curls

I started with commercial fruit puree.

I made some passion fruit ganache last weekend. In fact I made three different batches, recipes from Greweling, Notter and Torres. When I tried them last weekend they all had plenty of passion fruit flavor. Tried them again last night and it seems that the passion fruit flavor has mellowed quite a bit and if this continues, soon they will not taste of passion fruit at all. I have not had this happen for any other ganaches. Wondering if anyone else has experienced this and how they fixed the problem.

minas6907 - beautiful confections! Please come to the workshop in Niagara and do a sugar demo; we'll help you with chocolate! keychris - wonderful hearts. Planning to try transfers on the bottom of mine too. They look so lovely. DianaM - I liked Notter's passion fruit formula the best but they were all good.

Tried out three passion fruit ganache recipes for Valentine's Day. The recipes are from Greweling, Notter, and Jacques Torres. Chocolates color coded for identification purposes.

For future reference, you can use marshmallow fluff instead of making your own Frappe. Pretty sure I read that in Greweling's At Home book.

Kerry, for the dinner list, I will be there but I need to talk to my two friends and double-check that they will be there for Saturday's dinner. Will post an update as soon as I know more.

I'm in! Checking with my +2's.

First I want to say that your citrus slices look wonderful; wish I could try some! Your coworkers wife's ideas for table arranging sound good. In this case, what I was referring to with a "static" display, is that someone would look at the candy bar, understand it, pick their candies, and go. With so little variation in color and the symmetrical setup there would be very likely be no need for you eyes to wander about and move from discovery to discovery. I like to set things up so that the whole design is appealing, that your eye goes to one item at first glance but there are other things in the design that cause your eyes to leave that focal point and explore other parts of the design. Also, don't want the focal point to be so strong that you focus only on that one item and disregard the rest. Hope that makes more sense. Also, have a look at the dinner thread ( and ) and you can see how some people approach design on plates and platters (darch, rarerollingobject, and ScottyBoy have consistently beautiful arrangements but different design styles).

Do the items need to be "Medevial Times" themed? If not, I think brownies, cookies, candied nuts, and spiced nuts would be nice snacks. Easy to portion and make in large quantities.

Prabha, nice chocolates and airbrushing. minas6907, the candies that you are making for your friend's wedding candy bar sound wonderful and I am sure they will look fabulous. I just think that your table mockup is a bit too symmetrical and static. Not sure that the flow will work that well either with some items three deep. Have a look at the table setup that gfron1 did for our 2012 Chocolate Workshop... it looked fabulous and worked well too. http://forums.egulle...post_id_1869412 (in case that link doesn't work right, it is post #39 in the REPORT: 2012 Candy and Confection Conference).

I love to make marmalade - don't have time before I head off to SF this week - perhaps I'll bung some in the freezer for that purpose. Freezing them and making marmalade later will definitely work (I have done that too).

When I was in South Florida, we had a calamondin plant and would make a batch or two of calamondin marmalade every year. Wonderful stuff to have around! There are quite a few seeds, Just cut them in half and remove the seeds with the tip of your paring knife.

ElainaA, what a wonderful assortment of holiday treats! keychris, beautiful hearts! What is the filling and which mould are you using?

Don't know if you are still looking at this thread, but I am curious about the chocolates with the orange stripes. Do you mind telling how you made that design? It is very attractive, as is the whole assortment. Jim D. that is actually not an orange stripe, it is milk chocolate. I piped lines of milk chocolate into my molds and then shelled with dark chocolate.

Thanks Kerry.

The recipe for peppermint flake (2nd ed.) calls for chocolate liquor... is this unsweetened chocolate or something else?

Mjx, they look amazing! What are your fillings?

Beautiful! So, do you know what was the cause of all the difficulties?

TeakettleSlim, the peppery gingerbread looks delicious! How did you like them? Sounds like the garam masala gingersnaps with white chocolate cream cheese icing were the favorite cookie of the day.

Kerry, Jim D. is about 2 1/2 hours away from the DC area. Guess it is up to him if it is worth the drive!

Had a few more in the batch that came out super shiny but they were out the door before I remembered to take a picture!

Holiday chocolates... brandied cherry cordials, PBJs, muscovado sugar salted caramels, chocolate nougat (dipped in milk chocolate and dark chocolate) and bittersweet chocolate ganache (not included in attached photo).

How much room are you leaving between the filling and the bottom of the mold? You should cover the bottom of the mold with chocolate, tap the mold three to five times to get the chocolate to settle down and release air bubbles and then scrape off the extra chocolate. The chocolate should still be fluid during these steps. Then put the mold down, let the bottoms begin to set / crystalize, put them in the fridge for 5 to 10 minutes, then they are ready to unmold. Think you just need a live demo and it will all fall into place. You should join us at the 2013 Chocolate Workshop. Here is a link to a video that may help.

Not sure if you are already aware of this but the book is currently available at Amazon.

Theses videos may be of help, Chef Derrick Tu Tan Pho giving a chocolate molding demo and a chocolate dipping demo. We were lucky enough to learn from him at our eGullet 2011 Chocolate Workshop at Niagara-On-The-Lake. http://www.derrickph...io/vstc3=videos If your going to fill larger molds (bunnies, santas, etc.) here is a demo by Chef Peter Greweling. (edited to correct link)