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Jim D.

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Everything posted by Jim D.

  1. I saw that you particularly like Roxy & Rich's Fuchsia Tourmaline, which appears (to me) to be in the purple category. So far I have not found a purple I really like (Chef Rubber's Purple Amethyst is what I often use, but it doesn't have that pop I'm looking for in a purple--it needs more red, I think). Do you have purple favorites?
  2. I have heard good things about Chef Rubber's natural white color (not sure of its exact description). A number of people have stated that the natural colors fade. I think Andrey Dubovik has switched (at least partially) to natural colors, and his creations now look a bit faded. Perhaps we will eventually get used to duller colors and won't remember what existed way back in 2024?
  3. With the changes in the U.S. administration coming in 2025 and promises of ridding our foods of unnecessary additives--and artificial colorants!--perhaps those of us in this country need to check out the natural cocoa butter colors available from some manufacturers. Am I actually ready to substitute beet juice for Chef Rubber's "Red Ruby"? And is there a blue vegetable that can replace the beautiful "Blue Lapis"? Hmm.
  4. @Kerry Beal, which airbrush did the chocolatier like best? I used to have many more reservations about the Fuji than I do now. And I hate to abandon my Grex (especially after I spent so much time working with tech support to get it to spray colored cocoa butter successfully). But there is nothing better than the Fuji for getting the job done as quickly as possible--and with far less need for reheating the spray gun. Yes, the Fuji uses more CCB, but with all the suggestions I received from @Chocolot, I got the adjustments of the various knobs right and now use less CCB. I think many spray guns do an excellent job as well and cost far less than the Fuji, but my compressor isn't adequate to support a spray gun.
  5. pastrygirl beat me to it, but I was going to mention the Felchlin Opus Blanc white chocolate. I have not used it in making bonbons but have tasted it, and it is very milky. @CazG, I'm not sure I fully understand what you are looking for. A basic filling that can be flavored for various bonbons? In the case of something like tiramisu, once you add the coffee flavoring, you are not going to taste much milk/cream or even white chocolate (I use coffee ganache made with a mix of white and dark chocolate plus mascarpone). A couple of other ideas: You can substitute plain cocoa butter for some of the white chocolate and reduce the white chocolate taste (though there is a limit at which the texture of the ganache is ruined). You can use a white chocolate with less taste of its own: Cacao Barry's Zephyr perhaps? But I think Felchlin's Opus Blanc is still your best bet (if you can find it). Another more radical idea is to use a butter ganache: Mix soft butter with some sort of sweetener (glucose or fondant) plus flavoring and chocolate. There isn't any cream, but the butter (depending on the brand) can add a lot of dairy flavor. The Peter Greweling book has lots of recipes for butter ganache. Again, however, the flavoring can end up masking any strong dairy taste.
  6. I should add that I recently saw a photo of chocolates from @Chocolot. The transfers are from Chef Rubber, and the reds look good. Maybe I should give CR another chance.
  7. @Kerry Beal No, there is no white. I remember meeting the owner of ChocoTransferSheets at the last Las Vegas workshop. I don't suppose you have any info on what happened to the company. I am still kicking myself for not taking advantage of their recent sales (if they had said "clearance," I might have taken action). Their transfers were a cut above the rest, in my opinion--tulips, roses, cherry blossoms. @pastrygirl That may be the explanation--it makes sense.
  8. I did some work to show what I was describing about cocoa butter colors. Transfer #1: The pink color transfers to the chocolate fairly well, but not as bright. But then pink contains (presumably) titanium dioxide. #2: This is red on dark chocolate at its worst, very muddy, almost brown. #3: This beautiful transfer was my biggest disappointment (ignore the chocolate blotch in the middle; it's from a chip falling off the transfer--this is a very old transfer sheet): Perhaps one could say the dark red/brown is OK--unless you know what it is supposed to look like.
  9. The latter. It happens with other colors as well (blues become grayish). I have contacted American Chocolate Designs (information that came from you earlier in this thread), and they are sending me (free) some samples of transfers with red in them. The fact that they didn't answer with something like "Oh, we know about that problem, and with ours, the red stays bright red" suggests these won't work. I've never understood what ChocoTransferSheets does (did?) that made theirs opaque. If they added white to red, it would turn pink. Here is a sample of one of their transfers:
  10. To follow up: I posted my issue on Facebook, and Ruth (@Chocolot) replied that she uses Chef Rubber. And in her photo the reds were really red. I have bought CR transfers in the past, and the red turned brown (on a dark choc background). Perhaps they have changed their method. I'm not sure how I can delicately ask CR (when I want to say: "do your reds still turn brown?")
  11. I just received a notice from ChocoTransferSheets as follows: I had received several notices recently about price reductions in their products, but our warm fall weather discouraged placing an order. It sounds as if reopening of the company is an "iffy" proposition. Of course this is a season when those who use transfer sheets usually stock up for the holidays. ChocoTransferSheets was unique (as far as I was able to determine) in being able to make any color opaque. Reds did not turn dark red/brown but stayed a bright red. I do not know what their secret was, perhaps some use of white that did not distort the displayed color. I have used several other vendors--and have many bags with their non-opaque transfers that I will never use--except perhaps for bonbons molded in white chocolate. Does anyone have suggestions for another source?
  12. Another interesting and delicious-sounding combination. For my "apple crisp," I use a layer of apple pâte de fruit with the usual apple pie spices, then a layer of vanilla buttercream, ending with a crispy layer made from Speculoos cookies. What do you mean by "mixed the crumbs a bit too much"? They lost their crunch? Recently I made a bonbon that called for a cookie layer on top (actually it was your carrot cake bonbon!), but I had filled the cavity too much, so I used my heavy Robot Coupe immersion blender to pulverize the cookie layer more than usual so that it would flatten once piped. This worked, and I didn't detect too much loss of crunch. I think cookie layers in general are tricky to get right--sometimes mine don't firm up enough even though I have done exactly the same thing as I always do. Including clarified butter is an issue: Kalle Jungstedt includes it, but the reality that butter doesn't firm up as much as cocoa butter does means that a layer with butter will always be a little soft--or at least that's my guess.
  13. With the caveat that I don't know the costs involved in shipping chocolate from the U.S. to Canada, I found Supremo, a sugar-free dark chocolate. I have not tasted it, but it is from Felchlin, a company whose dark and milk chocolate I use for my chocolate production. It uses maltitol as its sweetener. Chef Rubber sells a 500g bar for US$8.70, an amazingly low price for Felchlin chocolate. I know Chef Rubber does ship internationally but may have quantity minimums.
  14. That's what melangers.com recommends; I think most people use a food processor. The farther along you go toward a liquid, the easier the melanger will be, but, of course, after a while you might ask the point of having a melanger. In the case of almonds, I process them until a little liquid appears, then let the melanger do the rest.
  15. I see your point. I would not want to work with #4--it has those straight sides that (for me) make domes difficult to use. I can't imagine having the bonbons drop out of that mold without resorting to counter-banging and freezer-popping-into.
  16. And a lot of chocolate these days costs a lot of money. I saw those samples. I don't see ever cleaning them. Isn't there a limit to the insanity of chocolatiers?
  17. I think he meant using a piping bag to make the shells--you know, the way people do it in videos (when they are making just one mold). When filling the mold with a ladle, there is no space between cavities for the chocolate to flow, so most of the extra flows over the edges It's when I turn the mold upside down that the mess becomes really bad. The mold is heavy when it's full, so holding it upside down and scraping it is particularly difficult. 5 x 8 is a bad idea!
  18. @Vojta I didn't photograph a bonbon from the molds I was considering (I made my decision for the Cabrellon and then ate all the examples!). I might be able to get to that after I finish my current batch. The dome labeled #4 in your photo is what CW would call a cone; it looks just like my 17g CW dome. I looked up its weight, and it's the ever-popular 11g. I am not at all surprised by the misbehavior of #5. I have been attracted to it many times and have seen beautiful bonbons come out of it, but that flat bottom is bound to cause the wet circle. That happens with some magnetic molds I use. I would think the only "solution" is to decorate it in such a way that the design disguises the imperfection. #2 is a good example of an extreme flattened dome.
  19. Yes, the Cabrellon is on the right in the photo (I included that info previously but somehow deleted it during editing). When I decided to try to do something about 17g CW domes (CW calls them "cones") sticking in the mold and also allowing colored cocoa butter to stick, I turned to Chocolat Chocolat in Montreal. A staff member there was very helpful, taking lots of photos comparing the various domes. I had read that the tall domes tend to have thin sides near the top of the cavity (the area that later becomes the bottom). Thanks to gravity, the crystallizing chocolate settles in the bottom of the cavity. So I have developed some techniques for leading the chocolate in the problem area to get thicker, and the situation has improved. But it occurred to me that a less tall cavity might alleviate the problem without all the fuss. I already had the CW 2207, which I call a flattened dome, and I am pleased with the bonbons it produces (I do, however, dislike the mold because, to get those 40 cavities, the designer virtually eliminated "margins" around the cavities--and filling the mold always causes a huge mess). But I wanted a larger version of CW 2007. That's what led me to consider having molds custom-made. But what if there is such a mold already available? That's what led me to Chocolat Chocolat and to Cabrellon molds; the Jungstedt mold was also in the mix. Eventually I decided that photos were not enough, so I ordered a smaller version of the same Cabrellon mold and also one of Jungstedt's molds. I made a solid piece of chocolate from each to see what they really produced. I concluded that the flattened domes lean to one direction or another--either they are very close to half-spheres or they are more like CW 2207. The Jungstedt bonbon looked very much like a half-sphere. I have watched Kalle fill these molds, and I don't see how he gets three layers into them. So I leaned toward the 17g Cabrellon 1728 (Chocolat Chocolat had only the 11g version, 6024). I ordered 10 of the 1728 (Cabrellon's minimum order for export), and that is what is in the photo posted earlier. As I said, I am not totally happy with it, but it does accomplish my two goals: it is earlier to unmold, and it doesn't tend to have thin spots in the shell. The only difficulty in filling it is with very viscous ganaches; it's problematic getting an even layer spread around the large diameter of the cavity. Here is the summary info you requested about these molds (all "flattened domes"): Jungstedt's mold: 4 x 7 layout, 11g, 31mm diameter x 18mm tall Cabrellon 6024: 4 x 8 layout, 11g, 29mm diameter x 18mm tall Cabrellon 1728: 4 x 6 layout, 17g, 35mm diameter x 20mm tall Chocolate World 2207: 5 x 8 layout, 14g, 30mm diameter x 19mm tall In your quote from CW for custom molds, you don't include the initial cost for the metal die from which the individual molds are manufactured. The die is the expensive part. If you don't like the flattened domes, then what other design are you thinking of?
  20. So far no customer has complained that the bonbon is too large! That particular filling, by the way, is one I adapted from one of yours. The first layer is rhubarb pâte de fruit (I found some particularly flavorful local rhubarb), the second is yogurt ganache (this time I flavored it with strawberry rather than vanilla), and the third is a toasted oatmeal crumble. Thanks for the recipe--and for all the ideas available on your Instagram page.
  21. The two bonbons in the photo have very different fillings, so weighing them wouldn't help. I intended to fill one cavity of each mold with solid chocolate, but in the rush of finishing the batch, I forgot. I will do it with the next batch.
  22. Finally I had an opportunity to use the 17g Cabrellon flattened dome discussed in this thread and to display it alongside the Chocolate World 17g dome I have been using for quite some time (the Cabrellon is on the right in the photo below). In the photo it hardly seems that both molds have the same capacity. The Cabrellon is a large mold. If I had ordered custom molds, I would have had them made a few millimeters smaller in diameter and a few millimeters taller, but the difference in price between buying this mold vs. having one custom made is, of course, quite substantial. At first the size of the new mold made it look out of place, but since I use molds of many different sizes (including a half-sphere that is only a couple of millimeters smaller), it doesn't seem so odd when it has been placed in a tray. It is more difficult to fill than I expected. I use it for bonbons with multiple layers, and when a layer is one of those ganaches that is quite viscous, it is tricky to spread it over the diameter of the mold before it becomes too thick. As I hoped, bonbons release more easily from the mold (to be expected from its shorter height and slightly sloped sides). All things considered, I am glad I found the mold and have ordered more of them in time for holiday production.
  23. About making dulce de leche. I never felt confident enough to do the submerge a can of sweetened condensed milk in water technique. So I used to pour several cans into a pan and leave it in the oven until it was a rather dark brown. It was delicious, BUT it sometimes took 3-4 hours at 400F. Then I discovered La Lechera dulce de leche. Open a can, add some sea salt, and heat it, and it's ready to go. I cannot tell any difference at all between "homemade" and La Lechera--and there is no risk of DDL on my kitchen ceiling.
  24. I came across this post and realized that I had not updated the idea from @Kerry Beal of pairing Amarula cream liqueur with dates. It has become a hit with customers (not to mention with the chocolatier). I use lemon to counteract some of the dates' sweetness and also add some nutmeg, which seems to have an affinity for Amarula. Amarula has an almost magical relation with Aw--I can add what seem huge quantities of the liqueur, and the water activity reading is 0.72. I had to test it several times before I believed the reading.
  25. I tried the calculator with a recipe today and was very pleased. Admittedly I chose a fairly simple recipe. The ganache has cream and raspberry purée mixed with Valrhona's Framboise and Valrhona's Opalys chocolates. The calculations of percentages of fat, liquid, etc., were close to my own. The most interesting finding to me was the use of sorbic acid. With acidic fillngs I often add a few grams of this acid to retard spoilage. Without sorbic, the app predicted a shelf life of 8 day/30 days; with the acid included, the shelf life increased to 12/44. For the inventor of the calculator: Is this change based simply on adding 5g of a solid to the recipe, or does the app take the action of sorbic acid into consideration? Congratulations on completing the mammoth amount of work involved in tis project.
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