookies. The instructions don't advise baking them. The recipe for 'Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich Cookies' is on page 224, in the 'Vessels' chapter. There's a photo there as well. (You can perhaps crush the cookies you've baked into crumbs, press them into a pie dish and fill it with ice cream to make an ice cream pie!) David L. ← Hi David, I guess I wasn't clear, I made both the 'Mix-Ins' Cookie Dough and the 'Vessels' sandwich cookies. I baked the sandwich cookies and they came out hard rather than soft (even after trimming the baking time by several minutes), but I understand that they will soften when in contact with the ice cream. Did you mean to have them cool off crisp or still be a bit soft? The 'Mix-Ins' cookie dough didn't absorb all the melted butter you called for. I don't know what the problem was, but I had a couple tablespoons that I had to pour out after several minutes of mixing. I finished the ice cream last night and mixed the dough pieces in before putting it in the freezer to harden up. I'll see how that turned out in just a little bit. David

I'm working on chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream sandwiches right now. I had a real problem with the cookie dough recipe though. It calls for 5 tablespoons of butter to mix in with 1/3 cup of brown sugar and 1/4 cup flour. My dough was left swimming in butter even after quite a bit of mixing. I had to pour out the extra and towel off the dough before continuing. It couldn't quite take all the 3/4 cup of chocolate chips specified. The sandwich cookies are cooling on the counter. They are rather crisp, but should soften in contact with the ice cream when left in the freezer for a day or more.

Choux, The sawblade I used is from "Ridgid" and is golden in color as it has a "Titanium Coating"and also has "LASER CUT-REDUCED VIBRATION TECHNOLOGY" (basically curling slots cut in the blade). The blade is 7 1/4" in diameter with 24 teeth and the kerf is a mere 0.059”. The item number is R0724R Here's a link I found: http://www.ridgid.com/Tools/Framing-Saw-Blades/index.htm

Hi Choux, I'm happy to hear that others are interested in my design. I've got ideas on how to make a easier jig/clamp for the initial brazing of the frame so stay tuned for that. Once I get done with the proof of concept I'm going to make another correcting for all the inaccuracies and problems I exposed with the first attempt. I'm also going to take more pictures including video to document the process. I found the cutting board online for somewhere around $30 for a 12x18x1" board. You'll find lots of suppliers if you just Google "HDPE cutting board". After searching the web for a couple days without success I found a "thin kerf" blade at Home Depot. I left the blade over at my friends home since it is his tablesaw I am using so I can't give you specifics right now. Basically it's got a 1/16" kerf and it's about 8" or 10" diameter. I'll try to remember to stop by the store again and see if I recognize it. If so I'll post the details. I took a look at the rigging couplers and they look fine but for the fact that they don't have a socket in the top with which to tighten them. I believe they are meant to spin into a coupler freehand, then run a cable through the hole and crimp it in place. The guitar cutter needs something more like a tuning pin that can be turned under tension. For the wire I bought 60lb test Stainless Steel trolling wire from alltackle.com. It comes in a 600' package which means I've got far more than I need. I'd be happy to send you some. There is no way that I'm going to use half of it. The HTS-2000 aluminum brazing rods are another item that several people could probably split an order of. When I get my second frame brazed up I will measure how many rods I use so others can arrange a group buy. It shouldn't take but a fraction of the 1lb minumum order so people can split it and keep costs down. The bolt jig for drilling is called "ALLEN SAF-T-BLOK STD" at aircraftspruce.com. That's all I can think of for now. David

How does that compare to "Ice Cream!: The Whole Scoop" by Gail Damerow? That was my bible for ice cream and by far the best book I had found. I've got several books and the only one I was still looking for was the Cooks Illustrated ice cream book, but it was out of publication and I wasn't about to pay the $80 for the only used copy I could find on Amazon.

It's been a while as I have figured out how to get the holes drilled in the cap screws. I first tried to drill by hand, but that was a dismal failure. I tried to use a center punch to get a dimple to start the bit in, but the bolts are stainless steel and refused to mark. Next I used a Dremel tool to grind a small flat on the bolt first and that sort of worked but not very well. I dulled a couple bits on the bolt before having to take a break and think. I gave up momentarily and ordered bolts though Design Realization for $3.84 a piece, but ended up canceling my order when I found out shipping would be $24 if I wanted it in a week or $18 if I was willing to wait for three. That would have brought the cost to $62 for ten bolts and I just couldn't bring myself to double the cost of the cutting frame just for the bolts. So it was back to research. I knew people drilled bolts for saftey wiring so I took that track. That was when I found this handy little jig: Just what I was looking for... I read that I needed a Cobalt drill bit to cut through Stainless Steel. This is supposed to be used with a 1/16" bit so I ordered the jig and went to the hardware store to pick up the bit. My first attempt was to clamp the jig in a vice and hand hold the drill. That's how I snapped off two bits before giving up once again... More time passed as I contemplated buying a drill press to cure my hand holding problem, but I just didn't want to add that expense to the project. Then I recalled a hand held drill jig/press I had that might do the trick. The problem was that it had to be pressed against a flat surface to work and the bolt jig was definately not. Then I got the bright idea to clamp the jig between a couple boards cut for the purpose: That gave me the flat surface! So now I could drill. I filled the tiny hole with as much oil as I could coax down and coated the bit with more oil before placing it and starting it up. The first bolt drilled through in about 20 seconds and I was elated. The next bolt I tried took a bit longer. I manged to break the tip of the bit off in another bolt. I think one bit is good for two or three bolts, but I didn't keep strict track of it all. Once you find the bit spinning without cutting don't just replace the bit and keep going. The heat work hardens the Stainless Steel and you will just end up ruining the next bit. I verified this so you don't have to. I hope to get three or four bolts per bit once I get the hang of how much pressure and what speed to run the drill at for optimum cutting. That would put the cost per bolt at $0.25 for the bolt itself plus $0.73 to $0.55 for the bit. The finished bolt I quickly strung a couple wires in the frame to test it out and that is when I discovered a design flaw. No, the frame did not collapse under the strain. What happened was that I couldn't draw the wire as tight as I wanted. I turned the bolts and drew the wire into place, but once it was drawn tight enough to make the two 90 degree bends it wouldn't pull through any more. The bends work hardened the wire and it wouldn't flow past it. I should have realized that is what would happen, but Llyod had and example of it working so I didn't give it a great deal of thought. The wire will tighten fairly well that way, but just not as much as I would like. So now I'm looking for a half round rod I can use to greatly enlarge the radius of the 180 change in direction for the wire. I think a 1/2" diameter would do well. I haven't been able to find that for purchase anywhere so I might end up having to split a full round rod on the table saw.

I believe it depends upon whether or not your scope is temperature compensating or not.

Should we be worried that the major chocolate suppliers will start producing inferior bulk coveture? I don't want to have to guess if the chocolate I buy for my truffles and bon-bons is really confectionary coating in disguse.

are you talking about taking two identical molds and filling them and then sticking them together like the gianduja filled fruits de mer? ← Yes, JPW made seashells in my class. I half recall that he used a fairly thin filling but I can't be certain.

Can someone comment on the method for creating a double mold? I watched him do it in my class but failed to take notes.

Progress continues: I figured out how to braze the frame! I used a pair of pipe clamps insulated from the metal by bits of wood so they wouldn't drain off heat from the work piece. I left out the center wood frame and just pressed the long sides into the short sections. That kept the expansion in check and prevented contraction from pulling the newly formed joints apart. I used too much of the filler rods and made a bit of a mess the first time through, but the next time should be much neater. I started with both the MAPP torch and the MAPP/Oxygen torches, but soon ran out of Oxygen in the latter and continued on with just the garden variety hardware store MAPP torch. I realized that the simple one is all you need. The trick is to wait long enough for the work piece to come up to temperature, and that can take several minutes. I suppose two regular torches would speed that up quite a bit but it isn't necessary. Here's a closeup of one of the joints: This particular frame is going to be a tight fit for the cutting board so I'm just going to make it my learning piece. Future frames will be cut 13" wide instead of 12" to give a good 1/2" clearance on either side of the cutting board. I'm also going to cut the pieces on the tablesaw to get perfectly square edges which will improve the look of the joints and ensure the whole frame squares up nicely. The next task will be to drill and tap the holes for the bolts, drill the holes for the wires, and string it all up. That will be the proof of whether or not the design is strong enough.

That would be www.kroese-exclusief.com

Now I'm picturing letting the bonbon slip off the fork at an angle, then keeping the fork off the surface let it run up the vertical side of the bonbon as you pull it away rather than pull it straight out. I suppose the little divots in the vertical side would heal before it sets.

I'm having a difficult time picturing what this maneuver looks like. Can someone elaborate?