Jim D.

Kerry, Do you mind giving the details of how you achieved that beautiful effect on the chocolates?

A variation on this ginger pie recipe might be a possibility.

@cmflick, thanks for posting that. I had gotten tired of checking the site. Good news indeed.

Bob, Did your (I assume former) helper use detergent? Jim

If she could provide a photo of what she makes now, that would help people locate something similar. If you searched and could not find it, I doubt that it exists (like my demisphere I spent days looking for, then gave up and had it custom made). I use a Chocolate World pyramid, but it is somewhat pointed and has ridges on the sides. My experience is that any mold with a fairly large totally smooth area will tend to show release (or similar) marks--though they may due to operator error. If she knows the weight of a finished piece, she can do a search by weight on Chocolate World. What I dislike about J.B. Prince is that weights are not provided.

Well, that totally turns my expectations on their head--it's not the type of caramel Greweling's "soft caramel" recipes describe. It is, in fact, the type I make for pipeable caramel, although cooking it to a considerably lower temp for that application. Maybe @Chocolot will chime in and clear this up for me (I think I've asked her this before, but could use more clarification). If I'm not mistaken, I think she makes her wrappable caramels by putting everything (including the dairy) in at the beginning and cooking all to temp. Yes, the only string I've broken so far was on gianduja that got firmer sooner than expected. Now after I pour gianduja into the frame, I virtually stand over it, watching it like a hawk (or like a human who still remembers the encounter with a broken wire), and at the first signs of crystallization around the edges, start testing it with my little knife.

@pastrygirl, Do you mind posting the recipe you use for making these caramels? Is this type of caramel always made--to simplify it, I'm sure--by mixing everything together at the beginning, then cooking it to a certain temp? That is the recipe Greweling gives. This is unlike the other type, where sugar is caramelized first, then cream is added and cooked to temp? I've never fully understood how the two types differ. And I've not had reliable success with making caramels that can be cut--they flow back together or are too firm to eat. I would sooner slash my wrist with my guitar than cut caramels with it. You are braver than I. Get in touch when you run out of replacement guitar wire.

In chocolate-making, it can be used (if necessary) to thin out the chocolate used for making shells or dipping centers. Many ganache recipes call for using it in addition to dark, milk, or white chocolate. It is especially useful in making delicately flavored ganaches where the flavor of the chocolate tends to overwhelm the crucial flavor one wishes to highlight. For example, in a pear ganache, with white chocolate as the medium holding it together and making it firm up, the chocolate (even white) will easily dominate the delicate pear. A relatively small amount of cocoa butter substituted for some of the chocolate will help counteract that problem, since the cocoa butter contributes much less flavor of its own. Too much of it, however, and the texture of the ganache becomes "short" (losing its desired unctuous quality). And finally, if one has an EZtemper machine for making "cocoa butter silk," cocoa butter is the required starting point.

Depending on what you paid, you could make a tidy profit from that purchase. I found it interesting that Beanilla no longer lists the great variety of vanilla beans they did only a short time ago--no Mexican, no Tahitian, no Indian--but now there is Indonesian and Ugandan, neither of which I remember seeing.

At Beanilla.com a single bean is $6.95! But you can always get 5 lb. worth for just $1,745.

Aside from those concerns, as I posted earlier in this thread, the Ruby won't be available until (estimated) 2019, so you can tell your customers to relax.

For the record, there is a new message on the L'Epicérie website (quoted below). I have spent untold hours trying to locate alternate vendors, all at higher prices than L'Epicérie (the same pistachio paste is 50% higher at the only other vendor I found), and was going to have to order from multiple suppliers rather than this single one, so whereas I am a bit annoyed that the original message wasn't clearer, I am glad that prospects are looking better--though I would say far from a sure thing (e.g., the September 1 date has passed). I'm just hoping the "repair" of the website doesn't result in all prices being 50% higher. That would be an unpleasant turn of events! Dear Customer, The store is temporarily closed and will reopen hopefully by September 1st. The site has now been repaired and we are in the process of moving to a new and bigger warehouse. We will resume our shipping as soon as the moving is completed and our warehouse is fully functionning again. Thank you for your understanding and please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience this may cause you. L'Epicerie team

OK, I've been looking at these incredible, over-the-top creations for months now, and I have to ask: If it's not overly personal (and not terribly scandalous) what type of business is this? ... And what is the average weight per employee?

More about the new Ruby chocolate: This detailed discussion of the product (appearance, taste, uses, etc.) by Clay Gordon, eminent chocolate authority, is quite interesting: https://www.themaven.net/thechocolatelife/news/and-ruby-makes-four-a-new-flavor-and-color-joins-the-chocolate-family-9E0qKqT9rEm7PduwTDT0Mw-9E0qKqT9rEm7PduwTDT0Mw?full=1 One salient fact: it probably won't be available until 2019.

Speaking only of the Valrhona whites, I tried Opalys when it first came out and immediately liked it. To me it has a strong vanilla flavor and (at least sometimes) a hint of something citrus--though I freely admit that this may be my imagination. I use it as my only white at this time--although it is a horror to temper and use for shells (it thickens after only a few molds). I took a kilo of it to this year's eGullet workshop in Vegas and let Kerry Beal try tempering it. To my relief (I was sure I was losing my mind), it behaved the same way for her. But if one is willing to take the usual steps for correcting its over-tempering tendencies, it is the only white I have tried so far that really tastes good (to me). And for as a base for ganaches (which is the usual way I employ it), it adds a very pleasant flavor. I bought a kilo of Waina but do not care for it. Unlike RWood, I do not taste a lot of vanilla, mostly cocoa butter and sugar. I haven't yet tried the new Valrhona Orelys but want to do so. I have always thought that finding a good dark and milk is not terribly difficult, but white is another matter.

Yes, as I was reading the ruby articles, I happened on the information that chocolate prices are plunging (news to me). Wasn't it just a year or so ago that there were dire warnings of price rises (and some in fact followed)? Glad I'm not an economist and have to explain all this.

I sent the news to Chocosphere. The owner hadn't heard of the new product but said he would contact his Barry Callebaut rep to ask about it, so we'll see how soon it gets to this side of the world. I think the real question is whether--despite all the hype--it tastes good.

Glad you pointed that out since it's not stated--as far as I can tell--on their website. In one of the Grex videos on airbrushing food items, the artist recommends starting with airbrush color, but she is not dealing with chocolate! I like the "Jewel" colors too, but those little grains of whatever it is that makes them sparkle (and it's probably better not to contemplate that too closely) have to go somewhere since they don't dissolve, and an airbrush needle is very small--in your case, 0.5mm to be exact. I am ordering my Grex airbrush next week, with a 0.7mm nozzle, will let you know whether that makes a difference. I have a feeling it's all going to come down to the compressor, which is a big one, required for the 0.7 nozzle.

Has anyone noticed any difference in difficulty when spraying Chef Rubber's "Jewel" colors as opposed to the regular ones? I would like to know if it is my imagination or not. In any event, today the only color that sprayed with any success was a non-Jewel one; the others were coming out intermittently, spitting (though the compressor showed no moisture in the trap), and generally behaving in an unacceptable way. I have noted that Chef Rubber has colors especially made for airbrushes but have not tried those.

As a packaging fanatic, I think those are very good-looking, restrained and elegant. Are you still doing filled chocolates as well as the bars with inclusions? I think I recall that you recently said the filled ones are not selling as well. Is that still true? If so, it's very different from customers in my area.

If there are bean-to-bar manufacturers in the Seattle area (which I suspect there are), I can't see how you could compete with what they make because even if their product isn't that fantastic, it will still have the bean-to-bar cachet. I always respect what Teo says, but in my experience, most customers prefer filled chocolates--after all, they can go to a grocery store and get a decent bar of chocolate at a low price, even in my small city.

This is copied from the quote I was given: Mold Charge: $ 22.95 per Mold in Quantities of 100 Molds $20.50 per Mold in Quantities of 150 Molds $ 18.50 per Mold in Quantities of 200 Molds I was assured these are "like the injection style Chocolate World moulds." I don't know the thickness of the polycarbonate, but am due to get the sample mold soon.

@pastrygirl, I have now gone through most of the process of having a custom injection mold made through Tomric and can probably answer some questions. I say "through Tomric" because it turned out that apparently Chocolate World actually makes the molds. It has been a lengthy process, and we are now quite a bit behind schedule. Apparently the Belgians take Fridays off! It is also, as you know, an expensive process. So far I have received a sample thermoformed single cavity, and it was fine. Mine is a very simple demisphere (or hemisphere, whichever term you prefer), but a midsize between the quite small one that is very common and the next size, which is huge. The minimum order was 100 molds, so I'll be hoping to sell some of them. Now I am waiting for a full injection mold sample, then the whole order will be manufactured. The other company I mentioned earlier in this thread, Micelli, makes the molds in this country. The owner did finally get in touch (apparently there was a glitch in their website--I don't know what happened to the voicemail I left). Once I saw the extra shipping charges, etc., from Tomric, the prices at the two places are about the same. But you would not be interested in starting from scratch since you are already far along. I did use the sample thermoformed cavity once. I wanted to see what the weight of a piece would be. It worked fine, but I think scraping it (if you scrape as vigorously as I do) would be a problem in the long term. If you want to know more about my experience, just ask. And if you wish to buy some nice brand-new demisphere molds, maybe around Thanksgiving, just let me know.

That would be a logical explanation, but I have not heard (or seen) any signs of it. The compressor appears to make the same sound and behave the same even when I use it for a fairly long period of time without pausing. This is what the Paasche manual says: Approximate Working Pressures: • 20 lbs. or Less: Stipple and granulated effects, pressure will vary with viscosity of fluid. • 20 to 30 lbs.: Medium consistency water colors, inks & dyes. • 30 lbs. or More: Heavy fluids, acrylics, reduced lacquers, varnishes, paints or ceramic glaze.

I didn't answer @pastrygirl's question about the equipment I currently use. I have a Paasche airbrush with a nozzle slightly larger than 1mm and an Iwata Smart Jet Pro compressor, which has a top PSI of 35--which I am learning is quite low. As confirmed by Kerry Beal (who has this same setup) the Iwata compressor and the Paasche airbrush cannot be made to do splatter. I experimented a long time with lowering the pressure on the compressor. The process is not at all exact, but no matter where I set the pressure, the output was either the usual full spray or nothing. I could not produce a splatter. If I stick with my current setup, I will definitely get the G-MAC regulator, which allows for regulating the pressure close to the airbrush.