YetiChocolates

I personally prefer it to callets because I don't have to worry about not putting enough seed chocolate in at the beginning and not having it all melt away before I realize it or too much at the end that I have to fish out. It's just one block that I put in and if it gets small enough that I think it will melt out before hitting 90, I add another, and when it's hit 90, I don't have to stress about fishing around for extra seed that I added a little too late. And it's not messy at all, just a blob in the middle of the bowl that you swirl around while stirring. I get my dark in 10lb blocks so that's why I use the block to temper. However, with the milk I recently switched to Oro du Soleil from E Guittard, and will have to get the callet seed method down!

I don't know about the rest of you, but although I learned in school to take the temp down to around 86, then bring it back up to 90 and it's in temper, I never do that now. I just take it down to ~89, pull out the seed (as I use a block of chocolate for dark, not callets), test it in parchment to ensure it's in temper, which I do a little before it hits 90 as well because you can usually tell it's close by looking at it once you've tempered the same type of chocolate for awhile, and them I'm good to go. I will also raise the temp on the melter a touch so that the chocolate stays at around the 90-91 degree range for shelling and dipping, and will give a stir now and then to mix in the warmer chocolate from the bottom with the cooler chocolate from the top. I'll also use a heat gun or add warm untempered chocolate depending on the viscosity of the chocolate as well. I do agree that molds are way more forgiving than hand dipping, but I think it's important to nail the tempering process down, otherwise you will be limiting yourself on what you can do, which I don't think is as fun. On a side note, I also take my chocolate up to around 120 degrees (we were taught 115 in school, but did some research on the optimal temp setting for the chocolate I use and that was the mark), then generally bring it down to around 110 before adding seed, unless I'm in a huge hurry to drop the temp, then I'll add it right after it hits 120. I was taught that if you took your chocolate below 105 you had to take it back up to 115 and then lower it again before adding the seed. To eliminate that from happening, I stick with 110, since there is nothing more frustrating that getting busy and forgetting to add your seed chocolate and before you know it your chocolate is at 100 degrees. Just food for thought. Everyone has little nuances to how they temper with the same result, so I think you just need to find the best method that works for you Tony. And I'm guessing if you research Guittard "Lever du Soleil", you will find the charts of the optimum tempering temperatures.

Yes Donna he did the gummy layer then piped the marshmallow layer on top

Thank you! And keychris is right, I just use a parchment piping bag so I can cut a super small hole for piping and then pipe the lines before casting in dark. I think having the right mold is key though as I've tried this with a deeper mold with less than successful results. The mold I currently use is #1217 from Chocolate World, I purchased it at Chef Rubber when I was down in Vegas for the conference this spring.

Here's a couple of my confections I've been working on: Top one is the new design for my "Irish Kiss" a milk chocolate Irish creme liqueur and the bottom one is a test batch for a friend of a milk chocolate peanut butter bar. Was playing around with the spraying "splatter" technique off on off-set spatula we learned while in Vegas, as well as the bottom layer of the bar is an alteration from the "oat crunch" we learned in the Master's class. That part is still a work in progress...

Definitely some good food for thought. I think I'll try both methods and see which once produces a better result and go with that. Thanks for the comments on how you guys do the dry method, I feel like an idiot that I've been doing it "wrong" all this time (or at least making it much harder on myself )

Maybe that's been the issue, I put it in the pan all at once, do you use a pot or skillet?

Have an inquiry to the masses, what are your thoughts on dry vs wet caramels? I have come across a couple caramel recipes (one I use regularly) that calls for a dry caramel, but I have a hard time doing it in large batches without crystalizing or burning the sugar...so I guess my question is if I were to use a wet caramel in those recipes, would I achieve the same result in consistency, or does adding water to the sugar to create the caramel alter it in some way that's less desirable. I would like to make caramels in larger batches without the stress I currently run into when doing a dry caramel. Any thoughts? I thought I'd pose the question and see the response before doing any experimentation.

So if you are swiping what temp to you normally set your dehydrator to? Pretty sure I have mine set to around 95F and have swiped the molds with no issues, but I shake it quite a bit before I use it...

Yes, I do it all the time...

Bob! On the ball early! Well I will tentatively (and this is tenuous) hope to join next year. I did just buy a plane ticket to Thailand for the whole month of January, so that might eat up my entire travel budget...but let's just say I definitely want to attend, will try and pull my pennies together to make that happen And I would also be interested in the Master's class, if I can afford it...

I got my excalibur on Amazon for I think $160-$170. Well worth the money spent, saves me so much time as I do not have a microwave, so I have to warm my cocoa butters in hot/warm water...large pain in the keister . Throw them in the night before and by the AM they are ready to go.

How viscous is your chocolate when you dip? What temp do you normally have it at when dipping?

minas6907 I love the splatter on the Cointreau and Cacao Nib Bonbon...although I know you've said in the past chocolates aren't your forte, you're definitely seeming to get the hang of them...nice work!

My first attempt at piping chocolate design inside a mold. I now have a much greater appreciation for those zebras Jenjcook makes as it was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. These are an experiment with an Irish Cream Liqueur milk chocolate ganache. Pretty tasty, not sold on my piping skills though

No you aren't. I set it between 95 and 110 to warm the cocoa butter, then once it's warm, pull it out and shake it up to create the beta crystals you are looking for, and it doesn't take long for the temp to drop to the ideal temp you want. You just temp it like you would chocolate to make sure it's where you want it to be, and for airbrushing, it actually have it slightly warm (I generally don't temp it) because it tempers when it goes through the airbrush as long as it's not too hot, which at 95 degrees, the little that it cools before it gets airbrushed seems to work just perfectly for me. Thanks Ruth for putting up the link for the dehydrator.

I have to disagree with having it warmer, I started working with the melter at a warmer temperature to shell the foster the banana molds, and it ended up being too warm so the shells were super thin which caused the ganache to crack the shell due to the thinness. I prefer the chocolate to be around 88-89 for dark chocolate. I know that having the dehydrator to warm the cocoa butters to the right temperature to not have it be too warm before I airbrush it as I've had happen in the past. I've had much better success with my molds (with airbrushing at least since I made that purchase).

That would be an epic road trip

The recipe looks good. I am puzzled, however, by the proportion of chocolate to cream. I would think that if there is so little chocolate (compared to liquids in the recipe) that the result would be quite runny, might never firm up. But you say that it could be more runny. I ask because today I attempted Wybauw's "Frutti" recipe for the second time. The first time I made it, it never firmed up. So today I added more chocolate and some cocoa butter. The result was a total mess--the ganache separated. Jim, the banana puree seems to make up for some of the cream in making the consistency thicker, you may not be cooking the sugar, cream, banana mixture long enough, as though the ganache is a bit soft, it does firm up enough to shell and cap just fine. I said "rummy" not runny as I meant there could be more rum in the mix. Personally I think the ratios work just fine for what adjustments I've made to Wybauw's recipe. However I've never made the Frutti formula in it's true form, so I cannot say how finicky it can be.

I guess I should have specified that it is banana puree in the formula I posted, I just took bananas and pureed them in a blender. Don't have Wybauw's 2nd book so I cannot comment on what he does, but I'm sure you don't have to use frozen boiron banana puree (if that's what he uses), you can just puree your own bananas fresh.

I'll let you know when I make the reservation, and we can chat more about it then! Getting excited as well!

Agreed!

105 g dark brown sugar 50 g glucose 121 g cream 1 vanilla bean 138 g banana 1 generous Tbsp of cinnamon 50 g butter 72 g white chocolate 17 g rum I heat the glucose and brown sugar together until the brown sugar is liquefied and smells like it's about to burn (as you cannot really tell when brown sugar caramelizes). Add heated cream (that I scrape the VB into) into the brown sugar and mix to combine, letting it boil for a few. Heat banana puree and cinnamon, then add to the sugar mixture and heat to 106 C. Take off heat and cool a bit, then add butter. Let cool some more, then add white chocolate and rum. Emulsify then pipe into molds. Could be a bit more rummy, but overall I like the flavor and consistency, and adding the glucose to the brown sugar helps with the caramelizing/crystallizing problems I was having with the dry caramelizing before.

For all those out there who use melters, I remember Kerry mentioning that she sometimes uses untempered chocolate to reduce the viscosity of the tempered chocolate when you've been using it for awhile due to the buildup of the beta crystals. What temperature would be ideal to have the chocolate at (I'm assuming close to 90 F/30 C) to add to the tempered chocolate to make sure it doesn't go out of temper?

I ended up using a variation of the frutti recipe on Callebaut's website and I really like the results! Thanks Steve for the original inspiration though