Chocolot

No and no. I wonder if you're getting air bubbles because you haven't thinned enough or your cocoa butter is too cool? I hear what you're saying about warming the molds. I think I'm going to put them in the oven with the oven light on. Derrick would probably use a Mol d'Art melter - but who has an extra one of those sitting around??? ← Great info. I took my class from Derrick and he is wonderful. The molds in class were chocolate room temp. which seems a bit cool now that I think about it. He kept all his cocoa butters in a low oven so they were always ready for him. He sprays with a detail gun, gravity feed.

Just pipe in homemade gelatine marshmallow then top with Kerry's piped caramel.

I usually spray all my molds, then days later shell them. It could be weeks after that before filling them.

The deep purple was violet luster dust brushed into the mold then shelled in dark chocolate. There was also a swipe of harvest purple. Red was ruby red sprayed in and backed with white. Might have been more interesting backed in black? lilac was harvest purple sprayed (but not very well) and backed with white pink and yellow was just splattered and shelled in white chocolate. I am far from an expert, but I find that the cocoa butter does much better when very warm. I don't check the temp, but I want it really runny. It tempers in the nozzle. I need to get in and around all the mold a bit better. If it starts to cool, it plugs the airbrush and makes the chocolate stick in the molds.

These are my latest for Valentines. Have you ever noticed how every flaw shows in a photo? I tried a new flavor--Marshmallow caramel. I shelled in dark chocolate because of the sweetness, but I might also try it in milk. You can see in the cut one that part of the cocoa butter stuck to the mold. (that is why I cut that one). It was because the cocoa butter was too cool when I sprayed.

I would have to agree. I thought it was because we started on the North hall and this was my first show. When we got to the South hall, I thought it was because I was tired and the novelty had worn off. On the second day, we started in the South and it was better than the day before, but it is more "big business" in the South. I liked the smaller companies that seemed to be in the North. I have to admit, I didn't stop at any booth that wasn't candy or packaging or just plain caught my eye. I had to be focused so I could get through everything. The second day I tried to see what I had missed, but didn't get to everything. Rob, I totally missed the Japanese salt--knew I didn't see everything:-)

Got home last night--had a great time. We were able to do the North hall in about 6 hours. South hall took about the same. Didn't see a lot of new products, but got to meet Ina Garten. She has a line of Barefoot Contessa lemon curd and cake mixes. There might have been more products, but those stuck in my brain. She also won a Sofi award for best new product for the lemon curd. Saw a lot of tea, water and chocolate. I never thought I would get sick of chocolate, but it finally happened. The most exciting part for me was to personally meet Drew Shotts and Norman Love. I had a brief conversation with each of them. I asked Drew about the G pectin. He said that he doesn't like the blend that Chef Rubber did for him and that he is having someone else make it for him. Norman Love told me that Guittard is setting up a classroom in LA and he is going to be teaching a class there sometime this year. Norman seems to be very humble. When I told him that I thought his chocolates were beautiful as well as having a fantastic flavor, he told me that he has good people working for him. He also told me that he likes Guittard chocolate and that you don't need to pay extremely high prices to get a good chocolate. Another highlight was meeting our own Rob and Tyler. It is always fun to meet someone from the forum. I won't bore you with all the details, but if you are interested, I have posted photos and descriptions on my blog. ruthcooks.blogspot.com

I am going to San Francisco next weekend for the Fancy Food show. I've never been to the show before and wondered what to look for and/or expect. I know there will be a lot of walking and eating Has anyone been or is anyone going to this one?

I have signed up for JPW's class in Chicago at Callebaut in June. Is anyone else in that particular class? I hope it is going to be valuable to me.

An old-time commercial chocolate dipper told me they used to add a little bit of water to the chocolate to thicken it when they were dipping. If the chocolate was a bit too thin, they would "whip" in a bit of water. Never tried it, but she claimed it worked very well.

Remember that you simply removed too much water when you over cooked the caramel. therefore, you only need to add water back to the batch to recook to the proper temp. By adding cream, you added extra fat and it couldn't handle it all. When you have cooked out too much water, just add water back.

What about doing low-tech marshmallow Easter eggs? Everyone has flour at home and could easily make different flavored eggs. Decorating them would be the fun part.

I don't know what your pan looks like, but the size and the fact that it has a heavy bottom sounds good to me. It might be small for real production, but for small batches it seems right.

2000 pounds!!! Tell us about the logistics of an operation so large. ← It was an interesting 10 days. We did 12# of butter at a time. Cooling was the big problem. When it was finally cool enough to open windows, production moved quickly. Most days we did 6 batches but on a good day we did 8. My husband has never done anything in the kitchen besides burn toast and I made him a toffee maker:-) He also scrubbed the pot. Packing takes a long time. I learned a lot--mostly to never take an order that large again!!

Having just finished making 2000 pounds of "English toffee", I'll jump in here. My version is the crunchy, brittle type covered with dark chocolate and dry roasted chopped almonds. In answer to what went wrong. Wrong size pan that you already figured out. You probably should have just halved the recipe. The crucial step is dissolving the sugar completely before starting the cook. I start out on low heat and let the sugar dissolve, then turn it up and stir the whole time. I cook it until I get a puff of smoke, stir it down and wait for the second puff. It is around 300 degrees. When it is poured out, I spread it with an offset spatula to the thickness I want. Some people don't touch it after pouring it, but that makes it too thick for me. I cover a sheet pan with the almonds, so that a very thick layer sticks to the back of the toffee. When the candy is just starting to cool, I throw a handful of callets on top and when they are shiny, I spread out and cover with more nuts. I don't want tempered chocolate on the toffee because when it contracts, it lifts off the toffee. If you want to dip completely in chocolate, pour out on parchment, score when cooling, break apart and dip when cool. You can roll in chopped nuts. You can also put raw nuts into the batch when cooking, but I prefer the other method-just my way of doing it.

Sorry it didn't work for you. The butter has water, so it should have dropped the temp. Are you sure your thermometer is accurate? If it is not brittle, you didn't cook it to a high enough temperature. I think this time you are just going to have to rename it--not much you can do with it at this point. Were the nuts warm when you added them? I'm not sure what you mean "toffee like". If it is that brittle, you should be ok. If your idea of toffee is soft, then it is a different toffee than I am used to.

Thanks Darienne, but I have a different color label and weights for each size. They are similar but different colors. It would be easier and less expensive if you could use the same one for several.

Always the questions. The online dictionary says a ballotin is the officer who has charge of the ballot box. What exactly is a ballotin box? My confectionary partner and I are not in business , have no licence to sell and thus give away much of what we make. But we do have a logo...the little lop-eared bunny in my posts...I just adore him...and a name "Cheers & Chocolates" and using the computer are able to make lovely sticky labels that we can stick to anything we package. And we have a business card...same method. Not professional at all, but it works for us. Ruth Kendrick of Chocolot has a very lovely box with a very clever and useful multipurpose sticky strip label. I would post a photo of it with her permission. ← Go for it. I would do it myself, but I have issues with posting photos ( I can't remember how)

I am far from experienced, but I found two things that work for me. First, don't make too big a mess to begin with and you have less to clean up Second, I use cotton terry towels instead of paper. I hit the molds with a hair dryer and just wipe off/out the chocolate. In class, they told us to never wash them.

Thanks Ruth, Your comments are very useful. I'm up at 4000 feet and normally I live at about 600 feet. Wow! No one has ever called me a 'flat lander' before. Here's another factor. The humidity here is about 40 % and normally in Ontario it is ALWAYS over 80%. Would that make a difference? The caramel looks and cuts fine this morning. I'll cut it and coat it later. I think my thermometer is fine. How can I test it? In Ontario, I would test it in boiling water, but does water boil at a lower temperature up here? (The DH has just said, yes it would. OK. Now we do a test.) I must admit I love the endless complications of it all even while I am frustrated dealing with them at the time. ← Yes, water boils at a lower temp. That is why you reduce the temp on your sugar solution. Test your thermometer in boiling water. Note at what temp it boils. It usually lowers 2 degrees for every 1000 feet you go up. Water in Moab probably boils at 204. Standard at sea level is 212. Subtract the 204 from the 212. That will tell you how many degrees you need to subtract from the cooking temp. Thus, if your recipe calls for 240, you will cook to 232. It is the air pressure that is less, therefore the water boils sooner and the moisture is driven off at a lower temp. I'm surprised the humidity is that high. Must be the river. If it gets over 15% here, we all think we are dying. Dry humidity is great for chocolate and hard cooked candies. R

Darienne, You obviously know what you did wrong this time--not enough cream which reacts the same as over cooking (too much liquid removed). Some other things to remember next time-- check your thermometer. You are at 4000 feet now, and should reduce your cooking temp by 8 degrees. Most flat landers overcook everything when they come to the mountains:-) Is your thermometer a good one? The cheap ones are worse than no thermometer. Good luck.

Can you give us an idea of the cost of their fruit powders? ← Sorry--it has been years since I ordered and to be honest, the samples they sent lasted a long time:-) I think all FD powders are pricey per pound, but you use so little. I don't remember them as being outragiously priced. Years ago, I bought directly from Oregon Freeze Dry, but they no longer sell in small quantities and they referred me to Van Drunen. They have a large selection. You can even choose seeds or no seeds in the raspberry. They offer drum dried for a lower cost, but I don't think the flavor is as good.

I order from freeze dried powders They will send free samples. I also buy large cans of whole FD strawberries and raspberries and pulverize them myself. I have used them in fondant centers for years and now use them in my ganaches.

Wonderful accomplishments in such a short time. Continued good wishes.

I cleaned out my garage today and came across a melter I made several years ago and thought someone might be interested in seeing it. On the inside is an $8 accent light from Lowe's for the heat source. I plugged it into a dimmer switch (the most expensive part of this project). The first one I made, I cut the hole in the bucket with a knife. Using a hollow door drill is much easier and safer. The bowl is $5 at WalMart. If you have a 5 gallon bucket already, you are into this less than $20. Not great, but the price is right. I used it (actually several of them) for years especially when teaching classes with sparse facilities. You have to watch white chocolate carefully as it will tend to burn. It is slow, but if you plan ahead, it works fine. I used a dinner plate for a lid.