Tri2Cook

What's to judge? Having something you enjoy while spending time with someone you love... that's probably about as close to "what it's all about" as it gets.

In the interest of fairness, I'm not belittling scott123's take on this. If it's as important to him as it seems, more power to him on getting the word out. It's just a little deeper into pizza than I've wanted to dive so far. Maybe someday I'll jump in with both feet and be better able to understand the cultural dangers of unpoliced Neapolitan pizza. And no, I'm not being flippant or back-handed rude with that last remark, it was sincere. Edit: although , as the conversation continues, I'm finding the level of anger and arrogance is rapidly depleting my reservoir of attempted understanding.

Yes I would... but only because I've made them and had them with coffee. Is that cheating?

That's a fair point but I was more thrown off by the idea that their would be cultural ramifications. I think the only cultural ramifications would be the people who do it by the book looking down their nose at those who don't. And that's fine, they're making the effort to do it by the book, they have the right to take pride in that. But I don't think there's going to be any impact on the Neapolitan culture because some guy in downtown East Overshoes, Vermont calls his 4-minute pie "Neapolitan style". Those who know better and care will laugh in his general direction and those who don't know better or care will buy his pizza and enjoy it if it's good... even if it isn't authentic. To run with your example, the idea of a fat free croissant is pretty silly and obviously incorrect but there won't be uprisings in France over cultural injustice if someone does it and still calls it a croissant.

That's what I was thinking. When people start talking about the cultural ramifications of calling a pizza Neapolitan when it took 92 seconds to cook instead of 90, I don't even know how to be part of the conversation.

I made a last minute call before going to bed that it did need more coffee. The coffee flavor smoothed out and became really nice after a few hours of refining, I assume the loss of some of the volatiles would account for that, but I wasn't convinced it was forward enough for when the chocolate is added so I dumped in another 10 grams. Hopefully that wasn't a mistake. After work tonight, I guess I'll throw some numbers in a hat and pick one at random to decide how much chocolate to add. I have a lump of the 50% I made that weighs exactly 500 grams and doesn't look like it would be too much to me for the volume of almond/coffee paste in the machine but I may start at 300 grams (the basic 1:1:1 for nuts, sugar and chocolate) and add more in stages until I'm worried about watering down the flavor too much. The goal is to get as much chocolate in as I can and it still taste like I want it to. Edit: I think the additional coffee is going to prove to be the wrong call. It's not overpowering in the context of a coffee/chocolate combo but it's somewhat overwhelmed the almond and adding more almonds will just mean skewing the balance back towards a softer result. I added 500 grams of 50% milk chocolate and that didn't overwhelm the coffee or the almond, the almond has just taken more of a backseat to the coffee than I wanted.

Le sigh... when I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide... They can't be found, he had them custom made for his personal use. I suppose you could possibly arrange through him with the company that made them to have a run made for you if he was feeling generous at that moment but other than that, you'd have to go through the same process he did and get something similar made for yourself.

Unless I have chocolate work in the plans for the day, I generally set my ac at around 80 - 81 F when I'm using it at all. That and a fan blowing on me when I'm on the couch is always plenty for me to be comfy even on the hottest days we get here. If it's a really bad day, I may drop it to 79 F until the house cools down then I bump it back up. Still cooler than the kitchen at work. So hot kitchen cooking for you may be just cooking for me. It actually was hot enough last weekend for me to make a concession to it though. I made a chicken salad with chicken I cooked outside in the smoker and a cucumber salad to go with it so there was no heating devices used indoors that day.

Right now, it doesn't need more. The coffee is slightly more assertive than I'd want it if I was just making a coffee almond paste but I think it should settle in nice once I add the chocolate. If it ends up fading too much, I'll adjust it to taste with espresso powder but I'm hoping to not have to. Edit: still not thinking it needs more coffee... though I keep having the nagging thought that it just might once the chocolate is in. I did add 3 grams of salt that I meant to add at the start and forgot.

So this is where I'm at right now. Toasted 300 grams of almonds, toasted (via the Serious Eats post) 300 grams of sugar and have it churning in the machine along with 200 grams of cocoa butter and 25 grams of freshly roasted coffee beans. No idea how high I need to go on the coffee beans so I'll taste it in a bit and decide if I need more. Eventually, it will be combined in some still to be determined ratio with 50% milk chocolate.

Making good chocolate for Michael Laiskonis is probably not the easiest of tasks, making good chocolate compared to what most people know about and generally eat is less difficult. Maybe I won't outdo Cluizel or Amedei, but that doesn't mean I can't outdo Hershey and Nestle and possibly some higher up the chain than that. I'd be willing to bet all of my chocolate equipment against a bite-size Hershey bar that you won't find two people in the town I live in that have even heard of Cluizel or Amadei. Besides, it's fun. At my level, 90% may be a bit high... but the point he's making is definitely valid. The prep and cleanup certainly involve more hands-on time than the production. But isn't that obsession one of the best reasons of all? I ask that with thoughts of your journey with your coffee ice cream in mind.

Thanks for the reply. I've already put together a game plan and started rolling with it. I decided this is a the "experimentation" thread so I'm just going to go ahead and experiment. We'll see what comes out of the machine.

Read through the post again... you can't buy it, he had it custom made.

Me neither... I feel like a bit of a slacker now.

Hoping to not have to add nuts beyond what's used for the paste. I'm not even using hazelnuts, that's why I switched to "gianduja-esque". I'm actually going to be using almonds.

Thanks! Yeah, I know the melt is part of what it does. I think what I was hoping is I could make something that isn't necessarily gianduja per se but has enough of the nut paste included to allow the flavor to come through in a nice way that would at least be a little less melty. But I recall the thing about the combining of the fats that has a net effect greater than the sum of it's parts so that was probably just wishful thinking. The main reason I said milk chocolate is I still have a lump of the 50% milk I made remaining after molding bars. Not enough to be worth doing more bars with really but enough for a test batch like this. Nothing to lose by trying additional cocoa butter, I suppose. Worst case, I still have some gianduja to use for something.

Is it possible to make a gianduja that will mold cleanly and not melt easily to the touch? Basically make a gianduja-esque bar that can be eaten as a bar without worry of people having gianduja-covered hands at the end. I'm thinking from a starting point of 1:1 nuts and a fairly high percentage milk chocolate (Bonus question: does it need the additional equal part sugar Greweling calls for in his recipe?), could I alter the ratio or add additional cocoa butter or something to get a more firm result that will still have good flavor? I remember making Greweling's peanut butter gianduja and once it was tempered, it was the consistency of a good couverture. It would basically just shatter if you tried to cut it with a knife. So it seems like it can be done but I'm not sure what I did with that batch that caused it. That was years ago and apparently not the result others were getting. I know this is the "melanger experimentation" thread so I should just experiment but this is one of those things the smaller drum would be handy for, I don't want to find out the expensive way that this won't work if I could have avoided a failure by asking first.

I guess I'm celebrating the Mexican side of your restaurant couple's union, we're having tacos tonight.

Sure they do! The local store carries them but sometimes they run out and it takes a while before they get them in again so I keep this in my saved items on amazon.ca and just order a couple bags if I need them. They carry the yellow as well, but I always order the white.

Every restaurant that exists in the tiny town I live in is within 2 miles of home, almost all of them are within a few blocks, and I always know I can make better food at home... but somebody else can make the food and clean up the mess at the restaurants. So sometimes better food doesn't win.

That's generally the case with most critters people complain about. They have the nerve to already be living where we want to be.

Did you like the result? You said you started with root beer float in mind, did it get you there? Just curious because it sounds pretty interesting to me.

I like the way she does those bar inclusions so they show through on the front in some areas.

Maybe @Kerry Beal has more information, I don't know any more than what I posted above. There's nothing about it on the website so far. I haven't actually pursued any additional information, it just sounds like it would be a handy thing to have.