curls

I vacationed in the Netherlands this past September. Here are the before and after photos of one of our panekkoeken from a restaurant in Lieden (https://www.oudtleyden.nl/). I think this one was apples & cinnamon sugar. Someone else had a savory one with speck & cheese. And another person in our party had a non-pannekkoek entree.

Yes, the shell is white chocolate. I have 105 to re-purpose. Thought of the whipped ganache frosting. Did not know I could make a swiss meringue butter cream and and re-purposed bon bons to that -- would you mind sharing your method?

So due to an inventory error I was short on passion fruit purée and my second batch of Valentine’s Day passion fruit bon bons were made with a combo of passion fruit juice, guava purée, and passion fruit jelly. They are too sweet for my tastes, should have tried adding some citric acid to the mix but I thought of that after the bon bons were capped and out of the moulds. Anyway, I don’t want to freeze the extras for future sales. Any ideas on how I can repurpose them in a dessert? I’m thinking along the lines of melting them and turning them into a ganache frosting for cake/cupcakes but any ideas are welcome.

@Hendrix they look beautiful. What flavors are they?

@MelissaH sorry I won't be able to help, not going to be anywhere near Syracuse. Looking forward to seeing you and your husband in May.

@Casey H. any changes in making your caramels? New batch of ingredients? New equipment? New employee? Change in batch size? Trying to help troubleshoot... it is annoying when a tried & true recipe starts causing you problems. Hopefully it will be figured out soon.

Honestly, I wonder if even that one bon bon is real. Much easier to create it in Photoshop. If he did paint a chocolate like that, wow, what a steady hand and a tremendous amount of artistry and patience.

I am planning the menu based on the team cities... Kansas: ribs, bbq San Francisco: sour dough bread (Whole Foods bakery makes a good one) & chocolate cookies with ghiradelli chocolate chips Obviously there are a few menu holes to fill in... I might go off theme for a salad, vegetables, sides, etc.

I did a quick google search and found two links (from sites I wouldn't run away from) with suggestions for how to use natural peanut butter for baking. This one https://www.thekitchn.com/quick-tip-the-best-peanut-butter-to-for-baking-172800 suggests baking a bit longer to deal with the extra liquid in the natural peanut butter. The second site suggests tweaking the sugar & salt in the recipe since commercial peanut butters will probably have more sugars and salt. It also states that for cookies, they will probably spread more... so you could make bars, enjoy a flatter cookie, freeze the dough before baking, etc.. https://bakingbites.com/2009/03/natural-peanut-butter-vs-regular-peanut-butter-in-baking/ @Anna N all your meeting snacks look delicous!

Safe travels to Schiphol! Hmmm... perhaps the Amsterdam trip is not connected to this one. Thank you for blogging and sharing about all these interesting places. Wishing you safe travels.

Could be very interesting! Do you have more details to share? Is the thermoformer for sale or just the pre-colored moulds?

Are these chocolates? Beautiful work! Any idea how they package the large 3D chocolates for sale?

How does it taste? Can you use it as a caramel sauce instead? I’d be considered that boiling it 6 times has changed the chemical composition of your original ingredients. Can you try a smaller batch with virgin ingredients and see if they behave properly?

Sorry no photo but wanted to add to the cooked in the CSO information bank... cooked five lobster tails in the CSO and we really liked how they came out. Cut the belly shell but left the tail meat in (for easier removal after cooking), inserted skewers so the tails wouldn’t curl, placed tails on racked tray, and steam baked for 10 minutes at 350 F. Served with melted butter and stovetop mac & cheese.

Excellent! Proof there was at least some hot chocolate under all that whipped cream. Was the cream sweetened?

Uh oh! Hope there isn’t too much to fix and that your show goes well. The breakfast pastries look amazing!

@Kerry Beal best of luck to you. Wishing @Alleguede all the best and hoping Bianca’s parents love him. He is bringing them some kougin amann.... right? 😉

@Shelby thank you for finding & linking to Larry’s obituary. My condolences to Larry’s family & friends. I’ll definitely have a meal in his honor.

Me too!

Just set a price in camel camel camel and buy when/if it hits that price. As you have all noticed, the pricing on the CSO fluctuates quite a bit.

Had Thanksgiving at the in-laws and was not sent home with any leftovers. CSO turkey breast (1/2 a turkey breast with skin & bones) to the rescue! Had a few turkey sandwiches to take to lunch. 🙂

And some pictures of that lasagna...

Those tarts are delicious! I have made them a few times since I had them at a chocolate workshop at NOTL. Excellent reminder that I should make them for an upcoming holiday party (or two).

Yup, that is the way my husband's family likes their fudge, grainy. My MIL can't always get it to go grainy but when she does, that is their favorite.

Some suggestions for streamlining without minimum increase in equipment if you are streamlining you chocolate making for friends / starting to get into artisan professional levels. 1. Purchase Peter Greweling's book, https://www.amazon.com/Chocolates-Confections-Formula-Technique-Confectioner/dp/0470424419/ref=asc_df_0470424419/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=311990507415&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8583461089994955786&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=t&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9007564&hvtargid=aud-801738734305:pla-455468897198&psc=1 2. Purchase enough moulds to shell on batch of bon bons 3. Melt & temper twice the amount of chocolate you will need to shell the moulds. This will make it easier to maintain the heat and temper of the chocolate. This "extra" chocolate is not lost, you can use it the next time you make chocolates. 4. Wrap, label, and freeze your chocolates (following Greweling's instructions for freezing chocolates) in small enough quantities that you only need to defrost one box of each flavor to make up chocolate boxes for your friends/customers. 5. Repeat steps 3 & 4 until you have an inventory of flavors that makes you happy. 6. Follow Greweling's instructions for chocolate defrosting & box up your selection of bon bonds. I hope you continue to enjoy making chocolates. Perhaps you would like to join us (dabblers, professionals, semi pro hobbyists, novices, etc.) at the next eGullet Chocolate & Confections workshop... were meeting in Buffalo, New York May 2020. More details to be posted here https://forums.egullet.org/topic/158984-planning-egullet-chocolate-and-confectionery-workshop-2020/.