Darienne
-
Posts
7,214 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by Darienne
-
-
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.
-
Loved all the recent (and earlier) makings!
But I would LOVE the recipe for those almonds.
-
Is it out of the question to rinse the salt off and redry the nuts?
I suppose it could work, but it seems like an unnecessary step, don't you think?
I was of course thinking if you could not get unsalted pistachios. Once we needed unsalted peanuts and couldn't get any where we were, and so bought the salted ones and rinsed them thoroughly and dried them. It was not for anything like confections, but it worked nonetheless.
-
Without question, unsalted for baking, unless specified otherwise.
Is it out of the question to rinse the salt off and redry the nuts?
-
[i'm thinking this is not what Devlin was looking for, but they are awesome. I'm making some this evening. enjoy.
this makes 3 cups, but I always double it.
1 egg white
1 tablespoon orange juice
2/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon grated (fresh) orange peel
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups pecan halves
heat oven to 275. grease or silpat a 11/15 jellyroll pan.
beat egg white and orange juice until frothy, add sugar, orange peel, cinnamon, ginger, allspice and salt. mix well and toss with pecans to coat. bake 45 minutes or until light brown and crisp, stirring every 15 minutes or so. keep airtight...I use ziploc bags. longtime storage is not a problem because I have to give them away quickly or I eat them ALL.
Please, someone come quickly to the house and take away these coated almonds before I eat them ALL!!! A-1 recipe, Highchef
-
Darienne, I had this problem the first couple times I tried as well. My two solutions were to score the chocolate with a very sharp paring knife until it breaks cleanly, rather than cutting it in one go, and cutting it as soon as it is firm. I found that if I waited an hour or two it was more susceptible to shattering, whereas if I cut it right away after putting the bottom on it went much easier. I had not thought to deliberately over-crystallize the chocolate to force it out of temper: I was too proud of having a beautifully tempered coating, even if you weren't going to see it!
Thanks for the additional information, Chris.
I'll get it right sooner or later. -
Darienne - the three factors in producing temper are time, temperature and agitation. Agitation of the chocolate causes the overcrystallization.
I've probably done this almost every time I've put a foot on the bottom of a ganche, without realizing it. I always use an offset spatula and in my attempts to get a thin foot, usually get the pasty looking foot.
I put the foot on with a silicone brush and very gently, so perhaps that's why it set so firmly. Of course, I had no idea of when you were supposed to cut it. Learn, learn, learn...
Thanks, Kerry.
-
When you are pre-coating the bottom of your ganache slab, you can also "over-crystallise" the chocolate by spreading it thin with an offset spatula and then working it from side to side until it becomes "pasty" looking rather than "shiny" looking. At this point, the chocolate is over-crystallised and will not snap when you cut through it.
I don't have enough experience or knowledge to be sure that I understand what you mean. Is it the working of the chocolate which makes it become overcrystallized? I will look in the Wybauw which I have on ILL right now and see if I can find out there. ...... Just read through his section of over-crystallization and must admit frankly that I don't understand it.
........I'll simply try your method and go from there. Thanks for trying.
-
I'm thinking this is not what Devlin was looking for, but they are awesome. I'm making some this evening. enjoy.
this makes 3 cups, but I always double it.
1 egg white
1 tablespoon orange juice
2/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon grated (fresh) orange peel
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups pecan halves
heat oven to 275. grease or silpat a 11/15 jellyroll pan.
beat egg white and orange juice until frothy, add sugar, orange peel, cinnamon, ginger, allspice and salt. mix well and toss with pecans to coat. bake 45 minutes or until light brown and crisp, stirring every 15 minutes or so. keep airtight...I use ziploc bags. longtime storage is not a problem because I have to give them away quickly or I eat them ALL.
In one recipe, you have managed to include just about all my favorites. Pecans are the best. And oranges. And ginger and cinnamon. And sugar. Perhaps they should then be dipped in 70% dark and you would have them all!!! Today for sure. Thanks.
-
Thank you both for the information. Would that you two were writing the instructions!
-
Today I precoated some Divinity and some ganache before dipping them. My first time ever.
However, I guess I let the chocolate get too set because when I cut the precoated slab with the chocolate bottoming on the top, the chocolate shattered at the cuts. I turned it upside down and the same thing happened.
I looked bottoming/precoating up in Greweling and the other books I have with me. Tried various eGullet threads...found a wonderful one by Trishiad, a demo on basic molded chocolates. No one talks about cutting the precoated ganache.
Please some information.
-
Michael Recchuiti has a recipe for sugared hazelnuts which are then dipped in chocolate in his book, Chocolate Obsession. I don't have the book but have used it.
-
What's the difference (if there is one) between candied ginger and crystalized ginger?
Thanks.
There is the best candied ginger recipe in eGullet in the recipe section from Andie. I tried it with great success and even dipped the finished slices in chocolate.
Then following Andie's instructions, I planted the extra little ginger knobbies and made hard candies out the leftover gingery flavored syrup. Good luck!
-
Thanks! I've only got a little bit of invert sugar and keep saving it for a really "special" recipe ... maybe I should just find out where to buy more and use it!!!!
You can make invert sugar very easily.
4 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 teaspoon citric acid or juice of one lemon.
Combine all ingredients in a heavy 4-quart pan. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly to dissolve sugar. Lower heat and simmer for 1/2 hour, stirring occasionally. Store in tightly covered container.
That's it. It has worked for me.
-
Using Andie's recipe for candied ginger and with some e-mail help from her, I made some candied fresh ginger last week.
Next step was to dip it in chocolate...and plant the leftover nubs to grow my own ginger.
Last step, this morning, was to make hard candies out of the leftover ginger-infused (is it infused? flavored?) syrup. Very very nice. And I feel very, very good about it all.
The most interesting thing is my DH, who doesn't like ginger, wouldn't taste the candied stuff or eat a chocolate-coated piece...except by accident...is eating the hard candies.
Thanks again, Andie.
Next: gianduja
-
Definatelly hazelnut ( I am purist since Gianduja is hazelnut in Italy )
Anyway, you could use commercial ready hazelnut ( nut ) paste, I have used the italian one 100% hazelnut paste, its very good quality and the results are great. I dont have a commercial grade food processor or the like so make it myself is out of the question, because you will never reach the smoothness of the commercial one.
When you mix the melted chocolate with the nut paste you have to temper the mass, you dont need to use tempering machine, but can be slabbed on a marble slab, I dont have one so I just put the mass on a ice bath and I mix untill nice smooth and start to thicken.
The % for chocolate and nut paste can vary, I also use some clarified butter in it.
If you skin the hazelnuts you can toast them into the oven then put them in a kitchen towel or towel and rub them untill the skin come off.
Thanks for the information Desiderio. I still think I will give it a try. Stubborn and I just want to.
-
Such glorious presentations!
They are all so beautiful and inviting. -
I also rework/add to the logo for different seasons. The holidays for which I’ve given chocolates are Christmas and Valentine’s Day.
As to the packaging, I use the ballotin style box tied with ribbon and tag with the logo (kind of like a present).
Good idea...about the seasonal additions to the logo.
And thanks to a number of eGulleters, I do know what a ballotin box is now
. -
My self-appointed task while in Moab is to try to make all the basic confections that I have never made before, including Gianduja which is to be next.
- any one made it? I did look it up in eGullet and couldn't find much that spoke to my concerns. I am not good at looking up things in eGullet yet.
- with almonds or hazelnuts?
- is there a better /easier/ different recipe than in Greweling? There is very little in my other books or even on the web. There is one recipe in eGullet and it is not what I am looking for, although it does look tasty.
- do you have to get all the skins off the hazelnuts?
- could you start with a commercial almond/nut butter if you wanted to? If you could find one without salt or sugar?
- can you temper it in a tempering machine after it is made?
So far I have decided to make it with almonds, ground in my Champion grinder/juicer and mixed with only 2/3rds the amount of sugar called for and 63% dark Guittard chocolate couverture.
Please feel free to answer any or all of my questions and comment on my tentative plan.
Thanks.
-
In the Chocolate Connoisseur by C. Doutre-Roussel she says:
" Neuhaus developed the first chocolates with soft centers (the famous Belgian moulded chocolates) and his wife invented the gift box, or 'ballotin' to sell them in."
Thanks very much for the photo and the information, but exactly HOW does a ballotin box differ from some other box? The photo does not show if the lid is part of the box, or separate, or what?
Thanks
-
Got it right the first time!!!
Here is the back of Ruth's Chocolot box, rudely ripped to get at the contents. It is incredibly clever and useful...expands to seal a larger box, overlaps for a smaller box. I like it!!!
NOW!!! What is a ballotin box, please
-
Go for it. I would do it myself, but I have issues with posting photos ( I can't remember how)
Aaarrgghh. I have to relearn the process each time I do it. Here it is, complete with lovely and delicious contents
(That's a 'yum', not a 'raz')
Omigod, I had to do it 5 times over before I got it right!!! It's because I have pop-ups blocked...I think.
That band goes all around the entire box and has printed on it both contents identification and address information
-
A ballotin type?
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.
-
I'm at 7500 feet most of the time and I've noticed two altitude related problems with candy. One is that if I'm making a fairly stiff ganache, the cream is sometimes not hot enough to melt all of the chocolate. It boils at 198F here, and sometimes that extra 14 degrees of heat would be really useful. The other thing is that my attempts at agar jellies/pate de fruits seem to get moldy after only a few weeks, and I am wondering if this is due to less sterilizaton happening with cooking to lower temperatures. Tempering, however, is not any more problematic than normal.
Thanks, Pastry Girl. All good to know.
The Flatlander
Your Daily Sweets (2005-2012)
in Pastry & Baking
Posted
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.