Ceviz

Thanks Lebowits ... nut creams are indeed spreadable giandujas, and I think adding giandujas to these spreads would make them a little bit firm. I will try to add a little bit butter or very high percentage milk cream to obtain more creamy texture. Thanks for your interests.

Nutella for example ... as a hazelnut cream.

Hi friends, I've searched the forum but I couldn't find information about the cream (not paste) of nuts as fillings. Also, as far as I see, internet does not have so many recipes with them. I'm making mainly cream based ganaches so far, but now I'm thinking to make moulded chocolates with hazelnut cream, pistachio cream, almond cream etc. as fillings. I will not make them myself and use some commercial brands. I'm thinking to use them without combining any other ingredients, but I would like to learn your ideas about the recipes with those nut creams. Which ingredients can be combined with those creams in order to give more smooth mouth feel without shortening the one year self-life of these nut creams? Thanks ... and, as always, I'm sorry for poor English.

I'm sorry for the late reply. I'm not located in North America or Europe but I think I will have access to those brands. Thank you for your advises, I will search about that model of Cuisinart and about Thermomix.

I'm using Magimix 3200 food processor at the moment for emulsifying my bitter ganaches and for making small batches of marzipan. But, now I need to upgrade to the more professional type, mid-high end food processor for more larger batches. I will use it for the same purposes, that is, for emulsifying ganaches and making marzipans. I need your advises and helps. Thank you in advance.

Thank you prasantrin and Chris ... two great ideas. I think I have to explain why my chocolates have to be produced by hand and others not.

I'm producing handmade truffles, pralines, and most of them containing cream ganache. Other person, making chocolate covered dried fruits, names their production "handmade" as well. My shelf life 3-4 weeks at most, his shelf life one year. Besides, he's not spending labor like me. So, I want to stress the difference between us for my customers. How can I do that? My question is: What is the most distinctive feature of handmade chocolates? What is the handmade chocolate? It is just a chocolate made with real hands? ... or it is the chocolate that is not suitable for factory production? I will use your opinions as a part of my marketing strategy. Thanks in advance.

Eddy Van Damme has a more exact homemade invert sugar recipe.

I'm using glucose syrup (corn syrup) in my cream ganache recipes now, but thinking to move to handmade invert sugar (one measure sugar, one measure water, a little bit lemon juice, boil 20 mins). I would like to take your advises about the substitution ratio I should use in my recipes. Thanks.

I, too, want to thank you for all these excellent information.

My collection has 25 pieces, and most of them are cream based ganaches. I have averagely 4 weeks of shelf life for my pieces, and none of them below 3 weeks in my environmental conditions. After 3 weeks, I'm starting to taste for taking out possible spoilt ones from the shelf. At this point, my original interest was to find these bad ones with more reliable and certain method than my tasting. That is, I was looking for a affordable device that tastes instead of me, and will say "take out this one" or "not spoilt yet" scientifically when inserting into the piece Thank you Truffle Guy. I've learnt so many details about the increasing shelf life from your detailed explanation.

Thank you for books and the information.

Prairiegirl, thank you so much. I'm wondering about exactly that section ... how "another chocolatier (a member here) had his product tested after 12 weeks." It seems that there is no definitive, but at the same time low-medium cost way or a measurement device for a chocolatier for this testing for making in his shop. Tasting is the only way in this case.

Thank you, but if I'm not wrong, aW may indicate how long the piece may stay in the shelf. When finished the piece in the kitchen, if you know the aW of your piece exactly, you may decide by looking at the table (I suppose there is such a table) how many days that piece may stay in the boxes if all the other conditions are ideal. Humidity, room temperature, light etc. I don't know ... is there any critical aW level, below it, we can decide that our pieces are bad? But, let's say we don't know the aW of our piece at the beginning, or our environmental conditions are a little bit different. And, there are some pieces on my shelf and I want to decide which one is bad, which one is ok. Is there any device saying that? Or, the only way is tasting, lookin at the appearances?

Firstly, I'm sorry for my poor English ... I would like to ask a question about the shelf life of pieces. It is generally accepted that most of cream ganache filled chocolates have 3 weeks shelf life. I'm controlling my pieces at the end of the 3 weeks period, and trying to decide which one is bad, which one may stay in the boxes by tasting, looking at the appearances etc. I would like to learn how I can measure shelf life of my pieces more safely. Are there any device or definitive method to control and measure the shelf life of pieces more accurately? Thanks.

Thanks for all your helpful information ...

Hi, Recchiuti has the piece named "Spring jasmine tea" with marbleized covering. I don't think it is a molded piece ... how can I give such a marbleized effect to my fork dipped pieces? And, my second question, to make Brésilienne Chips, where can I buy oval-shaped stencil mentioned in the recipe box? Thanks in advance ...

Thank you gap. It is said that stirring too much at low temperatures causes grainy structure, so, maybe, Recchiuti method is the best for dark chocolate.

I'm using the classical method: After just boiling the cream, pouring it on the chocolate, waiting for 1-2 min and stirring. With milk chocolate, I've always reached to the pudding like consistency after 2-3 min stirring. But, with dark chocolate, I've never got the same result, pudding like consistency. I have no idea why dark chocolate behave so. My ratios are 1:2.5 for milk and 1:2 for dark. What should I do for the dark chocolate? Any advice ... thanks.

I'm not using the slabbing technique for it requires temperature control everywhere in the process. I'm using piping technique as described in the book to make a ganache and sometimes finishing with slabbing technique, that is, I pour my ganache to a mold and after cooling, cut it into squares. Skin appears to me as the most noticeable feature at the end of the process. Let me try the complete slabbing technique and see the difference. Thank you for your detailed explanation.

Maybe adding a few percent of pure cocoa butter would help? ← Thank you Kerry... But Peter says that there are two reasons for separation during makeup: Excessive fat and stirring at unstable temperature. So I thought that I should decrease the butter ratio in the emulsion. This is the reason for decreasing the chocolate ratio and I can get good results with 1:1,25 ratio. Maybe low cocoa butter ratio in the chocolate may give more satisfactory results so I can increase the chocolate ratio in the emulsion. I'm learning this job from the books and have never seen a master when working. My 1:2 dark ganaches have never separated as in the picture in the book showing separated ganache. But I always get two types of ganache from my experiences: With skin after room cooling and without skin after room cooling. I would like to ask an question to clarify this point for me: If the ganache does not form a skin after room cooling, can we say that it is properly emulsified? That is, can we say that correctly emulsified ganache always form a skin after room cooling? Thanks ...

My ganache problems have never ended ... For making ganache, I'm using piping technique. Ratios are 1:2 for dark, 1:2 for milk and 1:2,5 for white. It works well with milk and white. But with % 60 dark, for 1:2 ratio, after room cooling, ganache don't form a skin which I can see on milk and white ganache. My milk and white ganache forms pudding like texture and can be cut very cleanly with a knife but dark ganache doesn't form this pudding like texture and looks a little bit grainy and when cutting, after cooling, it breaks and sticks to knife. 1:1,25 ratio gives me good results and these problems disappear but in this case ganache is very soft and not workable. What can I do for solving these problems? Thanks ... By the way, I want to say that "Chocolates & Confections" is really great and it has given a lot of answers to my questions.

Sorry, but I couldn't find the relevant topic. If possible, may you give the link? There are a lot of different chocolate/cream ratio. All the books I have give different ratios for truffles but some of them are not working for me. So, my question is what are the golden ratios for plain bitter, milk and white ganaches for truffles for hand-rolling. Thanks.

Thank you duckduck. I'm always rolling refrigerated ganache after some cooling in the room temperature and after rolling, one more time, I refrigerate for a very short time before dipping. After taking them out, I'm waiting for cooling for a short period of time and without any problem I'm managing to finish my truffles. But, in the book, page 83, there are some photos showing how to pipe and roll and the appearance of the ganache in these stages. When rolling, very small parts of the ganache are always sticking to my hands and my ganache is more watery. So, there is no similarity with the photos. I think that there is no emulsion problem, because the appearance is good before rolling. Today, I tried it with adding more chocolate, but the result was the same but a little bit positive. But, I couln't reach the ganache like in the photo in the rolling period. I have used %38 cream so far, also will try the same recipe with %35 cream. Maybe, I also have used unsalted butter, I have to decrease the fat ratio for more firm ganache. Other than fat ratio, I think that maybe the absence of the corn syrup may cause this result, I don't know, I have no experience with these substances before. This weekend, I'll try it with corn syrup, original recipe, and want to see which effects corn syrup has on the overall texture and appearance.

Hi to everybody, I'm a newbie in homemade chocolate and trying to learn the basic techniques with the "Making Artisan Chocolates." I would like to ask an question: In general, I don't want to use corn syrup or invert sugar or ... , any other such things and want to make my ganache only with cream and chocolate. Without corn syrup, how can we modify the recipe "classic dark 72 percent", on page 86. I tried without changing the other parts of the recipe but my ganache was too sticky even after one day setting, so couldn't roll them properly. Thank you.