Jim D.

Yes, the "early seed" helps with cooling. I always throw in some callets/pistoles just after I set the Chocovision to go from 115F/46C to 95F/35C, but not a huge amount since it's so annoying to have those little chunks remain unmelted as the temp nears 95F/35C. Then, for tempering, I put in a large chunk that can be removed easily. The Chocovision instructions (and the default behavior) say to add the seed at the top melting point and leave it in until the temp reaches 90F/32C.

I have previously exclaimed over @Kerry Beal's idea of using a warming tray and shop towels to clean colored cocoa butter from molds, but that was in the abstract. I have just finished trying it. I bought the shop towels, and my sister happened to have a warming tray she wasn't using. It has temp control, but the lowest setting is still fairly warm. I placed a Silpat on the tray (it tempered the heat somewhat), then the towels on top of that. I must say I am impressed. Instead of spending (literally) hours using an offset spatula and countless paper towels cleaning molds after the cocoa butter crystallized, today I sprayed each mold, then turned it upside down on the shop towels, rubbed it back and forth, and in 5 seconds the top was free of cocoa butter. Yes, if I used paper towels immediately after splattering or spraying a mold, the cocoa butter would come off, but it takes me far more than 5 seconds. And the brief time needed with a warming tray allows me to put the sprayer down, rub the mold, and get back to the sprayer, allowing less time for the cocoa butter to cool down. Someone who posted in another thread was seeking a way to hold on to the sprayer and wipe the mold at the same time; it's theoretically possible with this method as the Silpat keeps the towels from sliding around. After I finished spraying and all cocoa butter had crystallized, I saw a few places I missed, so I heated up the tray and ran each mold over a shop towel briefly. Every bit of cocoa butter came off, even with being quite firm at that point.

I didn't think you didn't believe me; I just wanted to see if my memory was correct and posted those quotes because the idea of using a lot of seed is widespread. I looked in Greweling, and he (sensibly) says "slowly add increments of solid tempered chocolate" (no quantity mentioned, at least as far as I could tell from a quick look).

The first result from a Google search produced this: That's from ghirardelli.com. Ecolechocolat.com says 25-30% for seed. Jacques Torres says 30%.

I'm so glad to see someone knowledgeable say this about using seed in the tempering process. The amount of seed usually specified is much higher (I think I've seen 1/3 of the amount of melted chocolate). But when the chocolate is higher than 92.8F/33.8C, the Type V crystals in the seed are just melting away (I realize those temperatures are approximations). So I don't bother adding seed until the chocolate has cooled to around 95F/35C, and then I don't add very much. When I am tempering large amounts of chocolate, I use the Chocovision Delta, and its constant rotation tends to overcrystallize the chocolate sooner than desirable, so adding just a small amount of seed helps with that problem.

Trays have been given away.

There are many questions in your post, but at this point I will comment on this one. As long as you are using an airbrush up to about .5mm, a small compressor from one of the Iwata Jet series will work. Brushes like the .7mm Grex require something larger. When I bought the Grex, tech support recommended a 1HP compressor. At the time they had a special, and I got the 2HP for the same price, and I have not regretted that. The larger the nozzle, the more compressed air you need. In my setup, the compressor runs a while, then shuts off, which (I think) is a sign that it is producing enough air. I never have to wait for the tank to fill up. When I bought an inexpensive HVLP spray gun, however, all that changed--2 HP was not enough. The compressor ran constantly, which (as I understand it) is not good for a compressor. If I were doing it over (those famous words we all utter at some point), I would have "gone big" in the beginning rather than keep upgrading in little steps. Too large a compressor is not a problem. When you are spraying a dessert and have to stop to heat up the airbrush so frequently that you get frustrated, then you will know it's time to upgrade your spray gun. If you follow the path many of us on eGullet have followed, you will get hooked at some point on making something, whether it's entremets or chocolates, and then you will start looking for upgrades of both sprayer and air source. There is a lot of information in this thread on that subject.

For my coconut cream ganache, I use 150g coconut milk (emusified so that water and coconut are thoroughly mixed), 450g white chocolate, and 15g coconut rum (plus other flavorings). As Merry Berry implied, it is probably best to stick with the same brand of coconut milk (or you can purchase coconut purée from such manufacturers as Boiron). 465:150 is a very high proportion of chocolate to liquid, but the coconut milk I use is quite fluid.

I should have said that yes, it did taste burnt and smelled definitely "off."

In my experience you can do that as long as the cocoa butter wasn't heated so high that it burned. The telltale sign of that is little hard bits in it that won't dissolve. The first time I overheated c.b., I didn't realize what had happened and kept trying to heat and retemper, but the bits remained.

I have not had that issue. The black currant ganache I mentioned previously has a lot of butter in it, so that helps with water content.

I do more or less the same, except that I never spray water through the gun. I just get the gun warm, then empty it out as best I can, then add a new color and continue. In another discussion on this topic, the consensus was that most people do not do really thorough cleaning of airbrushes or sprayers (such as would require taking it apart). It's not like using it for paint--with cocoa butter, you can just melt everything out.

I cannot begin to list all the flavors I have tried to incorporate into a bonbon without success. After a particularly tasty peach season, I thought how easy it would be to have a peach bonbon, perhaps with a cinnamon layer as well. Alas, almost no flavor. Blueberry has also stymied me (though I have not given up). The best approach, I think, is to make a water ganache, replacing some or all of the usual cream with fruit purée (Jean-Pierre Wybauw has such a recipe for black currant ganache, and it is wonderful), but shelf life suffers. As for flavor in gianduja, I have a large package of pecan gianduja made with dark chocolate in my freezer, with the thought that someday I may find a use for its faint pecan flavor. I think milk chocolate works best with pecan and almond, and for pistachio gianduja, I use white. I hope you will find a way to preserve the pecan + smoke + spice flavor without having chocolate overwhelm it.

There is no tape I have found that says it is food safe. There was a post on eG some years ago from someone who said he had such tape and would post the name of it within a couple of days, but he never did and I had no success in tracking him down. Both Avery and 3M deal in food-safe adhesives, but I don't think they cater to the small consumer with these products. There is a company that makes specific shapes explicitly for use in making decorated chocolates. I bought a sampler pack, and they are cut not for rows in the mold but for individual cavities, which, of course, is a pain in the neck, and to top it off, they did not stick well at all. I read through their website, and there is no statement whatever about food safety. I saw no residue with using the VinylEase tape, but I didn't look with a magnifying glass or anything like that.

Just one note on pecans: I do a lot of different giandujas, and the pecan version has the mildest flavor of all of them. You wouldn't think so, but so it seems. As dark chocolate will overwhelm it very easily, I have switched to milk. I'm just saying that your hopes for strong pecan flavor may not be realized if you are using dark.

Thanks for those suggestions. How can I tell when the bread has completed its second rise? For years I read that when it does NOT spring back readily, it goes into the oven. More recently I saw somewhere that it must spring back slowly to be ready. The times this recipe has produced the loaf I like, it has risen a couple of inches above the rim of the pan, and the "spring back" test has varied a great deal. I don't know whether this is relevant, but those times when it does end up the way I want, the loaf often has a hole in the center, sometimes small, sometimes larger. It doesn't ruin the loaf for my purposes, but I think this may be a sign of overproofing.

I put a Silpat under the towels, and they stay in place much better (idea from Kirsten Tibballs of Savour School). Kerry Beal had an idea I'm going to try of using a warming tray to keep shop towels warm to enable cleaning off cocoa butter more quickly, although that would not solve your problem of not putting down the airbrush. The warming tray does, however, provide more time to do the cleaning.

I agree about gianduja sometimes being too firm, and I have started adding some coconut oil to it (so technically it's a meltaway).

In the interest of preventing health issues from blood glucose levels, I developed an entirely whole wheat sandwich loaf, but the results are quite undependable, so I'm posting in the hope that someone may have some hints. The liquid is 20g butter, 100g skim milk, 300g water, 2 tsp. salt, and 1 Tbsp. Splenda, heated to 98-100F. The flour mix is 200g KA regular whole wheat flour, 390g KA white whole wheat flour, and 2 1/2 tsp. instant dry yeast. I have learned to mix the liquids and flours and let them sit for 1/2 hour to soften the wheat (so I have read). Then I mix in the Kitchen Aid until the dough is smooth and let it rise. It looks good to this point, though I am never sure when the rise is complete. I don't knead it again but fold it a few times, then press it into a loaf pan. I let it rise again. Usually it rises at least an inch above the sides of the pan, sometimes higher. Then it goes into a 425F oven for 5 minutes, then 350F for 30 minutes more. Here is the issue: Sometimes (less than 50% of the time) it rises beautifully high, makes a tasty, medium-textured bread, large enough that one slice is sufficient for a sandwich. Other times, however, it falls in the oven to be more or less even with the sides of the pan. The taste is still good, but of course the texture is dense, and the size of the loaf dictates cutting two slices for a decent sandwich. I know that whole wheat is more unforgiving to work with than white flour, but I am puzzled by the fact that sometimes this bread turns out to be just what I want, but most times, it looks like a poorly risen pound cake. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

You have got me thinking about the food safety issue. Of course, I have yet to see any plastic adhesive tape that is certified food safe--I can't imagine the manufacturers have ever thought about crazy chocolatiers using it in the way we do. Since you are an M.D., what are your views on the subject? (I know that you have made striped designs) The VinylEase tape is so successful that I would give it up reluctantly, but I am not keen on poisoning my customers--well, most of them.

I follow Ewald Notter's practice (and many others to do the same) and spread the foot first. I think he says to use overtempered chocolate, but in the beginning I misunderstood him and used untempered chocolate--heated to 110-115F, and that has worked well for me. It eventually dries and often looks horrible (it is untempered, after all), but it cuts cleanly with no little pieces broken off. I don't put anything on top. It has always seemed to me that spreading the foot on top (the more common practice) leaves you with the problem of ganache (rather than the chocolate foot) directly on the plastic, and the ganache often sticks like crazy. When I'm dipping, the bottom (with the foot) doesn't stick to the fork so much. As for thickness of the foot, I spread the chocolate as thin as I can without letting any of the plastic underneath show through, maybe 1/16" to 1/8" thick. Hazelnut gianduja (I'm assuming that's what you mean by praliné but am not sure) was my first (and so far only) guitar Waterloo--I broke a wire because I waited too long for it to set. You have to get just the right moment. I stick a little knife in it frequently (the cuts don't show in the end) until the knife comes out almost (but not quite) clean. I would say that having it "under-done" is better than the opposite because breaking a wire will ruin the slab and cause a terrible delay. I also put the ganache on the bottom, let it set, then add the gianduja layer because a ganache will usually remain soft enough to cut and you have the more temperamental gianduja layer on top where you can monitor it. In general, the more temperamental layer should go on top, where you can watch it crystallize.

I have corrected the link.

I have been intending to post about the tape I used. It was recommended to me by @Miriam G (for which I thank her) and was intended to be used with the Cricut machine for making designs. I don't yet have a Cricut but decided to get some of the tape and cut it with a paper trimmer. The downsides: it is difficult to separate the tape from its backing (though the technique can be mastered) and the sheets of tape (it's not on a roll) are not large enough to be able to cut one stripe for an entire row of cavities. But the upside is that the tape really sticks, even better than the vinyl (electrician's) tape used by Andrey Dubovik. It also conforms to the curves of a mold cavity the best of anything I have used. One caveat: It's crucial to leave a tab to grasp the tape when removing it--it sticks so well that it takes some force to remove it.

I used these sea sponges (the closest I could find to what Kirsten appeared to be using). They are tricky to get used to, and the secret seems to be to get a very small amount of cocoa butter on the sponge. If you want, I can enclose one of them with the trays I am sending you (from the Classifieds)--I have a ton of them as I didn't realize how many little pieces of sponge I would get from a single sponge. I used them on the blue egg I made, and they worked really well there, as I wasn't constrained to get a certain design right (such as the galaxy).

Thanks for the kind words. Glad you recognized the galaxy design, and you are right: it's very difficult to get in all the colors on a small egg.