minas6907

No, no pectin. I think I just cook them slightly longer then most people, I like them to have nice sharp edges when cut, but they aren't hard or difficult to chew or anything. Just cook your caramel longer. I'm sure there is, but I just use a towel. All my sauted pans are the carbon steel, so I'm used to using a towel to pick up a pan. Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

Yay! Finally got a chance to use my copper sugar pot! And boy does that handle get hot! Made a small batch of caramels just to try it out.

That is very interesting, I never thought of boiling xylitol. Do you have access to large amounts of it? I know that stuffs expensive, at least it was the last time I bought it. If you have some to spare and okay around with, try boiling a cup of it with maybe 2oz water and see what the result is. All I do know is that, when I've seen sugarless hard candies (I forget what brand they were) they were made with isomalt, so that too, perhaps, can be another avenue for you. Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

I know it looks a little bit amateur, but heres my first trial run of French Macaroons. I used the formula from Gisslen's Professional Baking.

I got it at a Bevmo in San Diego. I'm almost certain its a seasonal beer. A friend of mine had given it to me last year a few times, that's when I fell in love with it, but then he said they stopped making it, which I trusted because he does some work with Ballast Point. I was in Bevmo the other day and saw the bottle with a 'New' tag right by it, so I'm assuming its seasonal. The other day I went back to Bevmo and got a Stone Smoked Porter, one of my favorites. Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

I suppose I can join the pate de fruit club now. I just got my apple pectin from Chef Rubber, and am surprised how easy it is to make these jellies. Formerly I had made them a few times using liquid pectin and the formula from Grewelings at home book, but that was always a huge pain, its almost impossible not to scorch the fruit and cook it to 238f. Then in an order with some other things from Chef Rubber, I got a small packet of G-pectin, which worked nicely, but it seemed that you use a much larger amount of this stuff in relation to fruit puree when you compare formulas that use apple pectin. I made some pate de fruit with the 15g of g-pectin, and that yielded about a 4 inch frame of fruit jellies, where as (in using Grewelings formula from his professional book) 10g of apple pectin yielded an 8.5 inch frame. It was appearent pretty quickly the gelling power of the apple pectin, glad I finally got some. Heres what I did today, strawberry pate de fruit.

Drank a Ballast Point Imperial Porter the other night. Beautiful dark beer, flavored with vanilla and coffee, wonderful. Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

Its not too difficult, you just need lots of starch and shapes to imprint them. For the long sticks to glue the plaster shapes to, I just used painter stir sticks, but big ones, the kind used to store large batches of paint. Other then that, theres not too much prep, the starch should be sifted, and unless your making liquor cordials (in which case the starch would need to be dried in an oven for a few hours) you can just level starch into a pan, imprint with the shapes, and deposit your gummie, fruit jellies, or fondant into the cavity.

Thanks! I didnt use Notters way exactly, but did something easier. I used plaster of paris, but just piped the plaster into a cheap flexible plastic candy mold that I sprayed with pan release. It works great. The only problem is that some of the shapes used for those cheaper candy molds sometimes look sort of silly, but I was able to find simple hearts at an art store. Notter calls for using silicone to make copies of shapes from a polycarbonate mold. I'm going to be ordering some silicone soon, I want to get some plaster shapes made that are larger for liquor cordials.

Here some gummies I just made. They are pomegranate flavor. I mixed in a touch of red color for a very light gummie, deposited into one tray, then I mixed in more red color while in the funnel to get another color without boiling another batch. Most of my supplies have come in, was stoked to use my confectionery funnel for the first time!

Its easy to work with, much mess picky then pectin, you'll be able to make them easily if you've made pate de fruit before. I'd pretty much only reccomend using a fruit puree to flavor them, when I did it with juice it was kind of difficult to really tell what the flavor was, I might have another go at it though. Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

Haha, you know, I'd say it's inbetween both of those! They have sort of a short texture to them, and I would definitly not be able to say they have the flavor punch that a pate de fruit gives. It is cool though, that the agar jells very easily, and can be flavored with fruit purees or juices easily. Stacking jellies is also easy, but overall, I'd go for the traditional European fruit jellies, but I still think the agar jellies have a place in my kitchen.

Heres some things I did recently. First is request for peppermint lollis from a young friend of mine. Second is a test with some of my new toys from Chef Rubber, among them a packet of agar agar, so I make Blueberry Agar Jellies. And lastly is a sample I made of some wedding candies for a friends of mine, simple pillow mints, white is peppermint, yellow is lemon.

Yeah those look sort of ok. Hahaha, just kidding, those are stunning! Very consistent and nicely presented!

Those look great, perfect shape with nice sharp corners. Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

I do the same, I cut the caramels exactly how it's instructed to in chocolates an confections, always keeping the bade moving. Mostly I was wondering if a multi pasty wheel could speed it up, but for the amount I'm making (way less then you) I think I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. I think I cook my caramel slightly longer then most. I like them soft, but not ultra gooey, they soften in your mouth, I think they look nice with nice sharp cut edges. Anywho, thanks again.

For me its those yummy kettle cooked potato chips, I dont buy them, they would easily become my meal. Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

Ok thanks, both of you. I'll just skip the pastry wheel, I didnt want to buy the thing and see that it didnt do what I was hoping it would.

Hi all. I was wondering if anyone uses a caramel cutter, the long rod with multiple large round cutting disks attached. The reason I'm asking is that I'm in the process of purchasing items for a small business, and I'm not thinking about getting an actual caramel cutter, but a five disk pastry wheel. Now I know that a caramel cutter simply marks the slab into even squares for cutting manually with a knife, but, mostly I'm just wondering if a muli-disk pastry wheel would do just as good a job. I'm just trying to decide right now if the purchase of the pastry wheels is worth it. I use 3/4 inch angle pieces that make up my frame, and I use one of those pieces to line up the cut with a knife so it's straight, but I'd like to do this faster and with a little more consistency. One thing I'm worried about is marking the whole slab into squares, then when I go to cut with a knife, the squares getting a little deformed and thus not very helpful anymore. Overall, I think I make my caramels a tiny bit more firm then most, so it may not be an issue, but it was just a thought that occurred to me. Any thoughts? Thanks a bunch!

Finding unwanted polycarbonate molds is going to be difficult. I search ebay every now and then, sometimes I've seen a great deal on a good shape, but many other times I find a sort of odd designs that are quite apparent that no one wants. I've some decent bonbon shapes on clearance at Kerekes, perhaps try looking there, but otherwise it seems the polycarbonate molds are held on to by many for obvious reasons.

Hi all. I should have reasearched more before posting, it is a German verision of his book, just looks a little different, but content seems to be the same, same showpieces. http://www.franzziegler.ch/admin_franzziegler/pdf/Ewald_Notter_Zucker_Pastillage.pdf

I just saw this book on Amazon, it appears to be a German version of The Art of the Confectioner, but the title and cover is different. Is anyone able to confirm this? . http://www.amazon.com/Zucker-Pastillage-Ewald-Notter/dp/3875151224/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1354676547&sr=8-7&keywords=pastillage

I'm sure by now everyone's sick of seeing my taffy pictures, but here's another one I did today. It's a Strawberry Lemon Taffy. I've been trying a few different things regarding taffies. I pretty much gave up on taffy close to a year ago, no matter what I did, it would always stick to the wrapper. I tried wax paper and cellophane, and consistently it would stick noticeably after a few hours. Anyways, after doing some searching, I ordered some cello wrap squares, and this is apparently different then cellophane, I'm not sure how, but there was a sheet of paper from the company I ordered from saying there was a difference. Anyways, with my last test, the taffies unwrapped fine from the cello squares, and this is after modifiying the recipe about six or seven different ways, I did find what texture I like, and with the help of the wrappers, the candies unwrap fine. This latest batch was a test to see if I can boil a batch of taffy one day, and pull another. I would like to start selling various pulled and boiled candies at farmers markets here, and It thought it would be cool to have a small batch of taffy to pull, color, and flavor for samples. I also was looking at how the colors would look on a candy with two different shades of stripes for each color.

I too am not a very picky eater, I'll eat just about anything at just about any temperature. The most prominent thing that comes to mind is a red sauce. A marinaria type sauce is something I'll put up with, but I really dont ever crave it. Out of any dish, I have such a hatred for angel hair pasta with plain red sauce, it is so boring, it screams crappy Italian food. I love red sauce that has as addition of cream, and dont mind it one bit on pizza, but using it as a dipping sauce never made sense to me, nor ladeling a glob on angel hair. Now that I think of it, for some reason I really dont like the angel hair pasta shape, not really sure why. I like linguini, and my favorite is penne, but I'm not sure why I hate angel hair, I think its from the weekly trip to the local crappy but popular Italian restaurant as a child. Btw, I'm not dissing Italian food, I have in mind more of the pasta places like Buca (I loathe that name)

I've eaten my burgers rare and with a fork and knife my whole life. I feel sort of bad saying this, especially because of how much people around here seem to like sous-vide, but it really not something that has ever appealed to me. Granted, I've never had anything that was cooked that way, but to me having a system at home that keeps water at a perfect temperature and just leave you food floating around in bags seems kind of weird. I learned to cook in an old school kitchen, so its just not something I ever picked up or had a desire to learn.