Tri2Cook

I kinda felt the same way about Peeps until I read the ingredients. Sugar, corn syrup, gelatin, a tiny bit (in proportion to the main ingredients) of color, preservative and flavoring. So not much different (as far as the ingredient list is concerned) than a homemade marshmallow if you choose to add color and/or flavor to them. They're not the greatest candy ever sold but there's nothing scary going on in them that would make them a sideshow freak. The fumes would be no different than toasting any other marshmallow.

I've been meaning to check out Greweling's coconut filling he uses for his Cocomels. I'm wondering if it's soft enough to be able to get it into shelled molds without a fight. I like the idea of the coconut caramel combo but I like my caramel for chocolates softer than what can be formed in a frame.

Vanilla marshmallow with a layer of caramel. Dirty little secret... I look forward every year to a couple of the Russell Stover caramel marshmallow eggs. They'd have to be even better homemade and with better chocolate.

I'd want to use some type of orange inclusion like candied zest or slices or something along that line just for the textural fun if I were doing it but if you're wanting to avoid that, a pure orange oil is probably what you're going to need for a solid chocolate bar. You won't be able to use extracts like the one you linked, they contain water. I've seen freeze dried orange and mandarin pieces online that would probably make a really nice inclusion but not where I could get them and any freeze dried fruit tends to be pretty costly.

I never got around to ordering it. I decided it's kinda right in the middle of what I would want. The large bowl is perfect for the batch size I usually do, the small bowl isn't as small as I'd like for testing purposes. But that's not a negative towards the small bowl, I assume there must be a lower limit where the mass would still be sufficient to do the job properly. If I decide to add anything to the melanger, it will probably be a second large bowl. That way I can start a batch of something different immediately after finishing a batch instead of having to wash and wait for it to dry thoroughly.

I'm glad that counts... that's what I had for lunch. Otherwise, Pi Day would have to be happy without my participation. I don't foresee me making or purchasing a pie tonight.

The machine makes some nice powdered sugar though, doesn't it?

So that lines up with what I remember from the ML lesson/recipe. They're saying optimal for curdling at 70 C in the link. I remember reading that above that temp, the protease that causes the curdling begins to rapidly be destroyed. I also remember reading that the curdling effect is increased when using juice instead of the whole pieces of ginger. So maybe manipulating temp and ingredient state is the secret.

There's a Michael Laiskonis recipe where he does a blend. It involves cream cold infused with slices of fresh ginger for 24 hours and cream hot infused with slices of fresh ginger. I'd have to dig up the recipe from my backup hard drive to be sure, it's been a long time since I used it, but I think I remember the ginger being pre-blanched. At least for the cold infusion, anyway. I definitely remember that the cream was heated to boiling before the ginger was added for the hot infusion. Apparently temps above 70 C quickly destroy the thing in ginger that causes the curdling. The recipe was a panna cotta, the sugar and gelatin were dissolved in the hot infusion then the cold infusion was added. The flavor was amazing but I've never attempted to figure out a way to use the hot and cold infusion combination in a ganache. I'd actually forgotten about it until I saw this discussion.

This is awesome... you just made my life easier as well.

I almost always use eye of round or top sirloin and follow the exact same process. Sous vide keeps it from being dry and I don't have the waste of all the fat I'm just going to carve out and throw away. But I won't be corning anything this year. At least, not for St. Patrick's Day. I have another plan in mind for that dinner.

Nope, it does not mean that. Anything you do with chocolate or cocoa butter that requires tempering will be done more easily via the EZtemper with at least equally good results. The silk from the EZtemper may seed the same way as using callets but there's no waiting for it to melt or fishing out what doesn't melt. It saves time, it's foolproof (unless somebody can convince me otherwise, I've never experienced a tempering failure using it and I've become so confident with it that I quite often don't even bother with a temper check anymore) and you always have silk ready to work with so last minute projects are easy. Having one isn't essential to doing chocolate work (very few of the tools we use are actually essential, the point of having them is they make the job easier or give better results) but I'd argue that, once you have one and start using it on a regular basis, it will become essential to you. You won't want to go back to working without one.

Most places that sell the extracts for making root beer and other sodas usually carry a cola extract as well. Not sweetened at all and very concentrated (a 2 oz, bottle is used with 4 lbs. of sugar and 4 gallons of water). I've never tried the cola extracts but some of the root beer extracts are good so maybe there's a cola version that is too.

I'm thinking no new air getting in is the key here. Things last a pretty long time without issue in the freezer even when not vacuum sealed. Not as long as things that are vacuum sealed but Jim was talking about a no more than 2 month freezer time in his example and I'm pretty sure Melissa Coppel has sufficient turnover for things to not spend too much time in storage. I've had things in the freezer for a lot longer than 2 months where I took no extra care at all in packaging (personal stuff at home, not at work or for my chocolate work) that held up perfectly fine so I suspect as long as they're closed up well enough to not let the freezer air in during storage, they're probably gonna be just fine for a pretty good amount of time.

It took me a while to dig up the post but this is the result I got from mixing the luster dust with melted cocoa butter and painting it in the molds. The somewhat muted look is not due to the method, it's due to the only colors I had on hand at the time being old gold and satin white, neither of which have a lot of pop to them. They were leftovers from a cake I had to do so I decided to play around with the technique before deciding to invest in more vibrant colors. But you can still see the basic idea of how it worked.

Yes I am. Scoop in some silk and pour vs. table and cleanup is a non-decision every time.

Kerry was my good supplier of my last cocoa butter purchase but I think that was a one-time thing where she found a good deal and offered it to anybody interested, not something she does on a regular basis. Other than that, I get it from chocolat-chocolat.

I meant the molds you posted above with the tools. Fill those to the depth you want with something that will set strong enough to use as a plug. I know that wouldn't be efficient long-term but it would be a quick way to test the partial depth molds to see if you like the result better.

Fill the mold you just made to the depth you want with some material you can use as a plug? I'm generally looking for the easiest way to do things that will still get the good result so I'll have to think on this one a bit. It's not a task I've ever had need to find an easier way to do.

Could you embed items in some kind of material that will take an imprint to the depth you want then make plugs from some kind of material you can pour in the cavities and let harden?

Just what I was hoping to hear. Thanks! Not too late at all. I couldn't find something I was completely happy with so I pushed it to the back burner. Shipping to Canada is a little on the steep side from them but I did a little google time and it looks like dr.ca carries them (I don't remember them having those when I was looking before, that's a site I always check for things like that) so that solves that problem. Thanks again!

The little things that will make the job easier and the result better is just details to be worked out along the way, looks like that thing does a great job of the basic purpose it was designed for.

Can meltaways be re-melted and re-tempered? I want to try something in some silicone molds I have sitting around that were purchased for a different purpose but I don't have enough of them to hold a full batch in one round. Just wondering if I'd be better off doing separate smaller batches... and hoping not.

That was before he knew all the cool kids are doing it.

I only use sous vide because I usually use lean cuts to make my corned beef and don't want it dry. If I was working with brisket based corned beef, "low brow", as you put it, methods would be fine with me.