Desiderio

Thank you Patrick, hehe yes your caramels are awesome , umm still have the box ( emptyyyy ) hehe.

Ok this is the thing,the cafeteria at work servers this marble cheesecake brownies and they are pretty good,now I know the owner, that also offered me a job ,but I feel bad asking him the recepie for this treat because I think every chef has his/her secrets ,or maybe its just me that I have hard time asking . Anyway I made some of these brownies the other day off a recepie here,and while they are very tasty and chocolatey they dont have the same texture of the one I am trying to imitate, the crumb is larger and I would say seems more like a cake but is a brownie ,.Yesterday I bought a piece and they only had some few left ( cause they sell very fast ) in the freezer, now while ofcourse they need to keep some in the freezer for a practical reason , I also though they might freeze them for the same reason I have read bakers froze their cake (high fat contenets ones)to get a more moist crumb etc. Is this possible ?And maybe should I try just to remake the formula I found online and then wrap the brownies and stick them in the freezer? Or maybe I shoul make an extremely big box of my best chocolates and ask the owner of the cafeteria for his formula?

Every type of caramels I made I use a serreted knife in a sawing motion, usually works pretty good ,as long as you never stop in the middle of the cutting , cause then will stick to the knife and its messy.

Thank you Trishiad,I will try to be more patient as well , and maybe check my termomether to see if it is precise.

Thank you Alana, hehe getting frustrated with this darn thingy ,I will see when I go back home how they turned out , if they still too soft to be enrobed ( i wont throw the away no worry ),I will PM you for sure .

Ok once more these caramels are too soft to even keep the shape for 5 minuts or been dipped in chocolate. So I just got all the sblob mass of caramel and toss it in the pan again and cooked it to 255 or so,now back in the container will see later on what it looks like . And whats the deal with altitude thingy ,based on my altitude and after I calibrate my thermomerer for my level ( water boil at 203 here ),I should cook these caramels at 239 wich it will make them very very soft almost stil saucy. bahhh.

I just tryed these caramels the other day ,unfortunally I follow a suggestion from someone living in the same area I am ( altitude ) and cooked them at 238F , wich is the temperature she suggested, they were way too soft and hard to coat. I did an attempt the first time , I didnt have enough cream so I made them hard , and they were deliciuos, definatly I like the satly caramel , but I think ,like Mette , I like my caramels to be on the firmer side , I also doubled the salt in the recepie. I am going to give it another try tomorrow or so and bring them up to 248F wich is the original temperature. I have one question ,in the first part of the recepie , when you have to make the caramel , if I make a darker caramel ( like for a burnt caramel type ) does this affect the final consistency of the caramels ?And I want to try to make these with lavender ,cause I think caramel and lavender are the best ,should I infuse the lavender into the cream as for a regular ganache, then strain and use it as the recepie calls? ANother thing, can I substitute the corn syrup with glucose, and if yes should I keep the same amount, and ( LOL ) is glucose better than corn syrup ? I have wedding event coming in september and the couple is getting a french theme for the menu', so I was thinking to make the raspberry fleur de lis and either some feulletin ( sp ) or some lavender fleur de sel, and I am asking once again where is the best place to get transfer sheets .

I have to keep that in mind , cause I tend to that kind of stuff!

I used creme de banana in white chocolate, and tried the banana pure and I made some banana nut filling , I do use dark rum since I think is the best for banana.

Yes thank you Kerry , that is soo very cool and funny , the silicon molds idea is great I want to experiment with that soon. Thank you for sharing and showing us all these neat things

Very cool !!! What inventive , I really really like that idea, thank you for sharing it with us Lloyd

Today I had my business start up class with the SBDC.I t was interesting and I am glad I have been reading some books on taxes and the legal part of business because I was able to recognize many of the things they were talking about. It did helped me to realize it might be complicated but I think its possible ,I can do it , need to do my homeworks still but it can be done. Now one thing I was thinking ,among the other millions,if you decide you want to do wholesale and get ofcourse a wholesale license ( wich it is easier),talking about pricing your product.In the case I have calculated how much a chocolate will cost me and packaging and labor etc,How do you price a whole sale product? Meaning with wich criteria do you price something that have to e repriced and sold again?Artisanal chocolate making its expensive and we all know that,and we are not doing charity of course ,and I am well aware of the fact that my custumers would be a smaller portions of the regular chocolates consumer, because they(the chcolates) will be more expensive and probably better tasting than most of the stuff around here,and not everybody can get that.I am not looking for a huge selling for the first year ,even I wont mind , but I am trying to be realistic and keep my feet on the ground.I would have to keep my full time job and I still have to care for my family , so the slow start doesnt bother me , actually its what I am looking for at the beginning. Oh another question if is possible ,does the chocolate making require a food handling licenses also? Good question? Ummm Thank you

Yes definatly need to get some to play with Thank you for the link )

Does anyone ever tryed the Alton Brown carrot cake? http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/re...6_29955,00.html This August I will like to make an american style carrot cake for my son's second birthday ( my husband love it), I never made the american style and I would like to get a good recepie and frosting as well. I saved some of the recepie on this thread and I might tryed the UCLA one and the Alton Brown .

I never made marshmallow, and I really want to try , I remeber the firts time I had one I was in Italy and I thought was the coolest thing . I want to try the recepie posted on the marshmallow thread and see how it goes ,wish me luck Thank you for posting recepies and pics ,this forum had helped me so much in the past few months I cant believe it!!

I dont know if anyone already mentioned but i put another link for molds. I ordered from them as well, and average price per mold was 24$ included S&H. http://www.bakedeco.com/dept.asp?id=347&pg=2 Just in case one more place where to look. I ordered my last set of molds from a canadian company to check it out and even with the shipping ( I got the long one ) it cost me 22$ per mold.this is the site. http://dr.ca/. They have some interesting transfer sheets .

Good prices for Valrhona are here alo , I think the best around.I buy my chocolate here all the time now. http://www.icaviar.com/Store/Scripts/prodL...?idCategory=387

THank you so much for the support!!! This indeed will help, I will ( and I have been looking into ther web site) make sure to talk to them and have someone coming on the site and explain to me ( and my hubby , since he is the one that would have to do the job )everything we need to know and do. I think you right when saying it might be easyer than what I think in the matter of food handling ,chocolate making is pretty easy .I do need the license,and I do have a class next week with the local SBCD, for start up business ,and an appointent with a counselour to talk about all the other aspect of the business ,so will see hot that goes. BUt I do want to thank all of you so much for your help, support and everything else

First of all ,Congratulation for the new buisiness , I know you were working on it but didnt know you were done . Yes actually it really helps , knowing from someone that went thru it , that at the end isnt that impossible, right now I think at all the things I have to do , but my husband is pitching in and he is getting very helpfull and supportive, wich it gives me more courage. Thank you very much for your support

Thank you kerry , for the compliments , and for the explanation about the turkish delight, definatly something new for me and interesting.Thank you for sharing with us

Thank you for the pics Kerry ,that really looks great ,and yummi ahhh gotta make some Alana ,I always try to fill the molds with the filling to the top without over filling ,wich I tend to do,and try to smooth out the excess in the case I over do it.I use the pastry bag with the filling in circular motion,I find that it fills all the space and more uniform .For the liquid filling like caramel sauce etc I wait overnight to close the molds.

Thank you Luis for you feed back , I definatly need to check them out.

Umm I am not familiar with this , what are they? Rose everywhere huh . I am just playing around with colors and different type of filling for chocolates , I have few orders for the first week of July so I am trying something different and also because if I stay too long without making chocolates I became grumpy

Thank you K8,goodness I am looking inot the conty helth dep and wee soo confusing ,haha I see a lot of work coming my way , maybe I should just keep making chocolates for friends and family .

Thank you Alana for posting your invoice, that really gives us an idea of a real price( after exchange and shipping).It didnt seems bad at all , I gues when big company are used to ship all over the world their shipping prices are lower somehow. They also have other thing that I would love to order in the future , and I know the euro is going high on the dollar ,but knowing their shipping is not prohibitive ( ahh spelling on that one??), I definatlly gonna try them.