Desiderio

Thank you Kerry, The displays were an idea I had then my hubby developed, but since he was gone for the entire week I was stuck with the building of all of them I would say I have 20 to 30% left ( I have some of the boxes left mostly sea salt caramel because I made lots of those! I am planning to try to sell them at work maybe and maybe going around the town to direct sell and sample to other business. We cut up the chocolates in 4 pieces ( or two if they were too small ) and served in paper cups, the second day we limited the samples to the flavors we had more of and eventually only on request get the other flavors out, you can tell if they are interested in buying or not. The nougat didnt go as well as the other because to my great surprise , americans are not too familiar with it, so I started to sample more of that later on. We sold more of the Marshmallows in small bags of six. Customers are not required to have a paypal account, the virtual terminal is like anyother credit card company, only the owner need to have an account , you pay a monthly fee of 30.00 dollars plus the fee at transaction ( standards like anyother company) but paypal allows you to accept almost all the credit cards. The process without a wireless terminal ( fro sliding the card ) is a little bit longer because you have to put their actual address along with the credi card info, I post the info needed for the credit card payment with the price list so they knew what and how. The merchaindise mart we were at had wireless internet but you have to pay by the day, I wasnt aware of that so it took me little bit to set it up, if I knew it earlier I would have been ready faster

In the real world of chocolate!!!! I have to say that was a stressful week. LOts of things I would have love to have or make but not enough hands and time . Anyway, its over now and I can say that was a great experience and the networking with the other chocolatiers and customers was awesome. I ended up making over 2000 pc of chocolates plus some raspberry marshmallows and nougat. Some chocolates sold faster, but I did have more of some than others. But now I know what goes better right? Good feed back from other chocolatiers and people, some of the contacts may lead to more business so it was great. The first night was terrible tough.The pomoter advertised heavily on the FREE SAMPLES, and as soon as they open the gates ( cages !! ) we go completely attact by ords of people that wanted free stuff!.I was overwelmed and a little bit irritated as well, we were all kinda surprised. The next day I had chance to talk with other booth owners and everybody told me they had the exactley same experience and they were not pleased with it, so I wasnt alone on that.The saturday show went much much better, more family oriented and people took their time to visit the booths, also we drastically reduce free samples and people werent expecting it . The overall experience was positive and I am glad I got to do it, now I know what to do and how better organize everything ( also payments etc, I am glad I set up the pay pal virtual terminal so I could get credit card payments as well with my lap top). I will attach some pics, I have to be honest I didnt take many because I was more focus on the rest The pics were taking at set up, after that I was stuck in the booth all night

Hi, I dont know other places in Europe, but I am from Italy and I always wanted to do few classes at the Cast Alimenti ( there are two locations one in north Italy the other in south). http://www.castalimenti.it/contenuti.asp/c...o-in-acqua.html This is the web site, there are more schools around, another one is the Etoile http://www.istitutoetoile.it/r2/course.php?id=15. The links are direct to the classes but feel free to ask if you need translation or help. Good luck!

I have been looking into couple of online candy books I have found and I got a couple of recipes that might be on the right track. This is from Fancy Cakes and candy, Farmer, Fannie Merritt. 1918.The Boston cooking school cooking book. I am not entirly sure I can actually post it here the way it is, if not please feel free to remove it and I can PM to whoever needs it. Chocolate Cream Candy 2 cups sugar 1 tablespoon butter 2/3 cup milk 2 squares unsweetened chocolate 1 teaspoon vanilla Put butter into granite saucepan; when melted, add sugar and milk. Heat to boiling-point; then add chocolate, and stir constantly until chocolate is melted. Boil thirteen minutes, remove from fire, add vanilla, and beat until creamy and mixture begins to sugar slightly around edge of saucepan. Pour at once into a buttered pan, cool slightly, and mark in squares. Omit vanilla, if desired, and add, while cooking, one-fourth teaspoon cinnamon.

Hi Amelia and Welcome.Thank you for the info. I think I might go get me some of those oldie candy making books. I have one downloaded from the net .

Ahh thank you Kerry. I am wondering if we can come up with a real buttercream center recipe, maybe by trial, I am not too familiar with fudges though.

I think we have a discussion on this topic comewhere but I can think where ( maybe the confection candies ).Anyway If I recall someone had a recipe for a real buttercream wich seems similar to a fudge buttercream preparation.I dont think he post it , it was something he used to do at work ( I think was Robert from the Chocolate forum ).But definately you can reproduce that kinda of filling like Kerry proposed, probably much easier than the first.

I think we are talking about two different things here. One is the meltawyas type like the Greweling, with coconut oil etc to dip.The other is porbably a more fondant like that you fill up shells with.

I have made meltaways from Greweling book and also made some other variation from Cremini type of chocolate ( wich is an Italian type of chocolate , very cremy with mainly hazelnut paste ), anyway in those creamini I usually dont mesure , but I use will say 50% milk chocolate , 40% hazelnut paste ( or other nut butters ) and 10% of clarified butter, mix all together to cristallize the mass then layered into frame. The % isnt perfect because usually I do by my taste, but experimenting with this should give you a nice result.The coconut oil In those other meltaway, I am not necessary to happy with the final taste, I have bought an organic coconut oil that is taste strongly like coconut and my meltaways were coconut meltaways , clarified butter is a good alternative.

Are you sure that Chabord has artificila flavors in it?I thought was a pretty old recipe, unless they changed lately, I was under the impression it didnt have any artificial flavors, but isnt mainly raspberry. Anyway, I dont use artificial flavors in my product as well, so I think Iam going to add some fresh pears to some brandy and try that route.

I was wondering ( I didnt want to start another topic ) on how do you calculate how much production to make for these type of events? I am battling with myself trying to figure out how many chocolates and other confection to make for the festival,isnt too long only friday night and saturday all day, there are going to be lots of chocolatiers there so I am trying actually to prepare my display so it looks outstanding, we are tagling me going to compete with people that actually does this for living and not on a side between work, family and everything else , people that is in business for way longer than myself, and this will be actually my debut to the public ( help what I have done ).I have to admit that is getting little bit stressing and I have realize how much money I had to spend just for this event to get ready, at least to be presentable, I dont have my onw brand boxes and confections so I had to find ways to stand out. There is going to be a bridal magazine there and a wedding cake competition ( no I am not thinking to enter it , I did enter the best truffle ine , since I am there LOL ), so I made a wedding favor display so people can see what I have to offer for that as well. Well sorry for the veting and thank you for your support

I have made a chocolate in the past 2 months that I really enjoyed and I want it to be part of my collection.The only thing I want more though is the pear flavor, I am unable to find Poire Williams liquor here where I live ( maybe I should just ordered online right?) I have tried a pear vodka and pear puree' but the pear still doesnt come thru.I have used milk chocolate for this , but I am almost thinking to swtich to a white ( with the aid of some cocoa butter to add texture without the sweetness). Do you have any ideas on the topic? Thank you much

Jeff, that would be great, I have in the back of my mind the desire to be more involved in the raw chocolate, it would be great to actually have my own chocolate one day hehe, to connect with the farms and be able to create some valuble trades etc. What type of chocolate do you use, is it made right there?Do you follow the entire process?And how hard is it to connect with local farms etc? Thank you I am really interested in this topic. Good work

Beautifull, they look just perfect and yummy , I wanted to try this for long but I still didnt get myself to order some pectine, what type did you get the apple one?

Happy Birthday! I definately sketch my dessert/chocolates ideas, I am a big doodler and I do love sketch my ideas all over the place, also displays, like I am doing it lately for an upcoming event ( I am going nuts too many ideas )

John, I have to tell you that with just simple recipe ( I mean nothing secret etc.) I can get my chocolates to stay molds free and still edable, they eventually get harder, for 3 months easy.Now of course I suggest to eat my chocolates whitin 2 weeks because flavor change , plus I dont know in what condition people keep them.But all my experiments that I leave in my basement, wich ofcourse is colder, stay good for months , sounds scary I know but I dont use any preservatives and all fresh ingredients.I still have some banana cream and blueberry down stairs, that I cut up every week to see if they are still good, just to see their shelf life.The ones I keep up here i n my kitchen ( around 68 F and up sometimes ) still last pretty long.I believe that COlorado climate is the cause, I have never seen any mold here.

Congratz, those are the good news that makes it all worth it!!!

Thank you Tammy, this really helps .I will follow your suggestions.

I am not sure they will require me to make something, but probably they will ask, like you said, how ho prepare things etc, temperatures, the thing I am concerned is the fact that some ganaches, like slabbed or when I pour it into the molds and let it stay overnight.

I was wondering how you guys deal with the health department inspection. I am going to have to schedule soon ( one week or so ) I know they are concerned about the temperature of the cream etc. Do you make up a preparation just for teh health department or you follow what they want. I mean I dont follow what they are requiring for my ganaches I guess, I am hoping they arent asking to set the ganahce in the fridge etc etc because I dont like that , so I would have to figure out how to make something for them and then just do it my way? Thank you

I never saw them , so I went to look them up . I would probably do as already suggested ( I do make caramel marshmallows in different ways ) I would make some caramel ( probably the one Kerry has posted ) pour it inside a container ( cookie sheet etc) let it cool , stay away from the refrigerator or freezer , both caramel and marshmallows are igroscopic, they attract moisture and the refrigerator isnt a good place for neither. Make the marshmallow pour it on top of the caramel, let set foe 12 hours etc.The trick is that the caramel should be at a similar consistency of the marshmallow when you cut it, so a soft but fimr caramel that isnt chewy. I just made 2 days ago a vanilla marshmallow slab with inserts of caramel inside,then I cut them all up and covered in chocolate, they are pretty dangerous :-P

Lior, everything is stunning and wow what a production! Thank you so much for posting it , it helps alot for my feuture festival.I really love your logo and boxes.

I have sub the glucose for the corn syrup ( for the same reason ) and it works fine, with all the recipies I use.

Also make sure to check if you need a sale tax license, it might be you need the special event sale tax license or your state tax license. Good luck

Definately love the bunny. Tammy , thsnk you for posting the pics, very very interesting, I like the chipotle caramel idea.