Tri2Cook

Strawberries and pumpkin shouldn't be causing setting issues with gelatin. The only thing I could find in my notes about combining gelatin and xanthan is xanthan helps with syneresis issues, I don't have anything noted about there being negative issues. I can imagine xanthan possibly helping the gel be more spreadable without breaking but I don't have any evidence to back that up. Not that I'm an expert on the subject by any means, I just invested a lot of late nights and ingredients in learning what various gelling, thickening and stabilizing ingredients do. How much base are you trying to gel? One box of gelatin in 2 quarts of liquid will produce a thickened but drinkable texture. The reason I know that is, an elderly lady my mom used to send me and my brother to help with yard work when we were kids used to dissolve a box of lime jello in 1 cup hot water then fill the pitcher with pineapple juice and keep it in the fridge as a drink. She claimed the gelatin was good for our blood. It was tasty but I didn't enjoy the thick texture... and that was at 4x the amount of liquid called for on the box to make the standard jello gelatin. For a jam-like texture, I'm thinking 5 - 6 cups might be doable with the much higher solids percentage in the purees. If xanthan gum is doing something to interfere with the gelatin creating a gel, that would be extremely interesting to me because I don't remember ever seeing that be the case.

With the disclaimer of a sometimes unreliable memory, there was a point in time when I played around and experimented with pretty much every gelling agent I could get my hands on and I don't recall any incompatibility between gelatin and xanthan. Both gelatin and agar work well with xanthan as far as I remember with (in my opinion) gelatin having a better mouthfeel and agar having better stability for storage and warmer temps.

Toast plus as much butter as it will accept without leaving unmelted butter and I agree with the article on a minimalist amount of jelly or jam. Just enough for a touch of sweet and flavor. I have zero issues with toast but given a choice, English muffins over toast every time. They maximize the melted butter holding capacity. 😁

Thanks! Actually, the issue with the corn was it took a lot of cocoa butter to get it firm enough to work with. It was softer than a gianduja initiallý, using the typical ratios.

Is there a baseline for sugar when making fruit couvertures? I have some freeze dried banana powder I'm going to try. I ran into some issues when I made a batch from freeze dried corn that still has me wondering if starch can be an issue but assuming that doesn't prove to be the case with banana, I have no idea where I should start with the sugar level.

Thanks! That's interesting. So basically they're saying "most definitely maybe but possibly not." I've come to learn that's a common theme with chocolate and confection work. The rules tend to be whatever works for the person explaining the rules.

I have no idea if it does good things, bad things, is commonly used and I just don't know it or summons demons from the seven levels of hell but I feel kinda like I may have accidentally stumbled upon Chocolate Fightclub… nobody seems to want to talk about it.

Yep, wasn't trying to sound discouraging. A lot of ideas have floated through my head for things I could potentially do. I just decided I have enough learning going on as it is with the amount of time I have to dedicate to chocolate work and probably shouldn't start down another path at this point. But those who can most definitely should because it looks fun in that challenging learning curve way that I enjoy.

Yeah, I was never really tempted towards getting into panning because of the expense of the machine. Then I started following the panning discussions here and discovered the expense of the machine was the least of the difficulties involved. 😆

I may be way behind the curve with this question but I don't remember seeing information about it so... in a ganache where a liquid is involved and with the constant quest to reduce water activity, is there a reason we don't use glucose powder instead of liquid glucose which, even at it's best for the purpose, has fairly high water content? Or do we do that and I just haven't been paying attention in class? 😁

Shrimp and grits...

Yeah, I'm pretty familiar with working with malic acid. I have a little collection of acids and do a little reading on which ones and in what ratios are in whatever fruit I want to work with. I've just never had reason to want to incorporate it into the chocolate making process. Wasn't sure if anything evil might happen in the melanger. I was gonna try it anyway but after a couple of positive replies, I'm no longer worried. Thanks!

Getting ready to take my first serious shot at the fruit couverture thing. I wasn't really tempted to try making the already existing flavors because, honestly, they taste good and it's cheaper to buy it than make it. But I got my hands on some freeze dried banana and peach powders so I'm gonna give those a shot. From what I've been able to dig up, the primary acid in peaches is malic. Is there any reason adding it to the mix would be a bad idea? I'm not convinced I can get a peach flavor I'll be happy with if it doesn't have that acid balance.

I'm not picky about it at all and not even 100% sure I want to bother with it, just thought I'd see what was out there in case I decide to. It would be so I can mold them and dump them in the big plastic bins I use to store my working chocolate, nobody but me would ever see them so what they look like isn't important at all. Both of those look like they would work great. Actually, if I went with the beans, they could be used for things other people would see as well. Hmmm...

Nothing specific. Maybe something around the size of Valrhona's Inspirations or a little smaller. Not something so small that it would take forever without 1000 molds.

Leaching onto this topic rather than start another with the same general question... has anybody seen a mold for making your own callets/discs/whatever we want to call them? Seems like one of the companies would have wanted to cash in on bean to bar people being able to make their own callets by now but google isn't finding it for me. Disclaimer: not ruling out my search skills as a potential culprit in not finding what I'm looking for. 😁

Yeah, I have a book from the mid 80's that was among the books I inherited from my mom called Chocolates & Petit Fours that calls for that in some of the chocolate recipes. I haven't been tempted to try it. 😁 EDIT: After a quick peek, I have to apologize to Ms. Beverley Sutherland Smith for attributing the above information to her book. I'm not sure which book I'm thinking of but it's apparently not that one. 😆

I'm not at all opposed to the version that's baked with meringue on top, I just like the not baked, sans meringue, with whipped cream version better.

One of my favorite desserts... and I'm onboard with whipped cream > meringue n this situation. 😁

Those look amazing! And thanks for sharing how you did it. Even if I never try it, I enjoy ĺearning how it was done.

The problem being, as much as I like bacon, it doesn't work as often as people like to think it does when they try to cram it into everything. The flavor of bacon works pretty nicely with chocolate, I'm just not a fan of the texture it usually ends up having in that situation.

I thought that had the opposite effect? Or maybe it's about ratios? I know that's the trick behind making meltaways, something to do with the interaction between the fats in coconut oil and chocolate that makes that softish fast melting texture.

A good character trait to have... but sometimes it's entirely warranted to go ahead and be a snob. This sounds like one of those occasions. Candy melt and pudding mix hot chocolate bombs. Bleh.

Yeah, my chocolate work is a home thing and scheduled around my 6 days/week at the restaurant so not large production at all. But I also told myself going in that I wasn't going to get caught by the mold monster. Trying to stick with more each of a few rather than a few each of more right now.

That could very well be the case. I haven't been there in longer than I want to think about. I had family that lived in the Fontana area and once me and my grandmother went there to visit. On our third or fourth day there, my grandmother came in from outside on a windy day and said "hey, there are some big mountains out there." They had literally been invisible before that day because of the smog. Maybe things are better now or maybe it was just something unique to that particular area.