[Chocolate Workshop 2018 Niagara on the Lake]

For those newly joining us, the veterans, and the curious about the great Niagara on the Lake Chocolates & Confections Workshops here are the links (AKA rabbit holes) to our past reports (not going to try to track down the other reports -- I'll leave that as an exercise for someone else). 2018 report coming soon!

• 2009 Report: eG Chocolate and Confectionery Conference Niagara on the Lake, the 1st conference
• 2010 Gaithersburg, Maryland
• 2011 Report: eG Chocolate and Confectionery Conference Niagara on the Lake
• 2012 Woodbridge, Virginia

• 2013 Report: eG Chocolate and Confectionery Workshop Niagara on the Lake

• 2014 Las Vegas

• 2015 Vienna, Virginia

• 2016 Toronto

• 2017 Las Vegas

• 2018 Niagara on the Lake the 10th conference

• 2019 in St Louis

[Chocolate Workshop 2018 Niagara on the Lake]

If people are willing to drive there are some close'ish places that Kerry & Anna have gone to that look good... Kerry I think all of these are within an hour of the hotel but don't know how large a group they can accommodate.

 

- Grimsby Thai

 

and in Hamilton:

- Lemongrass

- Brux House

- August 8

[Chocolate Workshop 2018 Niagara on the Lake]

1 hour ago, chefmd said:

I am coming for Sat and Sun workshop.  My main goal is to meet people, have fun, and of course to enjoy dinner on Sat.  But I must confess.  I do not know anything about the chocolate.  I do not bake.  I do not make confection.  So consider yourself warned.  I will be roaming from one work station to the next bothering everyone and tasting excessively.  You can task me with doing simple things like chopping.  I am really good with knives.  Or I can make coffee.  Mostly I want to meet my imaginary eGullet friends;)

Well, I can assure you that we are not imaginary but we might not look like you have imagined. Before we met,  @Chocolot was expecting me to be an old bald guy (perhaps she was expecting one of the three stooges). It is nice to put faces to names.  @chefmd would you like to learn how to make some chocolates and/or confections? Chopping is somewhat helpful but even more helpful is dishwashing!  :-)  Looking forward to meeting you too!

[Chocolate Workshop 2018 Niagara on the Lake]

@patris they are gorgeous! Looking forward to using my bowls. Going to find some display space for them too! Thank you.

[Chocolate Workshop 2018 Niagara on the Lake]

13 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

I'm bringing Greweling. But no other books - I've already spent one day lugging hundreds of kg of chocolate to Niagara - so I'm going to limit the stuff I have to lug back.

 

Who is bringing what other books?

I'm going to bring photocopies of the recipes (mostly from William Curley) I'm thinking about trying out and a few base recipes (mostly from Greweling) -- happy to let people look at those.

[Chocolate Workshop 2018 Niagara on the Lake]

38 minutes ago, Chocolot said:

 

Glad to hear it!! I made the Leaf Croquant that Rebecca showed us in Vegas. While it is delicious, the edges are a bit shaggy. I was debating about bringing them, but now I will. Thanks:).

Yum, Rebecca’s leaf croquant is tasty! I still need to try making it — she made it look so easy.

[The Ladies Who Lunch (Part 3)]

4 hours ago, Anna N said:

 

Sticky toffee pudding with apple compote and vanilla chantilly. 

 

That looks delicious!

 

I may have to sneak over one day during the workshop. Just kidding... I'll be on the hunt for savories while the chocolate workshop is going on -- may try out one of your Vietnamese or Japanese restaurants.

[Cacao butter silk, or cocoa butter silk?]

First, @ptw1953 what you bought is just right for putting in the EZtemper. You can call it cacao butter or cocoa butter but they are both the same thing. The important part is that it is 100% cacao butter or 100% cocoa butter. You do not want a product with anything added.

 

I found this explanation of the differences between cacao and cocoa here (https://nuts.com/healthy-eating/cacao-vs-cocoa) but that is about chocolate & not the "butter" portion.

 

[Cacao butter silk, or cocoa butter silk?]

I am rather sure that cacao and cocoa are the same things just different languages.

 

What color is your cacao butter and which company manufactured it? Can you include pictures of the callets and the packaging?

 

And enjoy you EZtemper when you get it!

[Chocolate Workshop 2018 Niagara on the Lake]

Sorry but I don’t have a dehydrator. Let me know if we need colored cocoa butter and I can bring some of mine along.

[Chocolate Workshop 2018 Niagara on the Lake]

11 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

Saw this yesterday in the middle of the shit show that was my ER day - and forgot to respond.

 

I think you have hit all the salient points - containers for sure - that's always an issue. Apron wise. I'll have a few IR thermometers but having your own would be an excellent idea. We'll have a copy of Greweling to plum for recipes but bringing other recipes you want to fool with would be a great idea.  We will have glucose, invert, sorbitol, thin boiling starch, sugar, some compounds and syrups, frozen purees. If there is a weird ingredient required - ask me if we have. Yes to caramel rulers - couple of heat guns, hair dryers. Probably won't be a ton of molds - don't really want to drag mine all down there - but there have been some ordered and there will be the ones from the bars from the Friday class.

 

 

Thanks Kerry! I'll figure out what I want to work on and check in with you on ingredients.  Will we have access to the grinders Saturday or will they only be available for the master class?

[Cooking on a Big Green Egg]

1 hour ago, rotuts said:

Cherry is very very nice.

 

I always same the cherry wood that sometimes comes w my cord wood.

 

hunt down an old cherry tree.  well worth it.

Yup, I’m working on that. Next time I get to my local pick your own orchard I’m going to ask them if they have some cherry, peach, and plum wood that I can take off their hands. 

 

Need to do some research and make sure plum and peach woods are safe to burn/smoke.

[Cooking on a Big Green Egg]

I'm still acquiring various smoking wood chunks so my choices are quite easy: oak or hickory. I've got dibs on an old apple tree for smoking chunks and wood turning blanks. Trying to get more fruit woods.

 

Which woods do you like to smoke with?

["Kitchen tools" that were intended for other uses]

10 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

I've mentioned this before.  I keep a sewing gauge in my knife drawer.  Handy to measure thickness of fish, rolled doughs or slices of anything.

I use those too, but in my chocolate kitchen. :-)

[Owners/managers: How have higher minimum wages affected your restaurant?]

@Hassouni good luck with your new business venture! Please let us know when you’re up and running; I’d like to visit your bar/resto. What part of DC?

[Chocolate Workshop 2018 Niagara on the Lake]

@Kerry Beal it has been a while since we have been to the Niagara on the Lake campus -- I'm not sure how their kitchen is currently stocked. So, what sorts of things should we bring to the workshop? I'm guessing that we still need to bring along containers (to bring chocolates home), aprons or chef's coats, IR thermometers, notebook, camera, and base recipes. And of course, some chocolates or confections for the meet & greet. Also, if you are planning to try something that needs some specialty ingredients, you may want to bring them with you -- but maybe not? Will there be chocolate moulds, scrapers, caramel rulers? Yup, I am looking forward to this and starting to put together my packing list!  

[Cooking on a Big Green Egg]

1 hour ago, Kerry Beal said:

Some nice looking stuff! The bone marrow in particular called out to me. Did you get any details on how they had cooked it?

 

The Toronto Eggfest is not going to be until the fall this year - Toronto Eggfest

 

I had a call the other day (and a drop off of a new product) from Marc who makes Cluck and Squeal. He's making a new product called Tasty Hot - all peppers - 'spike to taste'. Quite lovely - going to be playing with it over the next little while. He mentioned there is an eggfest happening in Delaware, Ontario (up near London) on June 9 - OMA eggfest. Unfortunately I am without sitter that weekend and won't be able to attend. 

I too wanted more details on the bone marrow but it is one of the few that I have no more information on -- whenever I walked by their tent they seemed a bit too busy to talk -- they also kept their egg a bit farther back from the table so I wasn't even able to see if they were cooking the bones direct or indirect. Only thing I can tell you is that they put the bones directly on the grill.

 

The Tasty Hot product sounds interesting. I'll make a note about the Toronto eggfest on my calendar but odds are better for 2019.

 

Have you had a pig shot? I hadn't seen those before and they were a nice bite and a crowd pleaser. Plenty of ABTs and moinks (but those I knew about).

[Cooking on a Big Green Egg]

Yesterday I attended the Egg Fest at Dizzy Pig - DizzyFest 2018. Found a video that someone posted of the event that captures different parts of the event than I captured with photos.

 

And some of my photos from the event...

 

House Yearwood was my favorite of the day with smoked turkey, carnitas empanadas, stuffed peppers, and maple smoked chocolate chip muffins. Their samples were disappearing too fast for a picture! They did not win the people's choice award but they did come in second place (and this was their first time cooking at DizzyFest). They also provided recipes for all their cooks.

 

This group made three salmon filets on the BGE, very tasty. They encouraged people to take as much as they liked. They also made macaroni & cheese and a fish stew (with sea bass, coconut milk, peppers, onions, and a few more ingredients that I do not recall).

 

 

Beautiful marrow bones! Sadly the serving size was a 1/4 teaspoon of marrow on a piece of toast.

 

 

This was a fun event and most of the food was good to very good but I was hoping to find Kerry Beal and Anna N. style participants and sadly there was no one there of their caliber of cook quality and creativity. Maybe I'll have the time to check out the Toronto EggFest some day!

[Chocolate Workshop 2018 Niagara on the Lake]

Always interesting to see how colors change depending on lighting. I went back to your glaze selections when you posted tikidoc's bowl and couldn't figure out which dark blue sample was hers. Looking forward to seeing my bowls -- just a few more weeks!

[Chocolate Workshop 2018 Niagara on the Lake]

@patris what color # is that pretty blue? Thank you for the photos of the bowls at various stages — fun to see the process!

[What did you buy at the liquor store today? (2016 - )]

While picking up this sampler of items for a friend...

 

 

I happened to see these items for sale and couldn't resist.

[Cooking on a Big Green Egg]

Wish I could have gotten a picture of this chicken on the Kamado Joe but it was a bit too dark outside. Last night's dinner, spatchcocked chicken - un-brined, spiced with Dizzy Pig Crossroads, direct heat near the gasket, ~375 F for 50 minutes. This is the first cook where we really got a sense of the advantages of kamado cooking -- such a juicy and tasty bird. I've had good chicken on the Weber but it has never been this moist. It fell apart a bit on the transfer from the grill to the cutting board.

[Chocolate Workshop 2018 Niagara on the Lake]

2 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

Anyone want to take home cocoa butter? I've found a source of some that I like that would be $20/kg.

Thanks for the offer but I've got plenty in inventory.

[Chocolate Workshop 2018 Niagara on the Lake]

It's a shame that we lost Andres but I'm sure Lisabeth's talk will also be very good. Kerry, thank you for the update. I'm counting down the days till the workshop; looking forward to it!!! :-)

[How do they do that? (the bonbon thread)]

They also might be marbling a bunch of colors together in white chocolate (or extra whitened white chocolate) and then shelling with the marbled chocolate.