Darienne

I thought the temperature should have dropped, but it didn't. I will try it all again and perhaps this time, it will be apparent what I did wrong. And I will use all correct ingredients...no ginger syrup stuff. My thermometers are just a simple glass candy one and one of those $25 metal probe attached to a little unit one. Nothing complicated. My problem seems to be that I have no real idea of what I am aiming for, never having made any of this stuff before. My confectionary partner, back in Ontario, grew up cooking at her Mother's knee and I rely on her for that part of the learning experience. Thanks for your thoughts.

Yes, I was using two thermometers, one glass and one metal probe and they both were working. Yes, the nuts were warm out of the oven. I was very careful. When I said toffee...I meant chewy and pully. Soft. Not brittle. "Pecan Chews". There. Thanks.

I had two cups of leftover syrup from candying ginger (Andie's recipe). Last time I had leftover syrup, I made little hard candies. No problem. This time I decided to make a pecan brittle. Started to look in the books I have with me: Time-Life 1981, Ruth Kendrick's Candymaking, Candymaking for Dummies, Candy.com printouts, etc. Suddenly I was drowning in recipes. Butter: no butter. Whipping cream: no cream. 1/4 teaspoon soda: 1 whole teaspoon soda. And so on. I decided to use Ruth's Pecan Brittle, keeping in mind that I was starting with a sugar syrup. All went well until I added the butter and the temperature did NOT drop. (It was supposed to drop and then you heated it back up.) I didn't know what to do. So I went to the 'add the nuts' step. Perhaps I should have cooled it and then put it back on the stove instead. Unlike many of you, I did not grow up learning to do anything at my Mother's knee and carried on from there in similar fashion until recently. This is all new to me. The resulting confection is delicious in the extreme, but it is not brittle. It is still quite toffee like. - can I somehow by reheating it in the oven or stove take it to brittle even with the pecans in it? - should I soften it in the oven and roll it into balls and dip them in chocolate? - would it have been more 'peanut brittle' like if I had added more soda? Ruth calls for 1/2 teaspoon. Less peanut brittle like with 1/4 teaspoon? .....right. I did make sponge toffee and it called for more soda.... Sorry, with no experience to fall back on, it can be very confusing to know what to do. Just why are there SO MANY nut brittle/ crunch recipes? Is it on a par with so many, say, spaghetti sauce recipes? Thanks

I think you are right about the grounds problem and the more I think about it, the more I suspect that there are no recipes for coffee butter ganache because it is a no go. Thanks for trying. Greweling's raspberry bites are terrific with the nibs in it so I'll just stick to it and use a cream coffee ganache which works well...without nibs. Thanks. Oops. Did not see Kerry's reply. Right. No Lorann. Thanks.

Chocolot, as noted in this forum, is starting a new chocolatier business and I have posted photos of her wonderful presentation boxes and ideas on another thread. Plus she has been so helpful to me in my efforts to master all this new 'stuff'. Now the very good news is that Ruth has won 8 out of 10 medals presented this week at the Utah Chocolate Festival. That should boost her visibility as a new player in the chocolate field. Congratulations, Chocolot!!!!!!! You go, girl.

I would like to include some of my caramelized cacao nibs (thanks Kerry) in a butter ganache which has a coffee flavor and don't know how to go about it without a recipe. To keep the nibs crunchy, you need a butter ganache. Would I simply put the coffee grounds straight into a butter ganache? Or make some sort of liquidless...or essential liquidless?... paste of the coffee grounds? Greweling has no coffee butter ganache and Wybauw has had to go back to where he came from, so I am asking for some aid. Thanks.

A: Ms. Chocolot won 8 out of 10 medals! That's who. Congratulations Chocolot!!!

I think I should have had more hands. Thanks for the explanation.

I don't find that with the one I have. I stir well before measuring. ← How expensive...ballpark...is expensive? And just how do you use this thermometer? Hold it just above the bubbling syrup? Does it have some kind of grip on it? Thanks.

Just made my very first butter ganache...Greweling's Raspberry Bites...except that I skipped the milk chocolate and also added caramelized chocolate nibs. The exercise was mainly to use the nibs. All seemed to go well. It's sitting waiting for me to temper some more chocolate for pre-coating, etc. (Remember this time not to temper the precoating chocolate) My question is: what does Greweling mean exactly when he says 'stream' the one ingredient into another. How does one 'stream' a little bit of Framboise into a bowl of chocolate, butter and jam? Thanks.

Thanks.

Is there a reason why I could not throw a couple of handfuls of pecans into the mix at the last minute? Thanks.

Thanks for that information. Sorry about the credit cards woe. Alas, it is something that Canadians traveling (or in Canadian = travelling) to the USA have had to live with for years.

Thank you for all the useful replies.

On google, I found a couple of caselaw definitions of UHT cream. Could you please provide me with a simpler one? Thanks.

Quick question: where would would be the best place to buy a couple of grates like the one in Andie's photo? Nothing like this is available where I am. Thanks.

Thanks to both Kerry Beal and Prasantrin for suggestions. I went to the Cocao Nibs thread and there was Kerry Beal's caramelizing recipe. And lots of other suggestions. (I had tried to access the usual eGullet search engine, thinking I would get a couple of pages and then find any nib thread, but I kept getting a Google page. I see that the regular search format is back.) Thanks.

For tomorrow's lunch out, I am bringing an old stand-by: lemon cheese pie topped with chocolate ganache. Yesterday I bought my first ever package of raw cacao nibs. Taste good to me right out of the bag. Very bitter chocolate, but then I am a Canadian. What about putting some nibs right into the warm ganache? Or would that work? I am here with only Shotts and Greweling and can't find any nibs used as inclusions in the index. Any other nib uses would be nice to know. I know of topping ice cream, rolling truffles, etc. Desserty uses. Thanks.

Thank ye kindly, faire ladye, for the gode receipt.

Thanks everybody for all the ideas. And thanks for that fascinating website: Historic Food, although I don't think I'll be making a Palpatroon of Lobsters soon. Thanks again.

Dear Kim, Please post the link to your recipes. It took me forever to find it, but I perservered and in the end I did. I am not a computer whiz and that might explain it, but I think that you should post a link. So there. Thanks!!!

I have never made a granitas. Could be a start. Or marshmallows. I like making marshmallows and ginger marshmallows, dipped in dark chocolate sounds good. I had not thought that the syrup would make marshmallows, but after looking at a recipe, I can see that it would. Thanks.

With the help of the 'Ginger Lady', Andiesenji , I have now made my second wonderful batch of candied ginger. The first batch, coated in chocolate, is all gone and we are moving on. I planted the leftover knobby bits and am hoping to harvest a crop of ginger in about nine months. The first leftover syrup was cooked into little hard ginger candies. They taste gingery, but not overwhelmingly so. And Andie generously gave me other uses for the ginger syrup: candying other fruit or citrus peels or even chestnuts, topping gingerbread or cookies, glazing chicken or other meats, sauces for rice, etc. My question is can this syrup, a boiled down simple syrup; 1 cup water to 1 ½ cups sugar, be used as the base for any other confection? A brittle with nuts? Candy-coated nuts? Crystalline or non-crystalline confections? Add more sugar? Or corn syrup and then? All ideas are invited. Thanks.

I went to Kim's website noted on her post and ended up in a place I couldn't use. Can you help me find this recipe? Thanks. I hope.

I can't speak for the confectionary trade at all as my partner and I are not professionals...heck, we aren't even competent...and we give all our stuff away. However, my husband and I are professional artisans and our experience has always been that the larger cities will strike a much harder bargain with the supplier than the smaller or more remote ones. We have never had a 'fight' with the smaller galleries, but, oh, the larger and more important galleries can be unpleasant sometimes to deal with in their drive to wring every cent out of their business. Should add, that the largest gallery we deal with is also one of the nicest, so it is not across the board. Just expect a possible harder bargain to be made by a larger retailer.