curls

Hey thanks. Do you add the chili and salt to the syrup? I add multiple coats of spice mix. First layer is sprinkled on the sugar coated almonds (before the sugar cools completely). Additional sprinklings of spice mix are added when you are adding coats of chocolate to the almonds. When you are happy with the flavor, stop adding layers of spice.

Bob, those chocolates look great! Think you have another batch that should be highlighted in the showroom finish thread.

I really like that almond dragée recipe though I tend to spice the nuts with chili and salt. Yours look wonderful minas6907.

Wow! That turned out great. And the mini-pies or tartlets in the background look delicious. Was the bride impressed? I hope so!

Recipe for the not cinnamon buns please! Did you get a chance to see what other folks made? See anything interesting at an egg other than yours and AnnaN's?

Adorable pigs. Really like the details; fab ears!

Any pictures or stories from Saturday's potluck?

squares are spiced mango domes are brown sugar & rum salted caramel

While you are in the Netherlands you should try to go to a pannenkoeken house, this is a type of pancake (almost crepe like in thickness and about 14 inches in diameter) served with savory or sweet toppings. Pannenkoeken are eaten for lunch or dinner, not breakfast. You should also go to one of the many Dutch Indoneisain take-out or sit-down restaurants. The raw herring and smoked eel (gerookte paling) are wonderful. I don't know if the herring will be in season when you are visiting. If there is a festival in town, you should try one of the many Dutch versions of doughnuts or fried dough, oliebollen, appelflappen, and poffertjes. There should also be wonderful french fries with fritessaus (a mayo type sauce). Have some cheese (Lots of varieties. Whichever type you select, get it as a "farmer's cheese" this is how they label most of the raw milk cheeses.) and some licorice (there are so many types of licorice... double-salty, salty, sweet, children's licorice) while you are there. If you like marzipan, stop by one of the local bakeries and pick up a marzipan pastry. The pastries tend to contain a lot of one of the following: almonds, fruit, or whipped cream and sometimes combinations of those ingredients. Hopefully some of our members from the Netherlands will add their suggestions as well. Have a wonderful time!

Kerry, that looks quite interesting. Did you try a slice?

They all look wonderful! Love the frogs and the "eggs"

minas6907, what pretty wedding candies!

If it is just a layer of pate de fruit, I just coat it in sugar. I enrobe it in chocolate if I make a layered pate de fruit, so... a slabbed ganache and pate de fruit, marzipan and pate de fruit, these I would enrobe in chocolate. Don't have my books with me right now but I am pretty sure that Grewling, Wybauw and Curley all have recipes that combine a layer of pate de fruit with another layer of ganache or marzipan. Try one of their flavor combinations and see if that works better for you.

You should have a softer texture with the apple pectin. How did you like the flavor of your first pdf?

JenBunk, glad to hear that you placed an order, have fun with your new molds! Keep us up to date on your pdf experiments. Hope you like them!

Actually, you don't need to give Chocolat-Chocolat your SSN, just leave that field blank. I have ordered from them a few times, have never given them my SSN, they have never asked for it, and all my packages have arrived without problem. Now, I hope that has not jinxed me!

JenBunk, if you have Greweling's Chocolate and Confections at Home book, there is a recipe on page 190 for Pectin Jellies using grocery store liquid pectin (Certo or Ball). I have made these and the texture comes rather close to the pdf one makes with powdered pectin. You should try his recipe to see how much you and your customers like pate de fruit. If you like this recipe then I would recommend trying the powdered pectin recipes.

muscovado caramels (based on the recipe in Curley's Couture Chocolates book) caramel goodness exposed and some solid chocolate (had to get the mould, thanks TikiDoc for bringing it to the chocolate workshop!)

Kerry, good luck with the starch molding. I'll have to try that technique one day. Maybe you can do a demo at the next chocolate workshop in NOTL.

Kerry, those look much better than the first attempt. Did you top them with salt?

DianaM, I was using Whole Foods 365 heavy cream (pasturized and homoginized). Not sure what the fat percentage is but it is your standard US supermarket heavy cream (pours just like milk), definitely not manufacturing cream.

cmflick, I may have discovered the reason for your too soft ganaches. I just made the matcha & pistachio ganache and discovered that the amount of cream called for in the recipe by volume does not match the amount of cream in grams. My 1 1/2 cups of cream weighs 350 grams (not the 390 specified in the recipe). Since you had issues with your ganaches setting up, I used 1 1/2 cups of cream and weighed out the rest of the ingredients. Ganache is setting up nicely (it is quite tasty) and I will pipe it for turffles tonight or tomorrow. Hope this helps.

Hi Patti, no worries. The only muscovado available at the local store was dark muscovado, so that is what I used. I agree, the flavor was wonderful! Great idea to try this with palm sugar. I did have trouble with the recipe, I wound up with an oil slick on top of the caramel. Was able to fix it and it tastes delicious but I am wondering if the problem was my technique or an unbalanced recipe. Were you able to incorporate all the butter?

Kerry, Wow! So, were you able to salvage them and turn them into something beautiful and tasty?

patti_h, did you use light or dark muscovado sugar for these? I'm thinking about trying out one or two of his recipes this weekend.