keychris

I am not familiar with this machine, but I will say: 1) Yes - it's probably just holding the chocolate at 45-50C 2) Leave it running, else the working temperature won't be maintained. If it's constantly moving the chocolate, be aware of over crystallisation 3) You can add small amounts of warm chocolate to tempered chocolate, but you do need to be careful to not raise the temperature too high which would melt all of your beta crystals and lose temper. HTH (at least until someone with this machine replies!) Where's Jim D, he has a Chocovision, not this model though

Perhaps you could spray them so that whilst they're just hollow, they're still pretty?

yeah, if those are solid chocolate, try putting them into the fridge for ~10 minutes straight after you put the chocolate into the mould. As for the line, make sure you tap the mould as well as you can (a bit tricky with silicone moulds) to release any air bubbles, which I guess is what those lines are.

That's kind of what they're designed for, Smithy, (but they make a whole egg at a time without having to stick the two halves together), but Pastrygirl wants to put a filling inside them, which would involve (I imagine) putting a small hole probably at the base and injecting the filling into the egg. You could probably do it with a wide gauge needle and a big syringe, but it would be time consuming, and of course you'd have to then seal the hole afterwards. I would just use some coarse grit sandpaper and sand off the alignment nubs - I've never done it on that side of the mould before though, only on the base of a few I had that wouldn't sit flat. Hmm, now I want to inject caramel into eggs. I might just try that this easter Edit: Link works for me, Kerry.

More details on your process for the colour, please. But IMO it's not in temper.

Here's the formula that I use for salted caramel. I imagine if you're getting a butterscotch flavour you are perhaps cooking your milk solids. 36.4% sugar 16% cream 21.3% glucose syrup 25% butter 0.3% salt dry caramelise the sugar - I do it in three batches, ie. first bit caramelised, put the next bit on top of that, caramelise, put remaining thirds in, finish. Whilst that's caramelising, boil the cream then whisk into the sugar when it's caramelised, watch out for steam. remove from heat, add glucose & butter, whisk to combine. Cool to ~30C, add the salt, mix, pipe into shells. Leave at least 24hrs before capping. These last at least 4 weeks at 15C. You shouldn't be refrigerating your product, as a rule.

if you mix dark and milk together, temper it to the lower working temperature - ie, the milk. It's not wrong to do that, IMHO, so long as people are informed about where the chocolate comes from - don't represent that you made the chocolate from scratch

If your arms aren't sore from stirring and you haven't got blisters on your hands, you haven't been stirring enough

The issue with bars is that as that large mass of chocolate sets, it releases energy in the form of heat, which can have an effect on the final product. I believe this is what has happened here, if your test was good. The fix is easy - you need to remove that excess heat, which you can do by placing the filled moulds in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes to set, then let the chocolate contract fully at normal temperatures.

no, no. Unless it's supercold in the middle of winter, then I will warm them a little with a short blast from a heat gun.

How mini is mini? How much starter did you use? 3hrs is a while, but if you have a cool kitchen, it may take longer - my sourdough in winter often takes all afternoon to rise enough. They don't stick so well, because I just moisten the top off the ball with a damp paper towel after shaping and then dunk the whole top half of the ball into a bowl of seeds. I don't like the extra colour that egg or milk put on the top of my bread, so I tend to not glaze with anything. Ah, finally someone recognises my buns Here's a photo of my current starters, one is spelt, the other rye. I refreshed them last night, 11hrs ago, the spelt at 1:10:10 and the rye at 1:5:5. I should have marked the starting position on the jar, but the rye has doubled and the spelt is well on the way. Overnight kitchen temperature was around 15-16C. The spelt I refreshed at a 1:10:10 ratio because when I checked it last night, after 24hrs it had become totally liquid, so I increase the ratio. Rye absorbs more water to start with so is a bit stiffer at the same hydration, so was fine at the 1:5:5 again.

This loaf a 25% WW formula, I ferment the whole wheat portion with 25% of the other flour and the starter overnight to pull heaps of flavour out of the WW. Usually make a 1.8kg batch and bake in either two or three loaves. The same formula, but with a crispy topping, basically make a paste out of rice flour, sugar, yeast and water then smear it over the loaf after final shaping. Bakeries down here call this "tiger topping", no idea if you guys in the US call it the same! My kids love rolls, so this is batch of straight white sourdough rolls.

yup, 10g starter, 50g water, 50g flour. Even in winter (which is relatively mild here, I guess), I keep it the same. Been running with the same starter since 2010, so it seems to work for me I only fall back to 1:1:1 when I've stored the starter in the fridge for any extended length of time.

it's interesting. When I'm daily feeding, I use a 1:5:5 ratio, as I find 1:1:1 runs to slop within 24hrs (usually closer to 8) so the extra bulk gives me more time. This made me laugh so loudly my wife came to ask what was so funny

Formula as per Reinhart's baguette formula in BBA - half bread flour, half regular flour. I'll post up some other pics of sourdough tomorrow when I find the pics

Starting to go a bit off topic, but if you're using a high-fluidity couverture that's giving shells that are too thin, you could try double casting them - cast once, tap out the excess (as much as possible), leave it to just set and then repeat a second time so you have a double thickness shell. It's only worth doing with really fluid chocolate though, otherwise you'll get ridiculously thick shells.

streaks on the shells after demoulding are usually either unpolished moulds (the marks were there before you put the chocolate in) or contraction marks from the chocolate pulling away from the mould. In the last picture you posted of the empty shells, you can see some streaks in the chocolate - usually indicates temper is still not quite right. And definitely scrape the moulds again before you fill with ganache a cap them, as Kerry suggests! Those demoulded chocs look pretty good though

That's interesting - the school I occasionally attend exclusively uses Martellato tanks, they're run 24/7 all the time and they don't have those issues.

This. I had a smaller 3kg bowl for about 4 months before I got my 6kg melt tanks, and got sick of moulding half-moulds, waiting for that to set, moulding other half very, very quickly.

lustre => coloured cocoa butter => white cocoa butter => couverture well, that's how I would do it, naturally omit the white step if you're using white couverture

A kahlua caramel for someone who's favourite colour is green

it's like balloon animals for foodies

Jim, I reckon those are tiles like those that you're pretty damn good at now

They look like what I call release marks, I see them on big pieces like easter eggs when the chocolate pulls away from the mould. Did you have thicker shells and then do something that would have caused the chocolate to contract quickly, eg. Put into the fridge? And tbh, every time I've done something which has had a finish I've been unhappy with, not one single person has noticed the issue! I bet everyone thought they looked amazing, because they still do

the curling is easy to fix: wait for the chocolate to be set to touch, put a piece of parchment or guitar sheet on it, then place the whole lot between two flat sheet pans to set completely. The trimming you could just try with a heated knife, so you're melting through instead of cutting through. HTH