ejw50

thanks for all of your work! I still owe you my fee, should I send a check?

the XLB tutorial moved to here http://garysoup.com/eating/xlbtutor/xlbtutor.html

reservation set at Springhill suites! I'll bring my scale, nut pastes, and dental vibrator!

Here's what I have that I could bring, subject to weight limitations of suitcase. - mol d'art 6 kg - badger 250 + compressor - lots of molds (max 3 of each type though) - cocoa butter, different colors - luster dust - small paintbrushes - thermometers - dental vibrator - Laptop (Excel!) - electronic scale - hazelnut paste, hazelnut praline, pistachio paste. let me know. If no needs, I'll just bring some small stuff. No food restrictions at any restaurant.

Move me into the 'in' column! What equipment or ingredients do we need? Can bring melter, vacuum sealer, colored cocoa butter, ingredients, whatever we want that fits in the suitcase.

Good thought! I'll try it next time and see how it turns out.

Any thoughts on this one, the champagne? http://www.normanloveconfections.com/chocolates/darks/ Has a 'rain' effect.

I've seen food network chocolate competitions scrape off excess chocolate off the top with a knife.

very nice!

but doesn't that run into shelf life problems? Unless your fluid = liquor or invert sugar?

good question. What T does everybody else here pipe at? With what ratios? I usually pipe much higher (31 instead of 27, or 90F vs 80F). Otherwise, it also sets too fast for me at a 1.6:1 dark choco:cream ratio, and I get these annoying peaks. I think this is technically too high T than is in the books, but I dunno. Maybe others can share their experiences.

thanks for the review Darienne!

Can you make a curd with zest only and no juice?

PH has a lemon/praline center in PH10. Praline ~2.5, milk chocolate 1, lemon zest, and butter. You could also look up buddha's hand recipes and use it for the same things. For instance, Candied buddha's hand.

wow thanks!

I have a copy of Larousse. I think it's a great book, maybe not for total beginners though. I think both of Dorie Greenspan's PH books would be great for beginners interested in learning the French Style. DG is a great teacher in her books.

wow, I saw this recipe online somewhere else and thought it was way too much pain to make without a shop or something. That is pretty awesome!

Made 3 trays of these. After reading about oriol balaguer's pop rocks truffles, I decided to try it out. These are Hazelnut Praline, Dark Chocolate, Buddha's hand zest, and unflavored pop rocks. The recipe is a modification of one of PH's. The pop rocks give it a crunch when you bite into it(unexpected). First you taste the praline/chocolate, then you taste the buddha's hand citrus, then it starts popping from the pop rocks! Maybe not my favorite to eat 10 of them, but they are tasty and different from what you usually get. Is anybody who has had the real thing able to comment on how they taste? Or else I think Elbow has a pop rocks with peanut butter?

how do you clean your molds? With that dishwasher in the room? Or by hand, with polishing at the end? Or something in between?

A second vote for Marty's liquors. They also have $4 a lb Callebaut, great deal.

If you're willing to make your own and live near Boston, J.Pace used to sell San Marzano tomatos that are pretty incredible. White label with either green (whole) or purple (crushed) accent. They may still sell them. Way better than the Pastene or Hunts or whatever. Whole foods sells them now. $3 a can.

I use a commercial pastry fondant which during preparation of the center I "warm" to 160F. I suspected that the acid might invert the sugar. The thing with this flavor is that the lemon juice gives the center a really nice tart taste and cuts the sweetness of the fondant. The trick is to figure out how to get it to form a "skin" so that the center doesn't heave up when capping the mold. My first batch still heaved a bit after sitting overnight. I'm going to do another batch tonight and might add a few grams of melted white chocolate to provide some stiffness. Hopefully it won't mess with the flavor too much. Do you have to? Could you could try the technique of spraying cocoa butter on the back before backing (technique I learned on this forum!). Could you try the technique of piping in the backings? Does this technique work, have not tried it myself. Would be interesting in learning the uses and limitations of these two techniques.

Along Spring's suggestion, you could also dip it afterwards in nuts. Dip the centers in white chocolate, then crushed pistachio afterwards (for example). You can also change white chocolates. El Rey white chocolate is not as sweet as others in my opinion.

I'm in the minority here, but I dunno. Pierre Herme will use almond extract in his Pistachio creations. See here http://fxcuisine.com/Default.asp?language=2&Display=85&resolution=high This is supposedly his Pistachio Paste recipe, which contains some almonds AND almond extract. also, in "Patisserie of Pierre Herme", his pistachio mousseline cream recipe uses 1/2 pure pistachio paste and 1/2 'flavored', which I assume means 'containing almond extract'. I also think his 'Macaron' says something similar.

pretty sweet! That's a lot of molds! I see the melter, looks like a freezer? What are the buckets? pails of praline or cocoa butter?