patti_h

A recent survey I did of online suppliers, which of course did not include every source, the lowest prices I found was for E Guittard from world wide chocolate. Semisweet dark 60%- Ramona- $6.29/# Milk 32.5%- molding heritage- $5.96/#, or $5.66 if you purchase 50#. White - high Sierra- $6.46/#. Don't forget to take your shipping costs into account as well. Shipping will be cheaper during the colder months, so it might be wise to stock up a bit! Hope that helps

i would highly recommend getting bars from each of the brands you are considering and decide what appeals to you palate and your wallet. Just looking at all the comments above it is obviously a very personal choice. I was able to purchase bars of a lot of different chocolates at a (fairly) local chocolate shop & did a tasting with some friends. It is interesting to see how people respond to the different chocolates. I think you can purchase single bars from Chocosphere or chocolateman, then you might have a better idea of what you want to spend your money on.

I buy direct from El Rey and I believe my cost ends up around $7/ pound. I really like their chocolates. I have heard mixed reviews about the AUI chocolate line as well.

I have both books and love them. I have learned a lot from the books and have made many recipes from them with wonderful results. I do not have any formal kitchen training but with his instruction I have been able to make my own puff pastry, strudel dough that stretches to the size of my table (!) and many other things I didn't think I would ever be able to do. I have made several of his cookie and cake recipes, and the west coast cheesecake is my go-to for cheesecake. The pumpkin pie is lighter than most pumpkin pies and I always get rave reviews on it. I've made some of the fiddly pastries and really enjoyed it. I agree that if you get into one aspect of pastry a lot more, you will want to supplement with other books. But I adore these books because I have learned so much from them!

sorry Donna just got on here! It was a muscovado I bought in a bulk container but it was pretty dark. I really loved the flavor. I'd like to experiment with coconut palm sugar in this recipe too, as it has a really lovely flavor. If you make it please let me know what your impression is.

Donna- from what I can tell, the Bakon is the US version of the melter I brought with me to the conference. I love my melter. Mine is an older one that has the dial, I would imagine the digital control is even better. I have tempered chocolate and then left it setting in the melter for 6 hrs and came back to it still in temper. It is well made and feels very solid. Mine uses European size hotel pans, but if you could use regular hotel pans in the Bakon, I think you would really find that convenient! I have seen the Bakon rep participate on The Chocolate Life site, it seems they are serious about customer service. Good luck with your decision!!!

I have gotten boxes through Nashville Wraps and Glerup Revere. There are some nice ones at nashville wraps but there are some that I don't really like. The ones at Glerup Revere have all been nice so far. I agree that presentation adds to the perceived value but I don't want it to eat at the bottom line!

After trying to do some internet research & emailing with some folks, I am posting here in the hopes of getting some guidance for pricing products, both for retail and for wholesale. I feel like I have read so many different things that I don't know where to go with my pricing. I have seen different people recommend 2x cost for wholesale, 3x cost for retail, set your price then work backwards to make sure your costs aren't exceeding what they should be, offer 50% off for wholesale, don't take more than 30% off for wholesale, etc. As you see, what I have found all seems to contradict each other! I will explain a little about my situation- I am a nurse and have been working as a nurse for 14 years. I am burned out and do not wish to be a nurse for more than a couple more years. I do not have the means to take out a loan so I am bootstrapping this business venture. I am blessed in having a caterer who is extremely supportive of me and allows me to use his commercial kitchen free of charge. When he needs cakes or chocolates, I make them for him and he pays me a mutually agreed upon price. Currently, he will pay .90 each for cheesecake pops or bon bons, cakes we just price out according to size/design etc. When he does weddings, he recommends me to his brides for their cakes. I consult with the bride, do a tasting, and I set the price. I have found wedding cake pricing so much easier than chocolates, but I really prefer working with chocolate. The caterer and I worked on costing out the chocolate shoes I have made thanks to Chocoera's instruction! The highest cost was labor, and I figured that if I am making one shoe at a time, the time put into it is going to cost too much to make a profit from selling it wholesale. However, by purchasing a few more molds and making several shoes at once, assembly line style, I could cut my labor costs down. That was an easy fix. But when it comes to bon bons, I am really at a loss. I believe .90 to be a fair wholesale price for a handcrafted bon bon, but I don't know where to go with pricing for boxed bon-bons. I believe you should keep the cost of the box at around 15% or lower of total price for the bon bons. But when you come to a 6 piece box, I am finding even the least expensive but not crappy looking boxes are still going to cost more than $1.50. Of course the bigger the box, the lower the percentage of the overall cost it is going to be. So, I am curious if people would share 1) how did you go about setting your prices, 2) how do you determine what to set your wholesale price at, and also, I am curious how did people choose the venues they sell in ( i.e. selling in a gift shop, farmer's market, online etc.) Of course I would love to do all retail sales- I would rather profit from my work than to have someone else profit from my work! Living in SC I am very anxious about selling at a farmer's market as they are outdoors and it gets HOT!!! If you do online sales, you need to drive traffic to the shop, and you get into the business of shipping as well. I am also very open to suggestions on any books that anyone used to help them figure all of this stuff out. I am not so great at all the business part of this, but as my caterer friend tells me, you have to cook with a calculator next to you. He has taught me about figuring out your net cost of a supply i.e. chocolate, you may pay $6 pound, but after figuring out shipping costs and loss percentage, that chocolate is not costing you $6/pound anymore. How is anyone figuring your overhead into your prices? I have no idea how to figure in my costs for insurance, business license, molds, tempering machine, airbrush, etc. I am looking forward to any insight anyone can give me. Thank you!

I am not sure if anyone else would be interested, but I think a "roundtable discussion" pertaining to the business aspects would be really helpful. I tried to learn what I could from these amazingly talented (and business oriented) people during lunch and dinner, but I think a group-wide discussion would be amazing.

I would be curious to hear from others about what sorts of things they have done to change caramel recipes. My interest comes from my reading of the Genin caramel thread about 100 times. I finally attempted the recipe yesterday. I feel like I have gotten a start, but will make some adaptations to get what I want. First, the fruit flavor was not strong enough in my opinion (I used pureed mango with some reduced passionfruit juice). I cooked it on an induction burner, but I got impatient because I was on call so I switched to the stovetop for the last 20 degrees. It got much darker on the stovetop and the bottom of the pan scorched a little. It is a nice soft caramel but still holds shape when cut and the flavor and texture are good. I would like the fruit flavor to be the star of it and I would like the caramel to be lighter. So, next attempt, I am going to use some passionfruit juice which I drastically reduced and I will cook it the entire way through on induction. I may go a degree or two more to make it a little firmer. I also have some Indian Mango Powder which I think I will blend into the butter before adding it to the recipe. SO, I am just curious what others have done with caramel- I know Tikidoc started a thread about wanting to change texture, but I am also curious as to what sort of changes to flavor or mouthfeel people have made. I am also curious if anyone has ever gotten their caramel to be so light in color like the one from Genin that someone posted a link to- it was golden/yellow instead of brown. Kerri posted about making a foie caramel- I think it is interesting that you could exchange the butter for duckfat. I imagine there are all sorts of substitutions that could be made....

Love the Easter chocolate Sarah! Beautiful! Looking forward to next year already.

Piping in to say the Residence looks good to me too. I really hope I can make it!!!

Donna! I love your graffiti bunnies! They look awesome!

Thank you Donna! I splattered with Pink Quartz and then yellow topaz, then swirled some bronze with my finger not trying to get even coverage with it- these are my favorites so far. Several other molds did not go so well- the colored cocoa butter stuck to the mold.

passion fruit honey butter ganache.

Thank you again Kerry! You are my confectionery lifesaver!

Is anyone willing to share a recipe for a pipe-able marshmallow cream? I have made three attempts with two different recipes (Greweling, removing the gelatin per chocoera) and the marshmallow recipe in Craft of Baking (also removing the gelatin). They have all resulted in syrupy goo and not marshmallow goo. What gives? I have some hot chocolate bonbons just waiting on their marshmallow, and I am about ready to give up and buy some fluff, but I thought someome here might have a suggestion. Thanks in advance!!!

Kerry I was SO hoping you would be on the forums!!! Excellent idea to freeze in the piping bag, I never would have thought of that. You are amazing! I hope to have a shoe to post tonight. Spending my whole day playing in the kitchen with chocolate, trying to fight off my self doubts!

Does anyone have an opinion on freezing extra ganache fillings? Would it be useable? I made the bananas foster ganache from last weekends conference, and even thought I halved the recipe it is still way more than I need. I did add some citric acid to stabilize it. I hate to waste it, but not sure if freezing a filling to use at a later date would work- looking for advice from you experts out there!!! Thank you in advance!

I would like to attend. I am also interested in sugar work. I am going to attempt to make some poured sugar plates this weekend. If I get good enough maybe I could demo that! Looking forward to it already!

Since I can't fall asleep because my mind is going a million mph with all I have learned over this weekend, I thought I would go ahead and post my account of the 2012 conference from a first-timers perspective. The whole weekend was amazing and there were always several things going on at once so there will be a lot that I miss and I hope others will post their experiences too! We arrived late Friday and so our event was the meet and greet in the lobby at the hotel. To me, this was overwhelming- so many people together with a passion for chocolate! Everyone brought samples and set them out; the table was just beautiful and would cause envy for most people- I know it did with my friends on Facebook! It is amazing how there are so many experienced people who share freely of the info they have spent years figuring out. It seems every five minutes I was writing another tip in my notebook- now to reorganize and rewrite it all when I get home! I think a fun time was had by all as we met each other and put faces with screen names while enjoying a little (or a lot) of wine. We had several local people, as well as some who traveled from as far away as Iowa, Utah, New Mexico, Canada and even Denmark. That should speak to how awesome these conferences are that people travel from so far to attend. We started bright and early Saturday morning with Joe Sophia from Cargill/Peters chocolate doing the first demo. He demoed a bananas foster Bon Bon that was piped into a dipped mold, and I think he capped that mold with not one drop of chocolate running down the side of the mold. He then made a carrot cake slabbed confection to set for dipping the next day. There was discussion about sourcing chocolate and a survey on how everyone tempers. Chris tables and just about everyone else seeds in one was or another. We broke for a wonderful lunch prepared for us by the culinary students at Stratford and everything they made was delicious! After lunch, Rob Connoley started our chocolate showpiece demo. There are a lot of talented chocolatiers here on EG and the showpiece in its finality had granite chocolate, carved chocolate, molded chocolate, modeling chocolate.... You name it I think we tried it! We had the opportunity to make flowers by making petals and then piecing them together and also by sculpting from modeling chocolate. It was great to see how everyone varied the techniques and came up with their own unique designs. While this was taking place there were several other things going on too, with Ruth (chocolot) doing fondant for creme fillings and Kerry doing a basic tempering class. One of the chefs from the school demoed making a gianduja torte which was really delicious. These pieces were used in Kerry's demo on dipping chocolates. We were served dinner at the school and the chefs really outdid themselves with our St Patty's day meal. Afterwards we all rolled out the door at the end of the day! Day two we spent a lot more time "doing" working on our own and in small groups. Steve gave a great demo on airbrushing and decoration of molds. Many of us had a hand at airbrushing and really enjoyed it. It is amazing what the application of color will do to give your chocolates that professional look. Kerry gave several demos again, making lemon curd in the thermomix, pâté de fruits, making aerated chocolates with the isi dessert whip (a flop but we got to see the technique)! Rob demoed making a raspberry caramel, Ruth demoed making tulip cups and stemmed tulips. There was a whole lot of md decorating & filling and a lot of mold banging! Erica (chocoera) demonstrated her shoe decorating technique and Donna (curls) demoed how to flock her adorable flop eared bunny. Rob put our showpiece elements together and made a silk purse out of a sows ear! We had another wonderful meal made by the chefs and culinary students, then it was a frantic push to finish all we had going. As things were finished we brought them out to the dining area and the spread was truly beautiful. Everyone has their own unique style and you could see that shining through all the work. Everyone participated in cleaning the kitchen then we spent some time chatting and ooohing and ahhhing over the finished chocolates. We all left with new knowledge, new friends, and probably some new plans to work out doubly this week to make up for the extravagant meals and never ending chocolate buffet! I know I left with tons of new ideas, new friends, plans to purchase items I never knew I needed and couldn't live without, and new confidence in my own abilities with chocolate. I am already planning to attend next year at Niagara on the Lake! If there are spelling or grammar errors, they are probably my fault but let's pretend they were caused by "darn you autocorrect!" A HUGE thank you goes out to Robert for putting this whole thing together. It was a super fantastic time!

Can't wait! Our drive feels like its taking FOREVER!

While I was grabbing the gelatin I also added rose water and orange flower water to my bag, pecans, pepitas, orange flavored dried cranberries, and dried wild blueberries. Just in case! Does Alber Uster have a storefront? We are arriving this afternoon and I thought since we will be so close I would like to check them out. I am looking forward to meeting everyone and sharing chocolates! I saw Chris Hennes' post on the showroom finish thread, I have lots to learn!!!

I'll throw some gelatin in my bag. Just in case.

I made the muscovado caramel and I really liked it. Loved the flavor although I thought it had a large amount of butter added and when I make it again I think I will add less and see what difference it makes, if any.