curls

@minas6907 thank you so much for all the information and the encouragement. Starting with the oven & just a stripe sounds like a great way to start. If I start down this path I'm sure I'll have tons more questions for you. 🙂

Beautiful confections @minas6907! Whenever I see your work I ‘m inspired to try some sugar work. Did you need to keep things warm or rewarm the sugar while you are working? If so, what is your process / heat source?

I was thinking that a cooling tunnel (along with perfect temper) would be the answer but didn't want to look like a smart aleck for suggesting it. Especially since my reply wasn't going to be a through as teonzo's answer.

@JoNorvelleWalker which egg mould did you get? How many would you like to ship per box? There are many sizes of cellophane bags, perhaps there are some that are big enough for your chocolate eggs. If that doesn't work, you can get sheets of cellophane wrap -- wrap & tie around the egg. If your shipping, try putting the egg in a box with lots of packing material.

Beckykp27 hopefully you'll get a few more people answering your questions now that the Valentine's day production if over. As far as not getting shiny chocolates... can you post some pictures of your work? What kind of moulds are you using? What chocolates are you using? How do you temper your chocolate? How are you planning to apply colored cocoa butter (manual application / airbrush)? A lot of questions but with more information, we can be offer better solutions.

Dinner only or lunch too?

@Beckykp27 have you considered a more classic aesthetic and not using any colors? You can still achieve beautiful chocolates with moulds, natural garnishes, using a contrasting chocolate for marbling/striping/accent, etc.. I know the siren call to airbrush and transfer sheet is strong but you don't have to go in that direction -- you could market on the beauty of natural & organic.

@pastrygirl they look great and sound delicious. I hope the weather doesn't affect your sales too much. Hoping the same for myself (wintery mixed precipitation coming to my area Monday & Tuesday).

Vietnamese Food Any Day by Andrea Nguyen released 5 February 2019 https://www.vietworldkitchen.com/blog/2018/11/vietnamese-food-any-day-cookbook-preview.html Vietnamese Food Any Day: Simple Recipes for True, Fresh Flavors

If it is tempered, I just wait until it sets up and then I scrape it off. If it is untempered, I wipe it up with a sponge or towel. Thankfully all small spills, so not much to clean up. One shop that I visited made a floor scrapper tool by attaching a metal scraper to the end of a broom handle; thought that was rather clever.

Kenji to the rescue --> https://www.seriouseats.com/2016/02/the-food-lab-guide-sous-vide-sausage.html. I use this Serious Eat article, The Food Lab's Guide to Sous Vide Sausage, to decide time and temp for sous vide sausages.

@rotuts fyi there aren’t any InstantPot recipes in her pho book — she published before she created those but her book does have recipes designed for a standard pressure cooker. So for IP recipes, check her website.

@rotuts the chicken meat was tender and juicy. In the recipe Andrea Nguyen specifies a few steps that she uses to keep the chicken moist... low pressure, natural release, removing the bird from the broth to cool. Hopefully those steps will work for any fowl but they definitely did for the chicken I cooked last night. Her recipe suggests using half the chicken for the pho and using the other half for Viet cabbage slaw or chicken sandwiches. I'll probably use the leftover chicken to make chicken salad sandwiches.

The result was a winner! Will definitely make this again and try out her IP beef pho recipe. Two photos, the ingredients ready to be pressue cooked and the resulting pho.

I recently ran across an InstantPot pho recipe from Andrea Nugyen https://www.vietworldkitchen.com/blog/2017/11/instant-pot-chicken-pho-recipe.html. Has anyone tried it? I am planning to give it a go later today. Also picked up her pho cookbook. She also has a recipe for IP beef pho on her website.

Yup, I added one sliced onion to mine, may add more next time.

I probably have two plastic bins full of repurposed jars — I don’t want to check the basement too carefully, if there are too many I might have to start recycling them. 😉

Finally put together a batch of @HungryChris marinated mushrooms. He said they would shrink during their five minute cook but I didn't realize just how much they would shrink! Next time I'll either double the batch or put them in a smaller jar. Looking forward to trying them three days from now! Yes, that is a repurposed jar -- no longer any cherries in there.

Really, no microwave in the room? Wouldn’t be a crisp but you could make a fruit compote with a microwave cake.

They're all jealous because they weren't able to find their own extra tables. And what is today's footware?

Kerry you paint quite a picture! Good luck in your travels. I hope you packed your bags earlier and have posh socks for FCIA.

Indeed it can be! We also have some maker spaces in the vicinity and some of them have amazing equipment. Join the maker club and you get access to lots of tools. Still, in the end I don’t know if this route winds up being any cheaper than ordering custom moulds from a professional (if your order is large enough). Definitely should be cheaper for small quantities of custom moulds. Either way, the equipment is fascinating, takes tons of research, time, and money.

Yes, another rabbit hole has opened up... spent a part of the day looking into the current state of 3D printers. Way more options and lower price points now then when I looked at this stuff a decade ago!

Wood, metal, etc. and a CNC should be able to create a nice smooth object to be thermoformed.

Good to know that the thermoform units can handle the thicker poly. Yeah, a lot of the 3d printed stuff is covered with lines -- would either have to smooth it or come up with another material to put in the thermoform so you have something that you want to mould.