Edward J
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Posts posted by Edward J
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First of all you have to ask yourself if you want to learn how to work with chocolate; the techniques, tricks and methods, or, if you want to learn how to run a chocolate business....
Most professionals--that is people who earn their living solely by making and selling chocolate, are very, very, very reluctant (read: Never) to tell someone they just met all about how much their gross earnings are, how much their foodcost is, and how much their overhead is.
Why?
The start-up capital needed for a small choc. business is paltry compared to that of a restaurant or catering business. In other words, no chocolatier wants to personally train up their competition......
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Thanks, All. Good advice!
P.S. I've been down this road before with the supplier and had hoped we'd moved past this...
Two llittle words for you, and I mean no disrespect:
CAVEAT EMPORIUM
Always look at the expiry dates before accepting product.
take or instance last week, had a delivery of goods and noticed that the expiry date on a box of couveture was two months away. Delivery guy tried to tell me to pizz off, but I held my ground and told him to put it back on the truck, and stow the attitude.
Thing was, I got the ol' song and dance from the rep two weeks ago about how the CDN $ was so low and lousy exchange rates and all that, so the price of chocoate was going up. Well, O.K. fair enough, but if the expiry date is two months away and shelf life on dark couveture is 18-24 mths, then that means that teh couveture was purchased over a year ago, so 1) I'm getting old stock, and 2) I'm getting old stock that was purchased when the CDN $ was much higher.
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Flat feet usually means that you need to wear orthotics.
Q: When you get up in the morning, the very first time you put weight on your feet, what does it feel like?
Cooking professionaly since '84. Diagnosed with flat feet in '98, survived a serious bout of plantar facscitis from '03 to '06--all the while working 10 and 12 hr days.......
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If the word "cook" has taken on derogatory tones in American English (I don't think it has), that would be as much a travesty as the way the word "chef" has come to be used.
I think the problem comes from people being lazy and wanting to inflate value as a chef is rightly perceived to have a higher role than a cook. That, however, in no way denigrates the concept of being a cook.
Ah,. but it already has..
The word "cook" is verboten on the brochures and curriculum of every cooking school in N. America. Same with the media. Check out the ACF's website, t The word "cook" has been replaced with the double-plus-good-newspeak word of "culinarian".
You have to crawl before you can walk, and must be able to cook before you can command other cooks. Everybody wants to be the chief and not the indian......
a
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I agree with many posters, the term "Chef" is probably the most abused word in the englisch language currently.
Examples:
"Chef's blend" dog food at most grocery stores.
My coffee supplier is trying to fob off "Chef's Choice" coffee on me. The worst tasting coffee, worst beans, with the living beejus roasted out of them.
When purchasing restaurant equipment a few months ago, I was asked by a young energetic sales person where I "Cheff" at...
But mostly I have to agree with calipoutine. She feels that the word "cook" is a derogatory term and has feels that "Chef" is more appropiate.
And that, I feel is the whole root of the misuse.
Now take for example, a large local pasta chain here in B.C. It proudly advertises on the back of it's menus that all of its "chefs"--and here we are led to believe that means anyone wearing a white uniform --are qualified "Red Seal Chefs". The chain has advertised largely with the backing of Iron-chef Rob Feenie doing frequent TV ads.
I beg to disagree. "Red Seal" is a cook's qualification, not a Chef's. Anyone who wears white in the kitchen is not a "Chef". The only "Chef" is the person who hires, fires, trains, delegates, makes menus and works with the F&B or owner. Those who handle food, who cook, are cooks. It is not a derogatory term.
My brother is an architect, so I have learned how and whom to blame for bad things happening. Who do we blame for the misuse of the word "Chef?
1) The media. Hey if it sells then do it. If people think the word "Chef" means double-plus-good cook, then let them believe it, it's our job to hype it up.
2) The cooking schools. I get very, very angry when I see cooking schools put out ads that promise to take a complete kitchen virgin and turn him/her into a "chef" within 6 mnths. Cooking schools DO NOT produce "Chefs", they produce cooking school graduates.
And don't get me started on tatoos. I've told my kids if they get any, it'll come off with a belt sander loaded with 80-grit paper. Tatoos are there for one, and only purpose: To attract attention......
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Great advice there. Stay away from heads, gills and skin, and also fish scales which will turn the stock grey. Ensure that no blood or bits of organs still cling on to the carcass.
Classically a fish stock only uses white vegetables: onion, celery or celeriac, leeks, fennel, but then no one says you have to cook classically.....
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No. The steam is for making a crustier bread.
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Actually, most household stoves/ranges are 220 volt, clothes dryers are too.
Check out Bakbar, I know they have 1/2 pan sizes (18" x12"). This is a Moffat company and the ovens are made in N. Zealand, I believe. Fairly reputable and durable.
The "steam injection" however is a misnomer. Most commercial convection ovens don't have "steam injection" with the exception of the Rational type ovens-- but these are obscenely expensive. (and very, very good)
What most commercial convection ovens (ie Baker's pride, Blodgett) have is a solenoid that squirts water at the the squirrel cage fan of the convection oven. The misted water is converted to steam as it hits the oven walls and floor. To convert water to steam however, you need energy, it it takes the heat from the oven. In other words after a good 30 second squirt, the oven will cool down considerably.
Hope this helps
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My "poor mans version" is a "Kook-e Kutter" picked up from a bus-tub of assorted crud at Nicholson's (www.nicholsons) a large new & used bakery supplier in Vancouver.
What this is, is a trough of about 12" long that is divided into 3/8" wide sections. The hinged top part is a frame strung with piano wire and cuts only in 3/8" wide slices. The wire is one long piece and is only tightened by only one (1!) key that looks very much like a guitar (the musical kind) key.
This device is used to cut logs of cookie dough into 3/8" slices and I use it quite frequently for this purpose.
However.....If I pour my ganache into 1" tubes, I can slice the ganache into 3/8" "coins" which are pretty much ideal.
For squares I use my wheeled cutter. Matfer does make a device like this, basically a rolling pin with anywhere from 24-36 s/s discs, but this retails for somewhere around $300. Nicholsons sells the s/s discs for around $2 a wheel. It's pretty simple to string them on a piece of threaded redi-rod and turn some wooden handles and spacer blocks.
Works fairly well for cutting ganache.
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Yeah, a thickness planer from a woodworker's shop. Most accept 12" wide material. I've done this many times, and always with excellent results. I've also cut large nylon boards into smaller ones with a table saw and a Skil-saw, all with no problems of melting or gumming up.
In one of the older Matfer catalouges 2002 or 2003 I think, I saw a device sold and made by Matfer for the sole purpose of scraping/smoothing nylon boards. This device bore a very strong resemblance (straight rip-off?) to a woodworker's No.5 smoothing hand plane, albeit without a chip breaker and cap iron, and being a Matfer exclusive, was pretty pricey too. A caveat here, unless you have some experience with hand tools, particularily hand planes, it is very easy to gouge the board, leave hollows or hills. A thickness planer will give you a perfectly flat surface.
I've also heard tell of Sushi guys "ironing" their nylon cutting boards. That is, they run a regular clothes iron over the board melting and smoothing the surface. Never tried it .
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Nope. No wooden boards....
Don't get me wrong, I love wood, and spend a large amount of time woodworking.
IMHO the only reason cutting boards were made of wood was because there was no other material available at the time.
Wood is a natural material and will swell with humidty and water, and shrink with dry air or harsh heat. I've worked with 100 yr old oak timbers reclaimed from an old building, and the wood still shrinks and swells with humidty and seasonal changes. While cutting baords sanitize well in a d/w, the high heat and humidty will kill the board in a very short time, commonly splitting or failing at the glue lines.
Cutting boards are a common source of cross contamination and flavour contamination as well, and for this reason it is imperative (in the commercial kitchen anyway) that they be sanitized in a "foolproof" manner.
Easier said than done. Show me a foolproof method and I'll show you a better fool. Sanitizer may or may not be mixed properly, (also note, sanitizer concentrate has expiry dates too) may or may not be applied for the proper length of time, may or not be wiped off with a clean paper towel or maybe a filthy rag, and may or may not still have a sanitizer residue that leaves an additional "flavour" to what ever contacts it. True, a good Chef is in control of his kitchen and this includes proper sanitizing, but a Chef is not superman, and can not be everywhere everytime. On the other hand, either a nylon board gets tossed in the d/w or it doesn't--a lot easier to control.
The choice for me, anyways, is very obvious and for this reason only, I do not have any wooden cutting boards.
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Well, on the pro-side they are mice and not rats so you're a bit lucky there.
Don't know which General said something like: "Know and respect your enemy"...
O.K. so after working 20 odd years in the hospitality biz, this is how I know the enemy
They never like to move more than 50 feet from their nest.
They are highly trained to smell out odours as well as heat, and they prefer warm places. This means they prefer spots under refrigeration units/ stoves.
Unfortunatly they do not respect incest rules nor do they have homosexual tendancies, in other words, they pro-create, and very rapidly......
They are rodents, and by this, thier front teeth are constantly growing--like human hair or nails--and must chew constantly--on anything--to keep thier teeth short. If they don't, they can't close their mouths and will eventually starve.
Thier biggest bone is thier skull. Any hole larger than a dime, they cans squeeze thier skull through and then the rest of their body. This means door gaps and cracks are the most possible points of entry.
DO NOT use over-the-counter posion. Most rodents are immune to this, and by buying poison you have made yourself a pet owner--you're feeding the little critters.
The best traps IMHO are the tunnel type "Live catch and release" types. DO NOT release the little guys, or they'll be back, you have to kill them. Most pest control guys will drown them in your kitchen sink, but you can submerge the traps in a pickle bucket for this purpose, or, my method of choice: "The final Swirly"... where you release the trap directly into a just-flushed toilet.
Put door sweeps on ALL doors. Tight tolerances are best. Examine the sweeps regularily, the little critters will chew holes in the rubber components of the sweep if you let them
Plug up any outdoor building cracks with cement. It's not a big deal. A 25 lb bag of cement can be mixed in a styrofoam salmon/fish box and can be wheeled around and troweled into cracks in a few hours. Any interior cracks can be plugged up with bits of metal, used alum foil, steel wool and held in place with that aerosol expanding foam stuff. This is especially good around plumbing lines/fixtures/clean-outs and electrical panels. Rodents hate steel wool, but they can pull it out with claws and re-enter through the same crack that you just plugged up with steel wool, hence the foam "glue".
You can go hog-wild and put as many bait stations outside of the building, especially near the garbage cans and any shrubbery, this is best done by a pro company that will use a more effective poison than the regular over-the-counter stuff.
Hope this helps
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I don't use the stuff on cutting boards. I do bleach them on a monthly basis, but this is only to remove stubborn stains.
So how do I sanitize them?
I use the dishwasher. True, I have a commercial high-temp d/w at work, but even a residential d/w will meet and exceed the recommended sanitizing temps required.
I've been doing this for over 25 years now and have always had the enthusiastic approval of the health inspectors on this matter where ever I've worked --in N. America, Europe, and S.E. Asia.
What the health inspector IS concerned with is the state of the board. They do not like deep scratches or cuts and will tell you to toss out the board when it is scarred. You can do the "silly putty test" yourself on a scarred board. Take a clean, sanitized scarred board and press a bit of silly putty or suitable substance over an area, remove the putty, and examine. Tiny bits of crud are imbedded in the putty courtesy of the deep scars. Maybe sanitizing (any method) will render the crud sterile, but it's still crud, and it will find it's way into food. Now, good commercial nylon cutting boards are not cheap and many of employers would fire me on the spot for tossing out a 18" x 26" 3/4" thick cutting board worth around $80.
So what do I do?
I take them to a buddy who has a thickness planer-- an electrical woodworkers device that removes wood. I run the boards through he planer and it removes around 1/16" from both surfaces, removing all scars and cuts, and giving me two new prisitne surfaces. In other words, a new cutting board--albeit 1/8" thinner. You can do this maybe 3 or 4 times before the board becomes too flexible and really needs to be tossed out.
Sanitizer is good, well actually ideal for s/s surfaces.
I have over 12 feet of solid beech worktable space. This is scraped clean on a as-needed-per-day basis with a simple card scraper--a flexible piece of metal that scrapes off any debris from the surface. (again, another age-old tool borrowed from the woodworker's toolkit) Then I'll sanitize with quats. Once a week I'll treat the table tops with a "salad bowl" paste wax of pure beeswax and mineral oil. Treated like this the tables show no visible signs of wear for two years now. Mind you, any staff that works with me is told in no uncertain terms that my countertops are just that--countertops--not cutting boards, pot rests, or mixing palettes.
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Ahh, "Trophy kitchen"....
I remember doing a wedding gig at a private home of a wealthy Asian family. Everything was fully prepared, I just had a few sauces to heat up, and asked where the kitchen was. Was shown to an immaculate kitchen with a state-of-the-art stove. Now, I'm pretty good with gadetry, but I couldn't get the thing to work. I finally figured either I or the the band must have blown a breaker and asked the man of the house where the fuse box was. He looked at me kinda funny and wanted to know why. I told him the we mut have blown a breaker because the stove wouldn't work. He cracks up and starts laughing, then leads me to a door past the trophy kitchen.
What a mess! Dishes everywhere and a very old, reliable gas stove groaning under pots and pans, and a charcoal brazier going with a clay pot of silky black chicken and medicinal herbs simmering away.....
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One thing I have noticed with sticking is that the cavities only stick where my hand has been. If I hold the form in my hand and my fingers touch the underside of a cavity for alonger than a few seconds, usually it will cause sticking.
The best way to avoid this is to hold the mold with your fingers on the ribs or edges of the mold....
hope this helps
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why can't you use ground up puff pastry?
You can use what ever you want to use.
The cocoa-barry product is better (imho) because the crepes are sprayed with a light layer of cocoa butter before the crepes sheet go through the roller to break them up . This makes them tend to stay fresher longer longer and not sog up as fast.
Make no mistake though, feuilltine will sog up if it hits anything moist. If you mix it in with a nut paste or chocolate (both of which don't contain much water--if any) they'll stay crisp for a long time. If you use them to coat the side of a cake, they'll sog up fast.....
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Corn flakes taste like corn flakes. Nothing wrong with that, but compared to feuilletine, they are very hard and coarse.
To the best of my knowledge, feulittine is made like a crepe batter.
The closest thing I can find to imitating it is "love letters". These are a pretty common Chinese snack/cookie. They are very thin, brittle crepe rolled up like "cigarettes" and invariably come in a tin. Meh, they're worth a shot.....
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I've got the pyramid molds too, and they can be troublesome if you don't follow a few techniques.
The first is of course to thin out your couveture.
The second is to use a vibrator. I got my table top vibrator from "Chef Rubber". Wait a minute... hope the modertors don't think I'm talking about something else here.
The vibrator is made for medical research, a small unit that is difficult to manipulate with chocoalte-y hands, (obstacles I have overcome by making some modifications...) but it is cheap, think I paid under a hundred for it. The vibration is necesary.
The third technique is to use a toothpick. With the mold in the vibrator, insert a toothpick down the mold until it touches the tip, then go on and do the rest of all the cavities.
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I tried it again last night.
I must apologize, my knives are very slightly magnetized.
A 10 gram barquet form will NOT stick to the knife. A 1 gram (or maybe more or less depending on how accurate my scale is...) cheapo key ring WILL stick to the knife --that is to say if I hold the knife up and let the ring dangle, it will stick on unless I shake the knife.
The knives I've tried this experiment on are an ancient Henkels Zwilling 10" Chefs' ( now closer to 81/2" and much narrower) and a 8" Victorinox that's only about 10 years old. The magnetic strips I use are never super stong, never rare-earth, and have just enough "ooomph" to keep the knife from sliding around.
I never cared one way or the other about magnetic strips until one day about 14 years ago, while working in a boutique hotel in Singapore. The local health inspector came by and looked high and low for something to write me up on. He couldn't, and from the corner of his eye he saw me smirking, so he then focused on ME. A series of knives were stored between the joint of where of two s/s prep tables met. With a triumphant cry he siezed one of the knives and proceeded to lecture me about the hazards of storing a knife this way. He eagerly pried apart the two tables to find some more dirt but was unsuccssful. As best as I could I asked him what he suggested to store the knives in, He insisted on magnetic strips and stated he would be back next week to make sure I complied.
I did. And ever since then I've always used magnetic strips
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After using a steel, or after using any device that actually removes metal, the knife should be wiped clean. Of course, this isn't depicted on TV, but it is one of the rules of hygiene in the kitchen.
Every time you use a steel to "pull back" or re-align the edge, micron sized bits of steel fatique and drop off. This is the "black crud" that you see if you DON'T wipe your knife clean after using a steel. Kinda like washing your hands after using the bathroom. You do it automatically without thinking....
I must protest. Using a magnetic strip does not magnetize my knives. I have an el-cheapo magnetic strip (courtesty of Sweden, ahh....make that Ikea) that holds about 6 knives, cake spatulas and offset spatulas at work. I've been using the same strip and knives/impliments for well over 10 years now. The knives and spatuals aren't magnetic, or at least when I remove them and place a cheap tart pan on the knife, it doesn't stick, nor do the knives stick to each other. I'm a cook by profession, not a scientist or engineer, but the same knives that I've used for over 10 years now are not magnetic.
Common ense in the kitchen prevails. Wipe your knives clean before sticking them on the magnetic strip, and give the magnetic strip a wipe every now and then too. It's a heck of a lot easier than sanitizing a knife block or emptying out a drawer and cleaning it out.
To remove a knife from the strip, grab the handle and twist the knife on to it's spine, then yank off. Since the spine has far less surface area than the flat of the blade, it is much easier to remove a knive this way. Also, this way the edge never actually touches the magnetic strip.
For the record, I always store my knives with the butts facing down. My preferance. I've always had to re-point employees and collegue's knives when the tips got broken off or took a nose dive on the floor.
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Yeah, I get the LV catalouges regularily, and it SEEMS like a good idea. Mind you I never had, and never will use a knife block.
Many people I know do have one, and I can gross them out pretty good by rubbing a Q-tip down in one of the knife slots and showing them the results. I like the idea of the plastic rods though, and they SEEM to be D/W safe. I've also known other people to get a plastic or wood cannister and stuff it full of bamboo skewers to use as a knife block (a.k.a as Satay sticks) which does a fairly decent job as well, although you have to throw out the sticks when they get dirty.....
For me, the most practical, hygenic, and safe method to store knives is a magnetic strip on the wall: Always clean, always visible, no guessing at handle butts, always ready to grab. You can get cheap magnetic strips at dollar stores, a little better at Ikea, and even better by the "Big boys" like Henckel and Wusthof, and even LV sells some nice magnetic strips as well.
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Stop for a moment and think.
Metal bars are metal bars are metal bars
Go to a metal shop or a welder's and get some 3/8" x 3/8" square 18/10 S/S bars ( or alum., if you prefer...) bars cut up in 12" or 24" lengths
Believe you me, they'll be a whole lot cheaper than going through any distributer.
Guitar sheets are cheap, but I'm even cheaper.....
Line a tray with cling film or parchement and place your bars on top, pour in your ganache, and let harden.
Remove the bars, invert the tray, peel off the cling film or parchment, and brush on your couveture.
(I use a silicone brush, very easy to clean: Swish the brush around in your couveture untill it's fully loaded, and then set the brush down on your counter and let harden. When hardened you can pull the brush right out of the couveture--clean as a whistel, scrape off the couveure hunk, and re-melt it. Oh, and you never loose brush hairs ...)
Well?!! I told you I was cheap--and cunning.....
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I want to make some caramels with a layer of nougat, like this picture
http://www.sanderscandy.com/images/22986.jpg
or with a swirl, like this picture
http://www.floridanutsaboutcandy.com/Produ...ugatswirltn.jpg
Does anyone have any idea how to make the white stuff? I imagine it as some kind of basic nougat. Memories of the storebought candy has it as a slightly gelatinous concoction. I'm open to any and all ideas.
Nougat, or Italian nougat is a bit tricky when making the first time
With no apologies, I have taken the recipie from Grewlings "Chocoaltes and confections" and used it for one of my "standard" varieties
Don't have the recipie with me now, but it goes something like this:
Whip eggwhites and then on slow, pour in hot honey (120 C if memory serves me correctly)
Whip until stiff
Pour in a suar/water/glucose mixture that has been heated to 155 C
Whip until cold
Whip in some cocoa butter
fold in your nut/fruit mixture
spread out on rice paper and press with weights
rest overnight
Starting a Commercial Location (Chocolate Shop)
in Pastry & Baking
Posted
Just read your first post.
The main thing for you to do is to build flexibility into your business. If you have the buidling, the other stuff can be added when needed
That means that even if you plan on making say, 3 or $400,000 p/a sales this year, you should plan to have the space to do double that before you have to move to a larger premises.
Grow with your business. don't buy expensive equipment if you don't have the volume for it--you can always get the stuff when you have the business, but if you have it and it just sits there staring you in the face, it isn't nice--or cheap....
Walk-in sales are important, but whole sales are just as important. It's good to have a "showroom" to show off your stuff, to invite prospective customers/clients to visit.
Remember, packging and the space/equipment it takes is almost as much work as the chocoalte work itself--plan accordingly.
Ensure you have sufficient power--a 3 ph 200 amp service would be sufficient--remember you have refrigeration, airconditioning, and other equipment.
Most municipalities will require that you have a minimum of a 55 gal. grease trap
If you can, see if you can get refrigeration with "remote compresors" so the heat is pumped outside of the building rather than in the building. The actual cost of remote style refrigeration is not more than regular, but there is more cost involved in installation. However one compressor can feed several units, so in the long term it is a much cheaper solution, as well as quieter and cooler in the building.
Some baked goods will compliment your chocolate and it is always a good idea to diversify-- Man does not live by chocolate alone! Remember you will have "lean' months-- July and Aug, and while no one really has an appetitte for chocoalte then, they do like cake--birthdays and weddings. As long as you can keep the bakery section separate from your chocoalte room, you're fine.
Don't forget to plan for advertising and working with the immediate community......
Hope this helps