merlicky
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Posts posted by merlicky
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Lior,I make a white chocolate strawberry ganache. I make a reduced puree- if I remember 100g puree to 100g cream to 340 g chocolate, I can look it up later. I add some balsamic which seems to bring out the strawberry. I think it tastes just right...By how much do you reduce your puree? It seems like it would have to be reduced down pretty far for your proportions to make a firm ganache.
And how much balsamic do you use? I like this idea. Do you add it to the puree or while emulsifying as you would a liqueur?
I'm trying to make a Neapolitan truffle and need a really good strawberry flavored layer to go with the milk and vanilla layers. I’ve tried reducing the puree to ½ the weight (don’t know exactly how much water that removes, but it’s more than half and leaves it as a kind of sticky paste) and combining it with the cream at about a 1:1. I’ve been using Lindt white chocolate because it doesn’t have a strong flavor and I usually have luck getting other flavors to come through…no such luck this time.
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I've actually had good luck using the heating pad technique. I guess the temperature depends on the heating pad you are using. The low setting on the one we have heats up to 87-88°F so it is the perfect temperature to keep the temper.
I just put the heating pad on top of a larger glass bowl and smush the glass bowl with my tempered chocolate right down into it. Even with the heating pad, I still have to hit the chocolate with the heat gun every once in a while, but typically only when I am enrobing large quantities of chocolates.
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Chris, that's what I thought too. I made the Lemon Logs and they used white chocolate, butter, fondant, and lemon juice/zest.That sounds like what Greweling calls a "butter ganache," right?I was curious if butter ganache and butter cream were actually the same thing, and it sounds like they are. I prefer the term butter ganache though, because butter cream makes me think of cheap boxed chocolates. The lemon logs that I made had much better texture and flavor than what I typically think of as butter cream…I guess that’s what fresh, quality ingredients will do for you.
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These are a definite favorite, and I think they will be a crowd-pleaser at my BBQ later today. I'll report back on the crowd's reaction, but I think they are a home run.
Chris,
The real question though, is what did the wife think of them?
BTW, they look great.
Mike.
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I'm probably heading down to South Carolina for a week later in the year to visit my brother. He lives in the Charleston area and I'd love to hit some of the chocolate places down there.
Is anyone from around there, or know of the best places? Or know of people that might let me have a little tour of their shop?
Thanks.
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Tammy, I like the Twix bar idea, that’s definitely something that sounds like fun to play around with. How do you go about dipping something as big as a candy bar?
Also, I noticed that I had one Grand Marnier truffle that I left at home, so I took this picture:
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No pictures, but I’ve been working on a couple things with varying degrees of success. I’ve got to remember to take pictures before I let people eat them all.
I’ve tried the chocolate shortbread sandwich cookies with ganache filling from Chocolate Obsession a few times. I’ve found that I can’t directly follow the recipe (mostly the setting time for the dough and the cooking time) or else I get poor results. I’ve also found that they taste much better if the shortbread cookies are slightly over cooked and crispier than normal. And, I found out the hard way that even if you have a no-stick cookie sheet, you need the parchment paper!
The only problem I have with these cookies is that they only last two days before the cookies absorb too much of the moisture from the ganache and get soft. I’m toying with the idea of coating the cookie with chocolate before applying the ganache. I’m also thinking about trying a vanilla ganache for the Oreo affect.
The other thing I tried was some Grand Marnier truffles. I didn’t have any recipes for this one, so I just improvised (not like it’s all that complicated to add liquor to a ganache). I enhanced the orange flavor with some orange juice concentrate as a replacement for some of the cream. I wasn’t sure how this would work out since it changes the moisture content of the ganache. I was also going to try truffle squares instead of rounds, which I have never done before, so I was hoping that I’d get a thick enough ganache.
Not having any type of frame, I grabbed four straight plastic table legs I had and washed them up, coated them in waxed paper, and formed them into a square. My “frame” was about an inch deep, even though the truffles were only going to be about ¼ inch deep. So I smoothed it the best I could with a spatula and by shaking the contraption. After it started to set up I put some plastic wrap over it and smoothed it a bit more by hand…this actually worked pretty well.
I learned a lot about bottoming and when to cut the ganache (actually, when not to cut the ganache would be more appropriate – don’t cut before bottoming). I used tempered chocolate for the foot, though I’m not sure if that is the best idea since it started setting before I even finished spreading it. Any advice on this one?
I wish I would have read the thread on enrobing chocolates before I attempted these. The first few tries left a huge foot (actually more like a slope), but then they started to look pretty good. By the middle of the batch there was really no foot and they were looking pretty smooth and square. The only problem was that the tops were a lot thicker than the sides and bottom. Next time, I think I’ll try some of the techniques from the enrobing thread.
I brought them into work today and got a lot of compliments on them…a few people actually said they were the best truffles they had ever tasted! So despite my improvisation (recipe and equipment) and poor enrobing technique, I must have done something right.
Mike.
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Thanks for the compliments.
John, the texture is rather nice actually, but I’m not quite sure how to describe it. Kind of cheesecake-like but also with the smoothness and meltiness of butter, and a bit fluffier when compared to a normal cream ganache.
The first time I made these I had only dried lemon zest and lemon juice from a bottle. They were fairly lemony until I dipped them. Once the chocolate was around the centers the lemon taste was really hidden. The second time, however, I used fresh lemon zest and freshly squeezed lemon juice. Before dipping these ones, they had as lemony a taste as lemon squares. Once dipped in the dark chocolate it became more like essence of lemon…which is what I was hoping to get.
Since I really liked the taste and the texture, I plan on trying small batches of them with other citrus fruits: orange, lime, and grapefruit.
Chris, these ones weren’t for my wife since I’m the big citrus person in the family; she did like them though. And, she does have the pages marked for all the recipes she wants me to make.
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Okay, first attempt at posting images...
I made the lemon logs for the second time...first time I kind of cheated and didn't use fresh lemon (becasue I didn't have a zester). Well, I went out and bought a zester for a whole $2.49 and it made all the difference.
The only things that really caused me trouble were getting the fondant to incorporate really well and piping the logs at a steady pace so the logs would be even.
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Makes sense…I never really paid attention to which state it was where people were starting their businesses.
As for Michigan, I looked over the Food Law of 2000 (current regulatory law) and it looks like Truffle Guy’s previous advice is very good since as of April this year it appears that any violation of certain aspects of this code, one of which is selling without a license, is fined and becomes a misdemeanor. Prior to this amendment there was a provision that let minor violations off with just a warning.
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Holey truffle sample Batman! Maybe I should start looking into this business thing a bit sooner than I anticipated.
I made some truffle samples on Valentine’s Day for a few people we know; they all loved them and most also shared them with people they know. One girl works at a pretty exclusive dinning club in town and let her manager have one…he loved it too! He actually asked her how to get a hold of us because he would like me to make chocolates for their next big event…and this is just one example. It’s amazing how fast word can spread.
Only problem is that I am not a business and have not even really started looking into becoming one. I’m attending the small business start-up class for my area on March 1st, but that is about as far as I’ve gotten.
The feedback on these chocolates has been crazy and really has me thinking seriously about throwing my hat into the ring. One quick question for now – why do I hear a lot about people starting bakery businesses from their homes, while at the same time hearing that you need a commercial kitchen for a confectionary business?
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Chris, I’m with you on this…I also don’t have the time or money to go and take the type of chocolate and confection courses that I would like to take. There are a lot of things that video instruction would convey much better than reading in a book. This series sounds pretty interesting, but that price tag is pretty high – seems like they should be including a little more with it like a free chef’s hat or student mold or metal frame or something.
Not having come from a background with much pastry/cooking there are a lot of things that I’m managing to get done, but know I am doing wrong. There are a lot of simple techniques, second nature to most on here, which I would like to actually see being done – the little things that books assume you know, where writing out instructions would be too mundane, that leave someone with no real experience scratching their head and taking three times as long to get things done.
Mike.
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There’s an orchard near my town called Gull Meadow Farms (nationally known for its corn mazes) that makes some excellent apple donuts. You can get them glazed or with powdered sugar or cinnamon.
They have a nice crisp crust from the grease and are wonderful warm with a nice glass of cider.
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I made his burnt caramel truffles…with a slight modification. I used milk chocolate instead of bittersweet chocolate. After tasting them, I personally think that the dark is the way to go, but the people I was making them for don’t particularly care for dark chocolate. Anyway, they tasted really good when all was said and done.
It did take me two tries to get the flavor/texture right with the milk chocolate…the first time it was too soft and not caramely enough. The second time, when I played with the ratio of cream/caramel syrup/chocolate a little bit, they turned out wonderfully.
This weekend, I tried the malt honeycomb brittle truffles…actually they are still in process as the ganache needs to set up for a couple days.
One thing I learned…that wax paper is not parchment paper. The first attempt at the honeycomb brittle resulted in the brittle melting the wax on the paper and a lot of paper stuck to the bottom of the brittle. Lesson learned. Other than that, the brittle was fairly easy to make.
I had a bit of a time trying to find malt syrup for the ganache though. I had tried making malt truffles before by using Carnation malt powder, but it really didn’t work too well. So, for these I wanted to try using the malt syrup extract. I called all the gourmet and health food stores in my area, and none of them carried it. But, the last shop I called suggested a local brewery, Bell’s. I called up their store and they had dried malt extract, but no syrup extract. This was the best I could find, so I picked some up.
The syrup extract contains 20% water, so I used the powder at .8x the weight for the syrup in the recipe and filled the rest of the weight with added water. I was hoping that this would maintain the water content at the right level. I was only making a half batch but with all the calculating and scheming to try and use the dried extract, I forgot to halve the malt weight in the recipe. Therefore, these have a super malt content. Overall, I think the extra malt flavor is probably a plus…the ganache has a creamy malted milk ball taste and a good consistency.
I’ll roll these into balls this evening and then let them sit out until tomorrow to coat them and see what happens. So far so good…well at least no problems that I haven’t been able to work out.
UPDATE: I rolled them tonight...they have to be the stickiest ganache that I have ever made, but are still very creamy.
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One thing that can happen when you use untempered chocolate is that the ganache can develop a grainy feel over time. Greweling talks about this briefly, but I’ve had it happen a couple times when I first started working with milk chocolate.
Because the cream doesn’t typically melt all the milk chocolate that is needed, I melted the chocolate first and then added the cream. The chocolate was out of temper, but the ganache seemed smooth. A day later when I dipped them the ganache was still smooth. A few days after that the ganache had a bit of a grainy texture.
Now I melt most of the milk chocolate, but make sure to leave some chunks of tempered chocolate in the bowl. The cream melts these chunks as it would with the dark chocolate. Since I started doing this, I have had no more problems with the grainy texture.
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It is probably something a little different than a silk screen. Silk screen do need to stay stretched on a frame. But, they are used in the manner you describe...squeegee and such.
You were probably using some sort of custom made stencil.
Oops, forgot to add this-
I have not used these, but they might serve your purpose - and are as custom as you want to make them: EZScreenPrint.
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I’ve just started playing around with molds so I may be off base here, but in the Greweling book he talks about the latent heat of crystallization. And the dull area of these bars looks a lot like what he describes. Apparently the heat released upon crystallization can become trapped in certain molds and take the chocolate out of temper or promote unstable crystal formation during cooling.
He suggests that you refrigerate the mold for a short period of time to help release the latent heat. He cautions against too long an exposure or using too low a temperature – I believe he said it should be around 5° C with low humidity. He also said not to put it into the refrigerator right away, but rather to wait until the cocoa butter begins to crystallize. If refrigerated too soon, the chocolate won’t have enough type-V seed crystals to form a stable structure upon setting.
Mike.
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Reading the comments above it looks like white chocolate might be part of the key...makes some sense.
JAZ, how fluffy is the end result in that recipe? I'd be interested in trying a non-ganache filling, but I don't want anything too airy.
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The way it was explained to me is if people can eat your product where it is sold, you have to charge sales tax. That's why it is added to your bill in restaurants. (In Michigan)
Couldn't you get around this if you put the product in a box or some other sort of packaging?
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I’ve recently been trying to create a malted milk truffle and have run into a few stumbling blocks.
I have tried to put malt into the cream as I would with any other sugar. I tried various quantities up to about 3 tbsp for only 1.6 oz of cream (the container recommends 3 tbsp for 8 oz of milk to make malted milk)…I’m not sure how much more the cream can absorb.
The problem is that the sugars in the milk chocolate completely overpower the malt added to the cream. I can taste it in the ganache, but then again I’m not really a fan of malt so I pick up on it fairly quickly. I ran the ganache by some family members that are huge malt fans and they didn’t even notice it…most likely because they were expecting a fairly significant malt presence.
For the time being, I coated the ganache and rolled it in malt powder. This was a much bigger hit with the malt loving crowd since the malt flavor hit you right away.
But, I am still hoping that somehow I can carry the malt flavor through the ganache instead of relying on the coating. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Mike.
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In 2008 I would like to do a lot of things, but here are a few:
I’d like to move beyond just making truffles to other confections as well.
I’d like to take an actual class on chocolate and confections since I have no prior training and no experience beyond October of last year.
I’d like to get some more of the basic equipment listed in the Greweling book so that I can attempt some of the recipes that are currently out of my reach.
I’d like to talk with my local government regarding the regulations involved in starting a food based business, so that I can be prepared for the next step once I am comfortable making confections.
Mike.
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In 2007 I learned that chocolate doesn’t have nearly the level of mystique that I thought it did; it is actually something with which I can work. I’ve always been awed by chocolate confections, especially truffles, but never thought that I would be able to make them. On a whim (after joking with my wife about opening a chocolate shop in town – which, btw, this town really needs) I decided to try it in October of 2007. I downloaded the Godiva dark chocolate truffle recipe from their website, made a few substitutions, and miraculously my first batch turned out really well.
Also in October, I first bought high end chocolate bars to taste and compare. I have probably had many of these chocolates in truffles that I’ve bought over the years, but never tasted them by themselves. I really learned that the chocolate you use can make all the difference.
I learned that my palate for chocolate is not as bad as I thought it would be. I was amazed at first by the quality difference between high end chocolate and mass produced chocolate. After a few of these tastings, and sampling nearly all the high end chocolate I could find in my area, I began to notice the subtle, and not so subtle, differences in flavor and texture. I also learned that I really don’t like eating a lot of the lower end chocolates that I liked at one time.
I learned that ganache is not quite as easy as it seemed the first few times I made it, and that it is not nearly as hard as it seemed the next few times I made it.
I learned that I can temper chocolate, and even though I am supremely unconfident in my abilities somehow I’ve been getting good results (I know, I know, wait for those humid summer months).
I learned that learning how to make chocolates is not all that friendly to the pocket book.
I also learned that making chocolates and other confections is something I really enjoy doing.
Mike.
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Thanks for the info. I don't plan on acting as a business right now (would like to at some point, but I'm still learning about making the things).
It's just that based on truffles I made for people at Christmas, I've gotten a lot of requests for Valentine's truffles. I could probably sell 100-200 truffles without doing any marketing or advertising.
BTW, I've read Tammy's thread and found it very interesting. I’ve also read the thread about The Sweet Life Bakery in the NJ forum - another interesting journey.
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I guess I should start at an even more basic level. Can I do anything without a license or a commercial kitchen?
I made some truffles for birthdays at work and had people ask if they could buy some. I made some truffles for the artistic director at my wife’s ballet company and she loved them and wanted to know about buying some. Some of the ballerinas also were interested or had other people interested in purchasing some. I made some for friends who ended up giving them away as Christmas presents and those people wanted to know about buying some more.
I’m not sure what, if anything, I’m actually allowed to do. But, even though I feel that I’m nowhere near ready to actually start a business, I’ve had enough response to at least think about what it would take.
Getting strawberry flavor into ganache
in Pastry & Baking
Posted
Okay, I tried these again and got much better results...they were at least edible, ha!
Actually, the flavor turned out really well, but the texture is a little off.
Here's what I did: Fresh strawberries in the food processor. Added some balsamic vinegar and sugar. Cooked it down to a thick BBQ sauce consistency. Heated white chocolate so about half was melted. Added a little bit of cream to the reduced strawberries and heated. Poured over the white chocolate and let the chocolate melt all the way. Emulsified the two. Added a bit of butter. Added some strawberry vodka. Emulsified.
This produced a very lively strawberry taste, but a somewhat gummy (only slightly) texture. The jelliness of the reduced strawberries seemed to overpower the structure of the white chocolate and they didn’t set up as firm as I would have liked.
I served some enrobed in dark chocolate and some enrobed in milk chocolate at my daughter’s birthday party on Saturday (she just turned 3). She was having a Strawberry Shortcake themed birthday, so I thought the strawberry truffles would fit right in. I got good reviews on them, and some people even liked the texture better than regular truffles (to each his own I guess)…the milk chocolate coating seemed to go over better than the dark, even for a few people that like dark better.
I still need to work out the texture issue, since I plan on using these in a Neapolitan truffle and this texture probably wouldn’t hold up well as the middle layer.