prairiegirl

I agree Marmalade, nice look to the product but not worth the time.

I am doing a class next weekend for 2.5 hours. I was hoping to only have 10-12 people. I got the news that we have 25 people. I think that is way too many but what is done is done! I am looking for some ideas that will work in the 2.5 time frame. I want to do Grewelings Spiced eggnog recipe as a truffle. Does anyone have any other suggestions. I would like to do 2 different truffles. The recipe has to set up in the alloted time.

I am wondering if anyone has anything more to add about the Absolu Cristal Valrhona product. I need to do 360 chocolates for Saturday that needs a strong alcohol content. Due to city bylaws a friend cannot get a liquor license and wants to be able to offer her patrons (she is a musician) alcohol and this may be the only loophole we can use. What is the ratios to use with alcohol.I will be using the CW 12 heart mold. Any ideas are much appreicated. HURRY!!!

Wow, for a newbie that is some excellent, excellent work!!

My latest update on printers, ink and chocosheets. Printers: Canon IP4700 is on sale thru London Drugs in Canada for $80CAD. You can by this online. I am going to try the spongeless ink cartridges from Icing Images.com. They also manufacture chocosheets so I will try the sheets. I am having trouble with Photofrost. They supposedly sent me some replacement ink cartridges for some faulty ones I received. The ink has not arrived yet and I am convinced that they never will! I have called them twice saying I have not received anything and my mailox remains lonely!

I can't see it being overly expensive to order from Chef Rubber or even from places such as Home Chocolate Factory in England. I order from companies in Europe even though i am in North America. You can purchase the powder to mix in wht cocoa butter to keep shipping costs lower. Chef Rubber has an amazing collection of colours.

I do a ton of airbrushing and I live in Calgary. I bought the universal 360 airbrush from the bargain basement on the Badger website. I use an air comnpressor that I bought at Michaels with a 50% coupon and paid about $130cad. I think it is the model 180 and it is all you need for airbrushing colours into a mold. You can look at my website and see what I have done using this compressor. it is noisy but not nearly as noisy as some of the bigger compressors!!

I just did a batch of black and maroon coloured swirls for a wedding chocolate. My coloured cocoa butters have been sitting at the shop where the temperatures can get quite high due to the pastry chef's baking and summer weather. Long story short, the colourts are out of temper. When I demoulded the bonbons there was quite a bit of chipping. I had to retemper the whole bottle of black and the maroon. The next batch was beautiful. I tempered the colours to 29 Celsius. So I can definitely and confidently say that your cocoa butter is out of temper!

I am going to visit my bed ridden father next week and I want to cook a bunch of meals for him. He is diabetic but I would love to do a large batch of meatballs (to freeze) for him. Does anyone have a favourite recipe to share? Thank you for your contribution!

Wilton Cream of Tartar Fondant 2 cups (480mL) hot water, 6 cups granulated sugar, 1/2 tsp cream of tartar. Combine water and sugar in heavy 4 quart saucepan. Place pan on high heat and add cream of tartar. when mixture boils, wash down sides. Clip on thermometer, wash sides down 2 more times. Do not stir. When temp reaches 240 F (116 C)remove pan from heat and pour on cookie sheet or prepared slab so you can cool down the mixture. Entire cookingtime should be about 10 minutes or less. When mixture cool then work the fondant with a metal scraper. The recipe says it should become stiff in about 5 minutes. Then you can knead the fondant until soft and creamy. What I do after the fondant cools slightly, I put it in my bosch mix master with a dough hook and let the machine knead the dough. I keep the lid off to let any heat escape. Using the machine is much easier than hand kneading and table slabbing. Store air tight or put in the refrigerator. But keep it airtight! Eddy Van Damme has an excellent website and he has a fondant recipe posted with pictures to walk a person thru the process. http://www.chefeddy.com/2010/02/fondant/ Chef Eddy lives in Houston which is hot and humid so I don't think it will be too much of an issue for you.

Remember to keep the ganache above 35 Celsius when re-emulsifying.

Looks like the cocoa butter is out of temper.

I use the thermomix to make dulce de leche. I find that I need to add a bit of glucose because it will (over time...3 weeks if any left!!) start to crystalize.

Does anyone have a good idea/recipe for making a maple syrup ganache?

Nice. I like how the colours came thru. The software could be improved!

i don't like Deco Artists new sheets. I think they are terrible. One of the solutions for printing is to take the contrast and colour resolution down by 10-20% and print quality as standard (not high). Because I think the volume of ink is to high and gets completely absorbed into the material on the special transfer sheets. Thus, the image sticks to the transfer sheet and not to the chocolate. it is important to make the white chocolate a bit warmer than the standard 29 Celcius so that the ink will take to the chocolate. If you google chocosheets you will get a about 3 or 4 companies pulling up. 2 are in the Nederlands and they are the sheets you want. One is called Cake art international. I use these ones and I purchase them using a trade account for better pricing from "Home chocolate Factory" in England. They also sell the software for printing, currently I use deco artist software. Don't use the Deco Artist printhead and ink. Don't Don't!! Why spend money you don't need to spend. In North America I am purchasing the edible ink from PhotoFrost and they will fit straight into your printer. If you purchase software from Cake Art intl then you can use whatever printer you want and photofrost sells a whole variety of ink cartidges. With Deco Artist you are stuck with limited choices for printers...Canon 4700 I think is now the newest version.

I buy alot from DR.ca Molds, guitar... I brought my melters in directly from Mol d'art. It was cheaper to do so. I might do a special order directly with JKV for molds. If so I will open it up to any other Canadians wanting to order some of their molds or other products.

I leave the lid on when melting because I don't want heat escaping. At the end of the day I put the heat up and the lid on and leave!! I might not be back for 2 or 3 days and the chocolate is fine. Just need to stir well and temper properly!

I do molding almost exclusively...although that will change soon. I rarely add butter to any of my ganache recipes...too much fat. Kees does the same, she doesn't add butter to her truffle ganache. Anyhow, when the ganache is too thick I will add more cream. Rarely do I use measurements, but checking the ganache. My recipe starts with total weight needed for the amount I am making..then 66% weight is chocolate, then cream, and whatever else I am adding (purees).

Haas uses fruit pate. My husband was in Vancouver last spring and he visited the shop. The staff were very pleasant and they said that next time to bring our chocolates to trade with them! His chocolates weigh about 7 grams each. Small.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw01nzTWivE We are fair;y new and are working thru all the logistics. Marketing is extremely important.

Ruth, my batch sounds exactly like your batch. I felt I carmelized the sugar a little too long. A burnt caramel taste! Everyone really likes it though!

Nice presentation. For samples we cut up chocolates, and I also use little 5 gram cups and put left over ganache in them. That works great and the samples will go a long way. For people to keep coming back for samples and not purchasing is "wrong" but that is human nature. I would encourage all the chocolatiers to really look at an event and determine if it is truly worth it to attend. Will it bring you more business? I could be busy all the time doing events but if it doesn't produce results then it isn't worth my time. It is also a process of experience to know what to attend or not attend.

I am not using any refrigeration. I will put A/C in the store in the spring and when it warms up for summer and the A/C should do the trick. Being in the lower mainland, you might get away with this as well.

Has your problem been solved yet?