Jim D.
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Posts posted by Jim D.
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The chocolates I made for Thanksgiving 2017. I wish to thank two eG people who helped with the technique of swirling colored cocoa butter in molds: @Lisa Shock (in the thread on how certain decorations are achieved) and @RWood, who was very generous with her expertise on the same technique and how she created the beautiful piece that is her "avatar." Success at this decorating method has eluded me for longer than I care to admit. The marbling effect turned out better than any previous attempt, and in my new demisphere molds (custom made through Tomric), any decorating method seems easy. This was also the first batch decorated with my new Grex airbrush (when I have time, I will post some comments on that in the airbrush thread).
Clockwise starting with the yellow piece at the top: banana & passion fruit caramel, yuzu with ginger, Meyer lemon, apricot pâte de fruit & almond gianduja, chocolate chip cookie truffle, strawberry-flavored marshmallow & kalamansi, coffee ganache & hazelnut gianduja, eggnog with dark rum, spiced pumpkin, plum with port, coconut cream, apple caramel
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I have now used pipeable marshmallow in a batch of chocolates. Pastryani asked how much air was incorporated. I cut a piece in half to observe, and there were very few bubbles--it's similar to the swmsweets photo above, but even fewer real bubbles. That may be my lack of skill, but I think it's primarily a function of cramming the marshmallow into a plastic bag and squeezing it into many cavities--how many bubbles could stand up to that? The taste and texture, on the other hand, are very marshmallowy, so I am pleased with this recipe. I did discover that any flavoring (I used strawberry) becomes weaker than anticipated. I paired the strawberry marshmallow layer with a kalamansi ganache, in which I deliberately removed some kalamansi, replacing it with cream so as to decrease the citrus flavor, but the strawberry was still mostly overpowered. I am concluding that marshmallow needs to stand on its own and think I will next try passion fruit, with no second layer.
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6 hours ago, pastrygirl said:
I'll trade you pistachio paste for Aw readings
I would be glad to do readings, but the problem would be that by the time your sample gets to me, the reading would no longer be accurate.
When you mentioned not roasting pistachios, it occurred to me that I don't know whether the two brands I sampled yesterday were roasted or not--I just assumed they were. I always roast them, but only for a very short time as they burn very easily. I think it brings out their flavor.
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You have a stone grinder? I'm impressed.
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Here is my comparison of the Agrimontana (Sicilian) and the Fiddyment Farm (California) pistachio pastes: First, this is just my opinion (this should be obvious, but I will state it anyway). Second, I tried to taste them without concern for price, but it is difficult to do when the difference is so pronounced ($300+ vs. $127 for 2 kilos).
I did a blind taste test, plain and then with a piece of dark chocolate. I did not have a clear favorite for taste. In the Fiddyment, the oil does not separate out much at all, whereas in the Agrimontana, the separation is pronounced. This means that I might not have mixed up the latter well enough, but the Agrimontana is appreciably thicker. They are equal in smoothness--I detected no graininess in either one. The Agrimontana is darker in color (closer to brown than to green); I'm not sure if this means anything or not, perhaps just more roasting of the nuts? In answer to the crucial question as to which tastes more like pistachios, I would say the Fiddyment. The Agrimontana (the only ingredient listed is pistachios) has what might be called a "deeper" flavor, but the Fiddyment (which contains pistachios and pistachio oil) shouts out that it is ground-up pistachios. The Fiddyment tastes slightly sweeter, but neither contains any added sweetener; perhaps California pistachios are sweeter by nature.
I have not tasted the MEC3 product, which is more readily available than the Agrimontana (see earlier in this thread); both are made from Sicilian pistachios. Of the two pastes I tasted, if I had to decide right now which to buy, it would be the Fiddyment Farm. I will need to take into account its less viscous texture, but this is easy to do.
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3 hours ago, jmacnaughtan said:
I can handle a big sugar hit from white chocolate, but it seems other people can't, so there's a big pinch of Maldon salt in both the base and the chantilly. It probably needs something sharp to balance it out; diners still commented on the sweetness...
It is a beautiful dessert. I can't imagine anyone commenting on your desserts except with the most lavish of praise. Having said that, yes, white chocolate can be really sweet. What chocolate are you using? If you haven't tried it, Valrhona's Opalys is a bit less sweet than all the others I have tasted (which at this point is a lot).
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1 hour ago, pastrygirl said:
Also, I'm not sure how many health nuts are in your neck of the woods, but around here there is a faction who wants soy-free chocolate because soy is one of the crops most associated with GMOs.
I would expect nothing less from Seattle residents!
In this neck of the woods, we don't allow health nuts (your words), and soybeans are a big crop--regardless of their origin.
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9 hours ago, pastrygirl said:
So I don't think you should assume you need to add lecithin just because it's not already in there. If it's too thick, thin with CB as needed. If those scraps are blended with new, adjust that to your liking. Or if you don't want to add anything at all and it is too viscous for shell molding, use it in ganache.
You may be over-thinking it
Me over-thinking it? Never! I think of it as a healthy OCD.
I'm glad you mentioned the chocolates without lecithin. I'm not keen on using it because a little too much, and it thickens the chocolate. Norman Love and Jin Caldwell (Jinju Chocolates) appear to use Fortunato for bars both plain and with additives. I have not yet found anyone who uses it for shells, which may say a lot. I was leaning toward getting some to use in ganache if not for anything else.
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Those of us at the eGullet workshop in Las Vegas this past May were given, among other goodies, a large block of an unidentified milk chocolate. Several of us agreed that it was among the best milks we have tasted, and my own view was that it was the best, no question. Thanks to @Chocolot I learned that the sample came from Chef Rubber and was an example of Fortunato No. 3. For those not aware of this relatively new-to-the-market product, there is a website that explains the remarkable story of its rediscovery. I definitely wanted more and learned that Chef Rubber is the sole distributor of Fortunato in the U.S. I did not want to purchase a huge amount without knowing what it is like to work with (in particular, tempering and making shells), so wrote to one of the two discoverers of the chocolate, who referred me to Chef Rubber, from which I received this information:
QuoteFor the Couverture we do not add vanilla or lecithin to the product so tempering is helpful to add one tenth of one percent.
I would thin down the couverture with 3% to 5% plain cocoa butter for shell coating to make thinner shells.
This was not particularly good news to me since I don't like to tamper with the formulations of couvertures (by adding cocoa butter, for instance). On the other hand, I don't want to temper something that, within a few minutes, turns into a blob of solid chocolate. I do have some liquid lecithin, so might experiment, but with Christmas orders approaching, I don't have time to play around too much. One problem I foresee is what to do with leftover chocolate. I assume I would not add the lecithin again, probably not the cocoa butter, but I would have to keep track of how much of the chocolate is leftover (and thus has been doctored) and how much is new. This alone sounds like a pain. Any suggestions on how to approach this issue? I am puzzled as to why the usual additives would not have been included in the grinding, conching, tempering process (which, by the way, was done by Felchlin in Switzerland, though their name is not officially used on the product). Incidentally I have not tasted the dark chocolate, though Norman Love and Jin Caldwell are excited about it.
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4 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:
Spoke to the gelato maker who is next to us at the NW chocolate festival. He had a MEC3 'badge' on his chef's coat. He said there are two MEC3 products one pure Sicilian pistachio - the other a mix. He said you could contact him at info@nuttysquirrelgelato.com. He loves to talk pistachio!
Yes, that is what JeanneCake pointed out. Thanks for the email contact. Tomorrow the paste I ordered from Fiddyment Farm arrives, and I will do a side-by-side taste test with the Agrimontana product.
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I reread another thread on pistachio paste (mostly having to do with ice cream) and found the Fiddyment Farm reference, with some good reviews on Amazon for their paste. So I ordered a small container of paste and some pistachios and will see how that is. The pricing is about $125 for the equivalent of 2 kilos (somewhat different from the MEC3 pricing). I'll report here on how the California paste stacks up against the Sicilian.
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Thanks for clearing that up. On the Gourmet Food World site (to which you linked for the pure paste) I found the other MEC3 product (the one that Pastrychef sells), and it does contain almonds and sugar as well as pistachios. I suppose the price of the two products says it all: 2 kilos for $307 for the pure paste, 2 kilos for $141.50 for the mixed.
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Update: The Manhattan site that carried Agrimontana just a few weeks ago now has Thiercelin, a French brand, priced at $175 per kilo (on the Thiercelin site it's $87). It says it is 100% pistachios. Might have to add a "pistachio surcharge" to those chocolates.
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Obviously Agrimontana is missing out on the U.S. market. I realize that the MEC product is sold as gelato flavoring, but I thought it was pure paste. What else does it contain? The MEC website says the sole ingredient is "Pistachio paste," but of course that could be deceptive depending on the meaning of "paste." I was always impressed with the Agrimontana product because it did not resort to coloring its product green--and some American sellers included a caution not to expect a green color. If MEC is not just paste, then I am at a loss for locating the product.
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It now appears that Agrimontana's excellent pistachio paste is unavailable (to ordinary mortals, at least) in the U.S. The only remaining place that states they carry it (and that I have found in a lengthy web search) is Pacific Gourmet, but from all I can tell, they serve only the San Francisco area. L'Epicérie no longer has it in stock and, from all I can judge from their customer service, will not have it. Same for a gourmet shop in Manhattan.
So I have begun looking at other high-quality brands and have come across MEC3 (which got a few very strong recommendations on the Cheftalk forum) and Sosa (I cannot find any reviews, but their products in general get high marks). Does anyone have information on these two brands and/or any other sources with which you are familiar?
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Perhaps heat the knife slightly, then cut. You would need to experiment to discover what "slightly" turns out to be.
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Is the recipient going to eat the bonbons quickly? If not, I would be concerned with shelf life. You might want to read this thread on the shelf life of bonbons with cheese, especially my quotes from Sebastian from The Chocolate Life. I respect everything he says about the technical aspects of chocolate, and he scared me off trying the Stilton and port filling:
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6 hours ago, pastrygirl said:
Are they though, or are they just instagram-ing one mold at a time? Even Melissa Coppel admitted that a lot of her stuff isn't practical for retail production because you'd have to charge way too much to cover the labor. OTOH, stagiaires & interns, if they can be trusted to do it right
Yes, I watched Melissa meticulously (a word that applies to everything she does) use a little sponge brush to paint an arc in a mold, then paint another arc slightly overlapping it. Beautiful effect, but.... Kate Weiser is a chocolatier who does demanding, meticulous work on a large scale (a sample box suggested that the pieces are hand-painted), but photos show assistants doing this.
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To second what Kerry said, if you add the full amount of cocoa butter in the form of silk, it tends to make the ganache too firm, decidedly so for use with a guitar.
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@Bentley, I haven't had luck with using tape--the color always seeps behind it. I must have used the wrong kind of tape. A food-safe type of tape supposedly exists (someone on eGullet said he had it, but he never returned to explain what it is and where to get it).
I don't think I have ever seen a perfectly round and smooth mold like that. It must have been quite a job to get the tape up the sides--somewhat labor-intensive, to put it mildly. What is the source of the mold?
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@Bentley, so are you going to reveal how you got that beautiful stripe? Inquiring minds want to know.
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This topic developed from the thread on including marshmallow in bonbons but was not directly related to that discussion. Many people include cookies of some sort in their chocolates, and it seems to be very popular with customers. I would like to try this idea and had some concerns about shelf life and how it might be affected. I (and many others) have long included feuilletine in bonbons, and that is, of course, a form of cookie. I mentioned my concerns in the marshmallow thread but decided to post a question on The Chocolate Life: "Does including something like shortbread or a cookie do anything to lower shelf life or present other problems with safety?" I received the following thought-provoking response from the owner of that forum:
QuoteThe answer is ... maybe; a lot depends on what you are adding and its shelf life. If you have any questions about shelf life you should do the testing. At the very minimum you should test for water activity (aW). The amount of free water in a recipe is a primary determinant of shelf life at room temperature. Water is the medium in which spores will grow. The ingredient you add could have spores, or you could be mixing some in after opening and breaking down into small pieces.
Regulations for working with pasteurized milk (when making ice cream for example) require that the milk be repastuerized after opening because it is assumed that simply breaking the seal on the container and opening it will introduce bacteria that must be killed by heating.
The statement on pasteurized milk regulations brings up the issue of sanitation: after milk is repasteurized, what is to prevent it from being recontaminated once it is exposed to air for even a few seconds? Obviously the regulations must envision a zone somewhere between complete absence of contaminants and total disregard for sanitation. Once I make a cookie I hope to include in a bonbon, I will test the aW; I would expect the water activity level of something like shortbread to be quite low, but we will see.
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2 hours ago, pastryani said:
Jim - glad to hear you had success with this, and thanks for sharing. Do you feel like there was enough air incorporated into the MM given that it was pipeable? If you get a chance, it would be nice to see a cross-section of your finished product.
I piped into empty molds (no chocolate involved) just to see if the process would work, so there is nothing meaningful to photograph yet, but when I actually use the marshmallow in a bonbon, I will cut one in half. Of course, the piping process eliminates some of the air, but there were some holes, and, to my mind, that is a small sacrifice to pay to be able to pipe the mixture into a mold.
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I have continued my pipeable marshmallow experiments and want to report what was successful. The recipe below is based on the RecipeGullet one for strawberry marshmallows, with adaptations for piping. I have converted the measurements to grams.
Notes: The tricky part of the process is getting the marshmallow to a low enough temperature that it will not melt the chocolate shells but not so low that it starts to set. In practice I found that if you keep piping, that window is wider than it might seem. I suspect the heat of one's hands on the piping bag helps, and one could always give a little boost with a heat gun. A larger amount of marshmallow might present problems; therefore the amounts are half of the RecipeGullet ones. I think the reason my earlier attempts failed is taking the syrup to a higher temperature; with the 235F/113C specified here, the mixture is easily pipeable and does not leave a trail of marshmallow over the top of the mold. It is worth mentioning that the marshmallow loses its pink color as it is beaten.
PIPEABLE STRAWBERRY MARSHMALLOW
Mix 14g (2 envelopes) unflavored gelatin with 120g strawberry purée (strained to remove any pulpy parts) and (if desired) 1/8 tsp. orange flower water and (if desired) 1 tsp. strawberry compound in a small bowl and place over hot water. Make sure all the gelatin is dissolved.
Meanwhile put 300g sugar, 185g glucose, and 100g water in a heavy pot. [Edited 4/20/2018: From a suggestion made by Pastrypastmidnight, I now substitute 100g of strawberry purée for the water--a change that substantially enhances the fruit flavor.] Over low to medium heat stir until the sugar is dissolved, washing down any crystals on the side of the pot. Let the sugar mixture boil until it reaches 235F/113C, then remove from the heat and allow to cool until the temperature is 212F/100C. During this time be sure to keep the gelatin mixture warm.
Transfer the gelatin mixture to the large bowl of a mixer with a whisk attachment, turn on the mixer, then slowly pour the syrup down the side of the bowl. Gradually increase the mixer speed to high. When the marshmallow is very thick, start testing its temperature. For piping into molds, it should fall to around 92F/33C (this assumes further cooling as it is transferred to a piping bag). Beat the mixture at slow speed while waiting for it to cool. [Edited 5/29/2020: I now fill a large plastic bag with ice cubes and hold it against the side of the mixing bowl; it lowers the marshmallow to a pipeable temperature quickly. I have also discovered that waiting to add flavoring (vanilla, purée, etc.) until the end of the beating thins out the marshmallow enough that it pipes easily and even self-levels in the cavities. After a day of standing, it had formed a skin on top that made piping an additional layer easy. When I measured its water activity level, it was 0.78, higher than when adding flavoring earlier but still acceptable for most people.]
With an oiled spatula transfer the marshmallow to a piping bag and pipe into molds. The piping should be done as quickly as possible (at 86F/30C the gelatin begins to set). Allow the marshmallow to set at least 12 hours before adding a second layer or closing the mold.
Approximately 90-100 cavities (15g size) can be fully filled with this recipe.
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Pistachio paste
in Kitchen Consumer
Posted
No, the sample can be solid. The issue is that it has to be spread into a little plastic cup (1.5" in diameter, a little less than .5" in height), so liquid is definitely easier. But food inspectors carry these devices around to test the shelf life of things like baked goods, which have to be chopped or ground up for the test. I am getting ready to experiment with incorporating shortbread into a bonbon and plan to chop up the shortbread to fit in the cup to test it. I own no stock in the company that makes the Pawkit, but checking the Aw does provide a large amount of comfort with a ganache recipe I have invented myself--or a lot of concern when the reading goes up to higher levels. At that point it's time to reformulate! I can say that when I submitted my application for approval to sell chocolates, the state authority appeared to be impressed that I included Aw readings with the recipes I was required to provide.