Chocolot

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.

Anna, do you make your pita in the Thermomix?

Anna and Kerry, I left on vacation last week on page 15 and just got caught up on your wonderful adventures. Thanks for sharing.

Where did you get 99% isopropyl alcohol?

Today was all about Root Beer Floats.

It will separate into its two components on standing. Just stir it and it is fine.

Lecithin is good for keeping the kernels separate, but won't do much for shelf life. Your only issue would be moisture from the air, and possible rancidity from any nuts that might be in there. If it is air-tight, you should be able to get 6 months.

Love your table, Bob.

The nice part is you choose the spacing.

It is a cheap shelving unit that can be configured to different heights. Even has casters, if you want. They are great for storage. I have two in my chocolate room. I even put the microwave on one of the shelves. Over here, you can get them at Costco for about $100. They are also NSF so inspectors like them.

Lior, do you have room to slide one if your work tables into the middle of the room? If so, you could get a Metro (wire) rack to put in place of the table against the wall.

This is a good example of what white behind a color does. Both of these were sprayed the same, with pink and yellow. One was cast in white chocolate and the other dark chocolate. Amazing what the difference is.

A few more photos from the workshop. A pano of the group. David S. Bob, Lionel, Sarah, Donna. Arriving for first day. Jean Marie stopped by on Sunday in his Harley outfit.

A question Rob..You said Invertase. Did you mean Invert sugar? i think I missed that one.

Rob, I saw it on one of their ads a while ago. Maybe just a one time deal?

I use an Excaliber. Cabela sells Excaliber under the Cabela brand and it is much cheaper.

Yes, the alcohol totally evaporated. As much as I learned at the workshop, the thing I missed most was seeing what Kerry has found to use in confectionary. It is always the highlight to see what she has found.