Tri2Cook

Heston still uses the whipper. He sprays it from the whipper into the mold and then immediately goes into the vacuum sealer. It makes for almost ridiculously big bubbles if you pull it far enough. If you pull it too far, it collapses.

I'm not that person but I've done both his and Heston Blumenthal's versions many times. Heston's version is easier because the chocolate isn't tempered so you can keep the temperature much higher going into the whipper. I've had issues with clogging from solidified chocolate doing Greweling's method a couple times. Makes for a fun whipper cleanup. Heston also adds a small amount of a neutral oil to his version,. He claims it helps with the bubbles and it gives a final texture closer to the commercial aerated chocolate I've had. Regardless of which method is used, you get much larger bubbles by shooting the chocolate into whatever it's being molded in, tossing it in a vacuum sealer, pulling a vacuum until the chocolate expands and leaving it in there to set before releasing the vacuum. I don't own a chamber sealer and no longer have access to the one I used to use so I haven't done the aerated chocolate in a long time. It was really just a novelty thing that was fun to do for a bit anyway, I don't often find myself missing it.

It wasn't taken as one. We're just discussing leftover turkey and the cats disappointment at the lack thereof.

Cats are not generally my pet of choice. I don't dislike them, just don't particularly want them as pets. But these have lived here their entire lives, they were my late wife's, so I wasn't going to make them homeless due to circumstances that were no fault of theirs. Once their time is up, there will be no replacement cats. I've seen these two eat some things I would never have expected but they had no interest in enchiladas. They always have interest in turkey.

Not a big fan myself. I don't care much at all about the traditional turkey dinner. To me, the best part of turkey is sandwiches from the leftovers. Cold between two slices of buttered bread with mayo, salt and lots of pepper works a kind of magic on turkey. Transforms it from something I don't care about to something I look forward to.

Christmas dinner this year was enchiladas, pinto beans and rice for me and disappointed looks on the cats faces because there was nothing of interest to them. The leftovers were just reheated same, didn't see a whole lot of repurposing potential in that meal. Older daughter and family spent this Christmas with her husband's family, younger daughter spent Christmas with her boyfriend's family this year (she came by for a couple hours in the afternoon though, so that was nice). Seemed a bit silly to go too overboard on Christmas dinner just for me, though I'm sure the cats would have greatly preferred turkey.

I thought the same but it sure didn't taste like it did.

I have an electric fondue set that my wife received as a gift several years ago. It's been used exactly once. She used some purchased pouches of cheese fondue from the grocery store. I read the ingredients and it actually sounded good, all nice ingredients. Problem was, it was so boozy the cheese may as well not have been there. It contained white wine and kirsch and apparently in abundance. The booze was so strong it completely took over, we didn't enjoy it at all. I keep waffling between using the fondue pot and getting rid of it. Same with her cake pop maker. I was going to get rid of that because I have no interest in cake pops but then I discovered a whole world of little bite sized snacks that can be made in it and kept it around. Filling the little cavities with corn dog batter, sticking a chunk of hot smoked sausage in the middle and letting it do it's thing is particularly tasty. Maybe I can combine that with a nice cheese fondue to dip the little corn dogs in and make use of both gadgets.

I've never made or even eaten a steamed pudding. Are they as moist and dense as it sounds like they would be? I should be clear that moist and dense would not be considered a down-side for me. I greatly prefer most cakes and cake-like items I eat to have those characteristics.

Nothing at all shows up, the page doesn't open for me. The URL is correct in the address bar but nothing shows in the content. Just a blank page. Could just be something at my end but everything else is working fine.

I may know somebody (not me, this is an actual case of "for a friend" ) that would be interested in that mold. For some reason, the link isn't opening a page for me.

That does sound interesting. Of course, now we have to decide if it's a croscuit or biscant…

Now Anna, we have to be considerate... most people outside of Canada don't realize our igloos are that big.

And once again, thanks to Kerry, off to google I go...

I read it the same way, only I'm apparently less alert this morning because it didn't fall into place for me until I read your post and it got nudged into place...

With a little luck, none.

More cocoa butter has solved almost every viscosity issue I've encountered. It's not the least expensive option but it generally works.

We were given the green light by our supplier at work this past Monday... it's been back on the menu all week.

For the first time in over 15 years, I have no plans to make Christmas cookies this year. There's an outside chance I'll use my Mr. Hankey cutter to do some gingerbread poos... err... "men"... but nothing beyond that is in the plans or desires. I'm trying to steer myself entirely towards chocolate-related stuff instead this year. Might even do chocolate Mr. Hankey's instead of gingerbread if I can get it to work like I want it to. I have to confess, admitting this didn't sting near as much as I thought it would.

I think the additional salt from using salted butter instead of unsalted would be a nice addition. I would look at it more as the salt helping balance some of the sweetness than as something that needs to be offset with additional sweetness. Never met an almond roca that wasn't more than sufficiently sweet to begin with. Of course that's unrelated to your question and really none of my business how you choose to make your candy... just felt inspired to mention it anyway.

It helps a lot! Exactly the type of information I was looking for. Thanks!

I do not. Never even heard of it... I'll do a search and check it out.

I think I'll start a campaign to try to convince @Kerry Beal to use her amazing powers as a chocolate ambassador to convince someone in the bean-to-bar field to join these forums. I'd like to be able to ask questions about things like how they determine where to go with various beans in terms of percentages and how they decide when to take a batch out of the machine beyond general guidelines. Basically, some basics beyond put this+that+the-other in the machine for x amount of time. Even somebody willing to do an article where they cover things like I mentioned above would be great. I'm not looking for a step-by-step with specific formulas or anything like that, just an overview on how their decision making process works when they decide a bean should end up as a 65% instead of a 70% or might not be as good for a milk as another bean... that sort of stuff.

I know I've said it many times before but I'll say it again: put Kerry in a room with anything at all other than just air and she'll find a way to cook or make something. .. and I wouldn't bet against her if there was just the air.

Put a stick in 'em, toss 'em in the freezer and have homemade pudding pops. I agree with pastrygirl, thin with milk and give 'em a spin. Should be fine straight out of the machine, might get a bit hard and/or icy in the freezer depending on the sugar/solids level in your PdC.