AnythingButPlainChocolate

I make a honey and ale truffle using a spin on Paul A Young's Ale truffle, I can dig out the recipe if you want, but it's a much lighter flavour than stout.

I agree, pre-cut, then once you've lifted it (coated in chocolate) run your fingers along the edges to neaten them.

I'm UK based too, but trying to save the pennies for flights etc. It is a source of frustration that chocolate and it's related arts seem to be very accessible across the pond but not so much here.

Thanks both, I am practising and am booked in on a showpiece course in November at the Academy, I was just hoping to get a bit of personal direction, so much better than books and the internet.

Does anyone know of a UK based chocolate piping course? I specifically want to get my piping better rather than a general chocolate course. Is there anything out there at all? I've had a look around but can't find anything, also approached a local chocolatier, but had the comment that my piping looked ok from pics.

Well I've lost 6 truffle moulds and a couple of my Christmas moulds, but it could always have been worse, just got to keep reminding myself of that LoL What could I do, it would be like smacking a puppy, he knows to leave them *totally* alone now and not be helpful. I've told him to keep random acts of kindness away from my chocolate. Now to ship my moulds from Canada... Again...

I went out today and came home to a proud hubby, he'd helpfully cleaned all my chocolate moulds for me... With a sponge, the type with a scourer on the back... Now to see what can be salvaged...

Not at all helpful, but I love the fact that white chocolate brownies are called blondies.

Thanks all, will give it a try.

Again, as with Justin's moulds, these are large 7cm moulds.

Could they be served in paper wrapper to avoid touching them with fingers? I love yours Salted Muscovado truffles, how did you achieve that effect, if it is not secret? I was experimenting with big demisphere moulds and aerated chocolate, this is result: Simply a case of playing with the airbrush and (in this case the tines of a fork) to get a large spatter pattern before casting as usual. One of the benefits of playing with colour is it's fun! It doesn't matter if it doesn't come out how you wanted as you don't have to mould until you're happy.

I've used the same technique in the past, it looks great until warm fingers touch them and the "flocking" melts leaving finger prints, or at least that's what's happened to mine.

I was in a hurry (as with all the greatest mistakes) and decided to double my batch of chocolate chilli fudge, rather than cook it in 2 separate pans as I usually do. Fudge is sometimes a tricksy beast and I forgot that sometimes you really can't double up on a recipe. Long story short I now have a big bowl of slightly warming chocolate grainy mush, it's not even smooth enough to use as a sauce. Re-heat, reuse or remove? The sugar has slightly crystallised and it's a sandpappery mess, what to do?

I've tempered the main bottles, and have transferred some into smaller jars which I put in a yoghurt maker to part melt and am using the solid core to seed by shaking it. When I check it before spraying it's about 30C, however I'm waiting for the delivery of a new IR thermometer to check in case my other one has gone funky. It's possible the small pots might have gone out of temper I suppose.

I've been playing and think it's either an issue with the cocoa butter or adhesion between the chocolate and cocoa butter, tried plain choc in the moulds, all fine, sprayed half the frog in each mould with the coloured cocoa butter, it left most of the butter in the mould and the choc half was beautifully shiny, looked to be perfectly tempered on cutting, I'm still casting as a thin layer of choc, letting it set and then filling with inclusions and choc. I took the chocolate up to 32, made sure it wasn't over stirred. I've tried spraying, leaving it for 5 minuted then casting, spraying, putting it in the fridge to set up then casting about 10 mins after, and I currently am testing with 1 I sprayed yesterday and will be casting today. Is it because there is a lot of cocoa butter being used, or am I barking up the wrong tree? (Please ignore the bubbles, this was just a test casting so didn't put it on the vibrating table.) As you can see the highly decorated frog is most damaged, whereas the lesser decorated one has few imperfections, both only where the cocoa butter was...

I've bought a few, only had 1 mould that had a scratch on it, but it cost me £5 and the rest of the bonbons in the mould were ok, so not too bad. The rest I've had have been fine.

Calebaut milk chocolate at 30. Also having the same problem with dark, but not the white. Can, ironically, mould the lips fine though in any colour which is a rather large mould.

My moulds are driving me mad, my chocolate is in temper (I've checked) and moulding bonbon's isn't an issue, assumed it might be residual heat so moulded in layers (they're solids), made sure they weren't shocked by putting layers between the mould and the kitchen surface, made sure the mould's warm enough, that my colours are in temper (this occurs on non-coloured chocolates that are solids too) and keeping an eye on room temp and humidity. What am I doing wrong? I've even pre-sprayed the moulds with clear cocao butter.

Good luck, I found the most difficult part was trying to guess how much of everything to take, still judging it, I suppose you need to guess the weather better than I!

Is it ok to say I have baking envy? Hubby isn't a fan of "sweet stuff" so I don't get to bake often (I'm not meant to be eating everything in sight by myself, apparently). Just thought I'd share. *le sigh*

How was your first market? I am getting ready to do my first. Really excited! It was good, I was however battling the warm weather so not a huge amount of sales. I was however surprised at what sold and what didn't. I couldn't produce enough confit'd fruit (dipped in chocolate) to keep up demands. I'm glad it went well! I don't have the warm weather to battle with. This summer has been a cool one for us. Did you do one market? or are you doing them every week? Jenny This market is every other week, and I'll be doing another market on the intervening weeks while trying to stock pile solids for the Christmas rush. Let me know how it goes for you, when is your 1st market?

How was your first market? I am getting ready to do my first. Really excited! It was good, I was however battling the warm weather so not a huge amount of sales. I was however surprised at what sold and what didn't. I couldn't produce enough confit'd fruit (dipped in chocolate) to keep up demands.

White chocolate with chili solid Salted Muscovado truffle Sorry about the sizes, they're large for zooming on my site.

I'm fairly au fait with candying citrus peel, but fancy doing something a bit more adventurous, I'm guessing I could flavour the candied peel with an alcohol, probably during the last phase (I tend to use William Curley's method from Couture Chocolates - blanch 4 times, add to syrup with vanilla, heat, leave to cool over night, re-heat for 2 hours, allow to cool over night, leave to dry) so the alcohol content is cooked off but the flavour imparts. Is this do-able? Are there recipes out there for this or am I just barking up the wrong tree? I've got a concept I want to try and I'll keep you posted if it's a workable idea.

Fail. That'll teach me to work all day and forget to check my chocolate...