bonbonman

Hey John, I know you were not suggesting people runa out and buy one. I was just weighing in my opinions, which sometimes, well...often times come off brash. I just hate to see budding chocolatiers an pastry chefs buy things they don't need. As for Kerry, this is what I do; after the ganache is enrobed I put them in trays and then I put the trays in a airtight container. The type of container that the seafood industry uses for fish fillets. Anyone here who has worked in a restaurant or hotel know the box I am talking about. If not, try Packaging Products Corporation in Boston. For you guys on the West Coast there has to be a plastic company out there. Once they are closed I slide them in the roll of film on the machine, center it in the seal area and close the door, the door has a heat strip the cuts it and there is a blast of hot air that shrinks it. So, I gues you can call it a shrink wrapper. And no, they do not melt. I hope this helps.

if you are making more money than you can count then i suggest you run right out and buy a vacuum sealer.....otherwise get a good airtight container and a used heat sealer to close up your chocolates before you freeze them...i have had great success with my products doing it ths way...i have had some of the world's best chefs not be able to tell if the product was frozen or not....as for the blast freezer, spend your money on somthing else..sorry to be so frank...but it makes no sense to subject a piece of chocolate to that harsh a temperature....for what? to be able to say "i have a blast freezer"...a blast freezer is good if you need 500 cakes made in a day and you have 100 ring molds.....do you have any idea how much product you have to sell to pay for a blast freezer?..i look at it that way...where does it make sense to spend my money?....you can have all of the coolest gadgets and gizmos with the latest technological advances from france and spain but, if you can not make a good product that appeals to YOUR customer base then you have nada...zilcho...ok i will shut up now.....

luis, luis, luis, you must have been napping when i was talking about this....jk..i do not think anyone "vacuum" seals chocolates...i have tried with several machines that vacuum seal and have ended up with a bag of sludge...using a heat sealer that tightly wraps the outer box is what you need to do..it is basically a barrier for the condensation for when you remove them from the freezer/refrigerator...hope this helps...oh yea, i will be at notter again in two weeks...drew

Sorry to not get back to you. I twill work the same with apple and other naturally high pectin fruits. There is an acid in it that keeps the p.d.f. soft . Also you are not cooking the bejesus(sp?) out of it so the water retention will also keep it soft.

Hola, no it will not work with other recipes that call for pectin...it cooks and sets really fast and that is why i developed it...you will see how soft it is when cooked for the three minutes and that is due to quick cooking times that do not allow moisture evaporation that keeps it soft..if you try and roll it in sugar it will become wet...hope this helps....drew

HOLA!...ok to answer a few questions really fast...as kerry said about sugar they are different and no you can not swap out invert for glucose/cor syrup...sugar is at 100 invert is 125% power and glucose/corn syrup is 75% power...with that said ...nulomoline is a "brand" of invert sugar that has a lot of water added...i use nevuline which is produced by erstien thay also make trimoline which is also a brand...as for not using it in the book...the "home pastry chef" would not be able to find it in a small quantity, look at the cocoa butter issues you guys have had! as for the truffles being too stiff i am at a loss..but corn syrup is used a texture agent in ganache and a lot of other pastries and invert has a lot of water...so that would make a difference..i was on a radio show in the metropolis of woonsocket(woon~sock~it), yes it is a place, rhode island and the radio host suprised me by making the 72% truffles and they were excellent and soft as pudding inside....if you separate the ganache by accident it will be hard as in any emulsion that had fat on one side and non-fat on the other...i hope this helps..any other questions i will get to when i can....drew also the lower the fat in the cream means higher water content which means harder ganache.. i use 40% for all ganache....same with the invert..more water harder ganache...water bad fat good....

I will be honest, I use the apple essence that is used for jolly ranchers and blow pops. Hey, people love it. A candy making supply house should have it. I use one that only comes in large volume. I hope this helps. Drew

guerande has less sodium than just "fleur de sel" as it is unrefined and is dried by the wind... a true guerande has the smell of the ocean and is moist in the bag...some producers of "fleur de sel" can't have the same health claims as a guerande producer ...yes there are health claims....there is a lot of info on salt out there so i will not start a new topic as it will be flagged and placed in another egullet universe...just thought you might want to know...i appreciate your interest....drew.... www.garrisonconfections.com www.notterschool.com

hey duck, as in the recipe, i use sel de guerande which has about 20% to 28% less sodium than table or kosher salt so that may be why it is salty...try a fleur de sel...i am happy to hear you are having success...boston globe wrote it up today, she butchered the grand marnier though....

i am glad you like the "critters"...do not know about sambuca but i do know that tequilla would work well...and aged anejo

tammy nailed it ..1/4" each ....you want equal layers...drew

Ok I made a little error; the "foot" shoud thin like I said but I stated that you must be able to almost see the plastic. The way I make it in my shop I put the "foot" down first and the way I explain in the book is to put it on the finished ganache and then flip. So, yes it needs to be super thin. Sorry for any confusion, Drew.

Thanks for catching my back ducky. I am back after three long and fun filled days in Orlando at Chef Notter's school. Ok, the "foot" should be untempered and as thin as possible. You should almost be able to see the plastic below. The foot should be the thickness of a thick piece of paper, no more. I hope this helps and I will answer any other questions tomorrrow. You guys missed a great class. We made 16 different ganache and over 2000 bonbons in three days including candy bars, chocolate caramel corn, crispy crunchies, rocher, panned nuts, orangettes, and, and, and, I gotta' hit the rack, I am tired. Later, Drew.

"What did it take from inception to now?" Lots of trips to my wonderfull photographer's studio in Newport. Insane amounts of time speaking into a voice recorder, so my wife could re-type it, and lots of tasting all of the stuff that was tested by my recipe tester, Kendra Mellar. That is about all I can say because I do not have days to type. It was a lot of work and fun, as I mentioned. Yes, I am working on other stuff, four to six books to be exact. Ideas are in my head and chapters are on file. I will let you know the content as I get closer to completion of the second one, later this year. Again, thank you all for the warm welcome and I hope you are all happy with the book. Drew

I even make Rice Krispy treats, with Fruit Loops folded in for color, dipped in chocolate.

First off, the pate de fruit should be on top when you cut the chocolate. As, for the "g" pectin I am sorry but I can not divulge the ingredients more than I already have. Thank you for the welcome. The price on the pectin should be available today.

Hello to all and thank you for the kind words. I am very happy to see so many people talking about the book. It was a lot of work as well as fun to make. Clearly, I was expecting it to get torn apart, in a good way, and I am glad all of you are pointing out both things that you like and things that you are hesitant about. My apologies for the whole pectin issue. This is somthing that I have been working on for a couple of years and just got the good people at Chef Rubber to make for me. The "g" pectin is one that I formulated to make the chocolates in my book and it is the one I use in production. For all of you out there that use Vitpris, you may now switch to "g" pectin. I have used Vitpris for more that 13 years and the price has steadily risen to astronomical prices due to only one person getting it in the United States, as far as I know. If I told you the number of disasters I threw in the garbage creating this pectin, you would think I am nuts. Thank you Kerry for pointing out the citric acid, very smart. There is a citric acid milled into the "g" pectin for flavor and textural reasons. As the quantity of "g" pectin used in the recipe seems high to some of you, it is not straight pectin. It is a milled blend of a dextrose, acid and several types of pectin. I welcome questions and comments and I will try to answer all of them. Andrew Shotts