keychris

That's not really how tempering works. If the air is warmer, you can't make the temperatures in the chocolate cooler to compensate. You just have to use other tricks to remove the excess heat from the chocolate, like using the fridge for moulds - after all, that's what the cool room temperature is doing. Unless you meant something different, then you can ignore this 😛

good luck! Did anyone at the Callebaut Academy have any good ideas about cleaning your silicon moulds?

for me? Time, lack of bench space for yet another piece of equipment and reliability. I like that I can open a bag with a specific flavour profile for what I need. Are brands like hershey's highly reputable? When I think of quality couverture, Hershey's is not a name that I would have thought of, but that may be simply because I haven't used it.

I had exactly the same response when I saw this design - it's not something I personally would choose to make.

That's interesting, because Felchlin is actually one of the cheaper brands I can get here

"You get what you pay for"

For me, it all comes down to taste. Unless you have serious concerns about the moral values of a company (I'm looking at a company that starts with N and rhymes with Nestle here), taste trumps all. Don't lock yourself into one supplier. I did that at the start of my chocolate making, I was very single minded in using just one brand (Felchlin) because their price point is excellent for me. But over the past 5 years, I've tasted a lot of different brands of chocolate, from the little bean to bar shops to big companies, and what I choose to put into my products comes down to what the flavours I'm looking for are. So I've expanded my range to include things from local producers using international beans, local producers using Australian beans, overseas... whatever tastes good. I've only been asked twice in 5 years about the soy lecithin ingredient. For me, that's a non-issue in terms of volume. If you're going to cater to that market with an inferior product or a more expensive product then ... that's your decision 😛 The other thing I'd add is that if you're starting a web-based business, I would try to do local markets as well, selling face to face and get word into the local community about your products so that you have a base of support that will purchase your product and tell other people about them. It's also a great way to find out what people like and dislike, or what people are actually looking for from you.

I don't see how that's anything other than cocoa butter, but I also don't see why you wouldn't spray it, that thick layer would be pretty unpleasant on the palate imho, and spraying would produce exactly the same result. Unless that's gold leaf in there which might get blown out by spraying, perhaps.

are you reheating the surface of chocolate to remove excess beta crystals regularly? (I assume yes otherwise the chocolate would become too thick to use). Overcrystallised chocolate will probably still test fine as it's still "in temper".

You can get quite small icecream churners that you pre-freeze the bowl instead of the machine cooling it if you really want to

They probably have titanium dioxide in the colours to make them opaque. You could try spraying a very thin layer of white cocoa butter onto the transfer sheet to make the design show up on dark/milk but any negative space in the design would of course be white then.

can you dip it into the glaze instead of pouring the glaze over?

I knew someone on here would know what I was talking about, that's exactly what I was shown

I saw a cocoa butter colouring pack at the school I go to a few years ago, with a chart with about a squillion colours that it told you how to make, but the price was astronomical. I can't remember the brand, but such a thing does exist. My own experience is I mix up the colours I can get as powders (10% powder / 90% cocoa butter) then make the rest up as best I can from those with a very much "that'll do" attitude to it.

I make mine, and everyone elses!

this is how I do it. also give them a hit of heat so the cocoa butter is soft, it's a pain in the donkey to get them out of those corners cold.

Seeding is probably going to be easier for you to temper by if it's particularly warm, and cooling the moulds as soon as possible after the chocolate is in them if the room temperature is warm will also help. My kitchen is usually 20-22C, but over about 24C it's just too much hassle to do it IMHO. Not impossible, but when everything is that warm it's tricky.

Chocolate tempering technique is more important than spraying clear cocoa butter! What's the reason you want to do it?

Frost is the new shine huh

If I'm emptying molds onto the stone, I definitely use a piece of baking paper, it's just easier! But I usually empty back into a melting tank. Dimensions are 50cm x 80cm x 14mm thick. I find it faster to table now than any other method.

I have a large piece of stone that I use for tabling, I can do up to about 3kg (what's that, about 6lb?) easily. I can lift it, it's about 10mm thick (about 3/8" I think). I contacted a kitchen stone bench manufacturer and asked if they had any offcuts, they polished the top and sides, cost about $50. If you're tabling your chocolate, the steel bench won't have enough thermal mass to reduce the temperature of the chocolate. If you're just going to put put a sheet onto your granite bench... that might work.

I can totally understand people not showing that technique if they learn it, I mean, they *paid* for it.

I was being a little bit facetious

flavoured white chocolate. Not really something I want

go aussies!