Chocolot

Matt, Did you find my cream cheese? If so, I will be down Tuesday morning.

Good point!! I really didn't try it before FD. If I cook my own, I then become a meat processor and have a whole new set of regulations!

The bacon that I had Matt do was interesting. I bought pre-cooked bacon (health reg's). After FD, it was very crisp and the flavor very bland. I needed it to put on a maple ganache chocolate. It worked well for that, adding the look and the crunch. Didn't particularly taste like bacon, but worked for my purposes.

I too have used both methods. When I put the foot down first, I don't use warm chocolate, but let it cool to about 90F, untempered. I can get a thinner layer that way. I use freezer paper and spread on the plastic side. I use the same temp chocolate if putting it on after. I want to get a very thin layer on, so it doesn't break wires.

You better find it:) How did the cinnamon bears turn out?

I already make a pumpkin-caramel ganache. One of my favorites. I'm thinking of ideas to use FD cream cheese in chocolates. Cheesecake, obviously.

Perfect sells sections of the belt material. They also have instructions. You have damaged too many links to repair, IMHO. Looks like something got jammed.

I have some bent links in mine. I bought some extra belt material to fix, but I'm too chicken to try it! I figure bent is better than what I would do to it. I have used a rubber band in place of the detailer belt. Works fine. Good luck.

Thank so much. I'll probably be in sometime next week.

I question the use of amarena cherries. The ones I have are canned in a heavy syrup. The moisture from the cherries will adversely affect the fudge unless you are able to dry them out first.

What is your altitude?

Just wondering what kind of birthday surprise Anna has in mind for you today?

Do you already have a customer base? Will the attendees be familiar with your products? Basically, it is a crap shoot. You just never know how much you will sell or what. What sells really great on day one, hardly moves on day two. Do you have a plan for what is left over?

Today was play with ganache day. I had some ganache that was FD. It has habanero in it. Dry, it was tasty with some heat--about the same as when it was fresh. I pulverized in the TMX and added a little water and stirred. The color is much lighter than when fresh. Wonder if I put too much air into it? The reconstituted ganache is much hotter than when fresh! I know that freezing can increase spice, but it is strange the the dry ganache didn't seem to have too much heat. I think the texture will be ok. There is just a small amount, so I will keep an eye on it and see what happens.

Matt, I love the idea you told me about where you FD baby food in ice cube trays so that when you are out and about, you can just add water and feed the baby:)

Good to have you around, Matt. Ill be stopping by soon:)

So what is the advantage over ghee or clarified butter?

So did the butter work?

Grewelings recipe is excellent and I recommend it highly. He uses fresh mint and invertase. It takes a few weeks, but it softens beautifully.

ChefPip, you are correct about the invertase softening the patty. That is what Greweling uses, and I think his is very good. The amount of invertase doesn't vary the softness, only the speed of softening. If you use a little, it will take longer, a lot will soften faster.

Should have mentioned the bacon. I took in pre-cooked bacon. They FD it. It was very flat and brittle. Broke into smallish pieces and placed on the enrobed maple ganache. Lovely!! I made the ganache with Valrhona Dulcey, real maple syrup and some Canadian Maple flavoring that Kerry gave me. It is a favorite of everyone who tries it.

I used my FD peaches in a ganache yesterday. I'm sure I didn't use enough, but there is hardly any flavor:( I left the peaches in a coarse grind. I used just enough water to form a paste, then put that in the cream. Used white chocolate and infused the cream with cardamom. Should have used more peach, but didn't have any.

I love how Kerry gets us all involved:) Off to Salt Lake City I go in search of her treasure. The guys at HarvestRight are really nice. They gave me the tour of the plant. It appears to be very well made and I reported back to Kerry. Next thing I know, the crazy woman has ordered one!! The best part is now I have an "in". I take things down and they dry them for me. So far I have taken leftover ganache-I had visions of it just being poured on a tray, but somehow they managed to made mounds out of it. I tried rehydrating a piece. Not really successful. Next I will turn into a powder and try again. They have done cooked bacon--great for breaking up and putting on my Maple-Bacon piece for an upcoming Cowboy Festival. Fresh sliced peaches are wonderful. I turned them into a coarse powder and will make a peach-almond ganache. They gave me mini ice cream sandwiches that I enrobed in chocolate and returned to them. Very tasty, much like a crisp cookie. They gave me raspberries that I played with. I'll post a pix. I enrobed strawberries. I actually like them better than fresh, but then I am not a fan of strawberries in chocolate. I want them to do cream cheese--they said it works great. I will turn into a powder and make a cheesecake ganache. About the only thing they said doesn't work is butter. It just melts. We are lucky to live in a desert. The humidity here is usually under 15%, except today it is 100%. The products will try to rehydrate if left out in the open. They gave me some pulled pork to play with. I was thinking of doing a pork and bean ganache--don't judge me!!! It was for the Cowboy Festival! I thought the pork might work. I decided against it and just ate the pork in a BBQ sauce. Very nice. I took down leftover peeps. They look the same, but taste like sweet styrofoam. I don't now how much longer the guys will FD things for me before expecting me to buy, but I keep taking them chocolate, so it might work for a while. It will be fun to see what Kerry comes up with.

We learned from Jean Marie Auboine, that you can gently reheat marshmallow in the piping bag in the micro and keep on pippin'.

If you agitate the mass too fast, you will get coarser crystals formed. Now that you have some fondant, save some of it to seed the next batch. It is the friction that causes it to form crystals.