mrose

It was organic & solid at room temp, not sure which is # you want. 100% coconut oil, 60% Sat fat.

I found some at my local grocery (organic) & at Walmart non-organic but 1/3 the price. Both were sold as coconut oil.

Good price on gloves http://www.prsfoodservice.com/products.asp?dept=64

The best solution I have found is too roll truffles in your hand with some chocolate to put a thin coat on them. Let this set. This will prevent abou 90% of the small plug problem. The softer the ganache will still cause some problems. This has the same effect as bottoming a slab of ganache or caramels. A lot of the cracks come from the different in temp between the centers and the temepered chocolate. The closer they are in temperature, the fewer cracks.

It had a very subtle taste, you might not even know it was pear if not told. I would probably add more puree next time.

I tried the pear ganache recipe. I started really late so I didn't temper the chocolate (I assumed this step is to help extend shelf life). It said to let it sit out overnight to set. In the morning it was still much too fluid so I out it in the frig. It set up & formed a skin on top. After putting a foot on, I turned it over to cut. But it was still much to soft. I doubt this is not due to not using tempered chocolate. Has anyone tried one of the recipes of this variety? Was the ganche firm enough to cut? I will try one of these again but will probably cut down the liquid content to get a firmer ganache. The chocolate is 63% of the weight and liquid added was 37%. I was going to lower the liquid portion to ~30%. The ganache filled the size frame with not really any room to spare. If you want an alternative to getting bars (and you will not need to even the surface with a spatula), look at the adjustable cake square from Pastry chef. It will allow you to easily cut the recipe in half or make a full size protion with the same form. Mark ← Greweling uses a different method for piped vs slab ganaches, and seems to be suggesting if you follow the correct technique that it will set up firm enough. I think we need to play a little. ← I was planning on trying again. I just have to plot out my next move. I added a bit more chocolate to gananche & if it firms up enough, I 'll use it for truffles. If not for some molded chocolates. I need to make some samples anyway.

I tried the pear ganache recipe. I started really late so I didn't temper the chocolate (I assumed this step is to help extend shelf life). It said to let it sit out overnight to set. In the morning it was still much too fluid so I out it in the frig. It set up & formed a skin on top. After putting a foot on, I turned it over to cut. But it was still much to soft. I doubt this is not due to not using tempered chocolate. Has anyone tried one of the recipes of this variety? Was the ganche firm enough to cut? I will try one of these again but will probably cut down the liquid content to get a firmer ganache. The chocolate is 63% of the weight and liquid added was 37%. I was going to lower the liquid portion to ~30%. The ganache filled the size frame with not really any room to spare. If you want an alternative to getting bars (and you will not need to even the surface with a spatula), look at the adjustable cake square from Pastry chef. It will allow you to easily cut the recipe in half or make a full size protion with the same form. Mark

Instead of using ground hazelnuts, you might try Gianduja (a chococlate with ground hazelnuts) for the hazelnut flavor. It has the taste you want but much more subtle. Mark

In the recipes that use purees, it is always stated to reduce the puree by half. I assume the weight given is after the puree is reduced? Has anyone made any of these to verify this assumption?

Sweet Celebrations www.sweetc.com p130 hasa a coarse sanding sugar. Preview catalog to find it. Sells for $5/#

I think that is a great idea. Too many panned products use not so great chocolate. The challenge will be getting the fund raisers to put out the money for the good stuff. Although I suppose there is room to make products of differing quality for different budgets. Your time is still going to cost the same however. Have you had a chance to look at the demo that I did on chocolate panning a while back? Thread here. It won't answer all your questions, but it will at least help you decide what questions you need answered. Don't hesistate to ask me anything as you play with it. I hope you are going to start a thread about your chocolate shop as you go through the process of opening etc, we all love Tammy's thread about starting her chocolate business, it's great to live the dream vicariously. ← Kerry Most recipes for chocolate covered macadamia nuts want you to caramelize the nuts. Do you add a hot syrup mixture to the nuts while in the drum or do you do this in the oven? Mark ← The only caramelized nuts I've coated were already coated when I put them in the pan. I suspect if you poured the hot syrup into the pan you'd be cleaning it until the cows come home. So I'd do them in the oven first, then completely cool them before panning. By the way Pamela won a great looking little coating pan on e-bay yesterday. Copper pan, household current. Looks like it will be a perfect experimental pan for her. ← How much did it sell for? Do you have the link? What catagory was it in. I never see them for sale. The only one I saw was the one you alerted me too. I found it. Mark

I think that is a great idea. Too many panned products use not so great chocolate. The challenge will be getting the fund raisers to put out the money for the good stuff. Although I suppose there is room to make products of differing quality for different budgets. Your time is still going to cost the same however. Have you had a chance to look at the demo that I did on chocolate panning a while back? Thread here. It won't answer all your questions, but it will at least help you decide what questions you need answered. Don't hesistate to ask me anything as you play with it. I hope you are going to start a thread about your chocolate shop as you go through the process of opening etc, we all love Tammy's thread about starting her chocolate business, it's great to live the dream vicariously. ← Kerry Most recipes for chocolate covered macadamia nuts want you to caramelize the nuts. Do you add a hot syrup mixture to the nuts while in the drum or do you do this in the oven? Mark

I thought I saw a recipe that contained juniper berries or a slash of gin in the book. I can't seem to find it. Does anyone remember the ganche that contained it? Thanks Mark

Right now I'm shooting for a two day shipping schedule, but if it turns out that I can get a configuration to last three days reliably it could shave off a couple more dollars shipping. The big difference appears to be between overnight and two days. I'm going to wire a temperature probe inside the box and tape one to the outside and run a continuous recording. I found instructions on how to wire up a pair of thermistors to the game port of a PC along with a program to record and display the results. With that setup I can determine exactly when the temperature inside the shipper rises to the point that the chocolates would be damaged. If it fails in eight or twelve hours I won't have to wait two or three days to find out and I'll have an idea how much more cooling I have to add to get it to pass. If it keeps cool I can extend the experiment to the failure point without having to open the box to check. Recording both temperatures will give me the outside temperature and the continuous differential. I could run a test on my guess of expected outside temps and also on the worst case. Does anyone have a good idea for something with the same heat retention characteristics to take the place of a pound or two of expensive chocolate? I plan on freezing the chocolates along with the gel pack to extend the shipping time so I would like something that acts like chocolate without the cost. ← Why not get some Russell Stover, cheap enough. The quality of chcolate should not affect the experiment.

I've got a mind to try an experiment to determine how long a particular shipper/gel pack combination will keep chocolates from getting too warm, but there is one variable that I'm not sure of. How warm is the outside temperature? I imagine that the building would be cooler than a truck but I have no idea what either would be. Any guesses as to what I should set the outside temperature to? I was thinking of running the experiment in my garage since it's typically pretty warm. ←

Let us know recipe when you are done. I am very interested on how they taste. Also let me know if you want to sell some of the cello? Mark

I have always sent chocolates overnite this time of year, but I am also interested in responses. It would also depend upon the temp in Maryland. You should probably do some trials of the thawing process at your end so you can include instructions how to bring up to room temp. Also so you will have an idea how cold or frozen they will be at the destination. Let us know what you find out. The USPS cost is in line with what most chocolatiers charge for shipping. Mark

Did you make the ancho/key lime with white chocolate?

The cake is beautiful. BTW growing up is over rated. Mark

The recipe for jfb's calls for praline paste which is also descibed as a paste made from hazelnuts & caramel (p230). I always thought they contained pecans as he describes further down the paragraph in the process to make them. Do you make pralines & just grind them to a paste? Do you add extra sugar as in nuts pastes? Does anyone have a good recipe for pralines?

Looking on Bakingcircle.com, they have a lot of good recipes & good baking info.

Contact Will Thomas at Polar Tech Industries. 1-800-423-2749. Good prices on small quantities of shippers. They also sell ice brix. Be aware that you will probably have to ship overnight, the cost from Ann Arbor to say Texas or San Diego might be $50.

In one of these threads there was an other source for shape cutters like those sold by Tomric. I can't seem to be able to find the link. I think Tammy originally ask about them. Does anyone remember the site? Thanks Mark

You could add cream cheese make a Key Lime cheesecake truffle in white chocolate which is a great combo. A passion fruit truffle is always good for Mother's day.

You can also look for them on the net under cheese knives, might find them a bit cheaper. Another alternative is to use a pizza cutter that is approx 16" long rocker (not the wheel on a handle).