Jim D.
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Posts posted by Jim D.
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27 minutes ago, pastrygirl said:
yes and yes
But do you think the theory is correct that sealed items moved from freezer to fridge then to room temp should be OK? If not, how do we ever freeze chocolates safely?
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21 minutes ago, gfweb said:
Wouldn't condensation form on anything cold that is exposed to room air?
I think the theory of the method I described earlier is that if the chocolates are airtight, then the condensation forms on the outside of the bag and the ill effects are mitigated by moving them gradually from freezer to fridge to room temp. I have had several successes with the method and the chocolates show no ill effects. I think the problem today may have been moving them from freezer directly to room temp (so that I could remove a few) . But I'm just in the learning process and am certainly not an expert.
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I have found the Weston to be a great vacuum sealer. I had a steak a few days ago that looked and tasted fresh after several months in the freezer. But I have not found that the Weston seals "very nicely" at all when used on manual. Sometimes it works the way it is supposed to. Other times (too many to make it dependable) I place the bag slightly over the teflon tape but not too far into the chamber, the machine starts the process, I press the button for manual, it runs for a while, then there is a pop sound rather than the whoosh it should make, and often there is a burning smell (the teflon tape had burnt spots until I replaced it this morning). I spoke at length with a Weston engineer last week, and many people have had problems with using the sealer on manual, so many that there are instructions on how to disconnect the vacuum sensor/timer and make it totally and always manual. He was willing to guide me through the process, but I quickly said no when he said that if you are using the Weston as a vacuum sealer and misjudge whether the vacuum is sufficient or not, letting it run too long, you risk burning out some part (don't remember the details because at that point I thought, no thanks).
Pastrygirl, yes, the Weston has a manual setting (as I described), but it does not have variable vacuum strength--you can't select 25%, for instance. There is a new model (and isn't there always a new model just after a purchase?) that can do that, and I think FoodSaver has machines that have the feature. Since you and I are concerned in particular about chocolates, I should report that my freezing method does not appear to be perfect. When the chocolates are in their final destination box and are sealed (no vacuum) in a bag, then refrigerated, then frozen, then back to the fridge, then to room temp (as the experts say to do), they are fine--or at least they are so far. But I had frozen a tray of individual pieces and needed some of them, and when I removed the tray from the freezer and opened the bag, condensation formed immediately on some of the chocolates. In Peter Greweling's chocolates book, he says to put the chocolates in a box and use a "gentle" vacuum, but when I tried that with the Weston, the box was crushed (along with its contents).
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Thanks for the reply and for the suggestion about Vacuum Sealers Unlimited. I've learned that the chocolates freeze better already in their boxes, and my largest box size is 10 x 10 (and they are 1 1/2" tall), so 13" is about the minimum width for bag.
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There have been some mentions of these sealers (which simply seal a plastic bag without vacuuming any air out) in other threads, but I was unable to find opinions that focused on these machines. I make filled chocolates. In order to freeze them for future use, I first tried my Weston 2300 vac sealer but quickly learned that chocolates cannot withstand that pressure, and when they are in a box, the Weston crushes the box. I used the Weston as a sealing-only machine, but it's not very good at that--you have to place the bag exactly in the right spot to keep the vacuum pump from activating and that is very difficult to do consistently. Therefore I am exploring impulse sealers. These simple machines look like the best I can do. They don't get rid of whatever air is in the bag, but they prevent additional air from entering and therefore keep out odors and--worst of all for chocolate--moisture.
My first question is whether I should just go with the fairly inexpensive machines (what looks like the standard model is around $150 for the 16" long sealing area I need) or with the Vacmaster (about $400). The latter seems like overkill (in price, in weight, and in storage area required), but it has a 5mm wide seal, which gives a much more secure seal for freezer use than the others, with their 2mm seal. A failure of the seal, and the chocolates would be covered with freezer "snow."
My second question is about what bags to get. From what I have read, a 3-mil bag would be best for freezer use. Polypropylene sounds like the material I want--it is good at providing a moisture barrier--but does not seem to come in the bag sizes I need. The Weston bags are quite sturdy, but I'm not sure they can be used in a regular impulse sealer (they might exceed the thickness these sealers can handle or the quilted side might present problems) and would be rather expensive to use in the long run. Perhaps sous vide bags are the answer, but I am not familiar with them at all.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
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When I first started using coconut oil, I learned that not all coconut oil sets up completely hard at room temp. The unrefined kind that still has its coconut taste (and is therefore great for making a coconut filling) is quite hard, but the refined and (I think) more highly processed kind (LouAna is the most common brand in the U.S.) does not get totally hard. As it has no discernible coconut taste, it is what is used in various flavors of "meltaways" when one does not want a coconut flavor. Greweling has quite a few recipes for these, which are another way of achieving a buttercream-like texture. It is difficult to tell from packaging which type one is purchasing; I suppose the manufacturers of the processed product don't want to say too much about that.
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Thanks for the kind words about the chocolates and my website. I envy your trips to Santiago.
I would be happy to provide the recipe for the mousse. It is the same filling I recently wrote about in the thread on buttercream. It is basically Peter Greweling's orange butter ganache but with a few additions:
Mix 110g softened butter and 40g fondant. Temper 360g milk chocolate and 120g dark chocolate, then add to the butter mixture. Add 50g orange juice concentrate, 20g orange liqueur (I use Grand Marnier), and (the next two are my additions) about 6 tablespoons of orange blossom water and 2 teaspoons of orange zest. Beat the mixture until it acquires a mousse-like texture and lightens in color. Pipe into molds or spread in a frame.
Notes: I really like the orange blossom water because it gives a little twist to the usual chocolate-orange combination, but, of course, it is not necessary. The amount may seem large, but it took that much for the taste to come through. The zest considerably brightens the orange flavor. I know that I criticized fondant in that buttercream thread, but there isn't so much of it in this recipe. The shelf life issue was also discussed in the buttercream thread. I do not know for sure whether beating this filling reduces its shelf life, but its water activity is low. If one is concerned about the effect of the air introduced by the beating, the butter ganache is delicious without this added step.
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I use Kerry's basic recipe. I heat the fondant and temper the chocolate (I don't think the latter is necessary, but I just melt some new chocolate slowly so as to keep it in temper), and yes, the butter needs to be softened. I mix them all with an immersion blender, but a food processor or mixer would work. I think the flavoring is the key to this filling as I get a kind of super-sweet, chalky taste/texture from fondant (maybe that's just me), so I add a lot of flavoring (whether it's vanilla or various kinds of liquor). This same technique also works for fruit fillings, such as strawberry or raspberry (again, with credit to Kerry).
As for fluffing up a ganache, I do this with a butter ganache. I mix the butter, the chocolate, and whatever flavorings I'm using, then beat it with a hand-held electric mixer until it gets a mousse-like consistency. My water activity measurements have been quite low (an orange-cinnamon-ancho chili flavored butter ganache came out at 0.52). Although butter ganaches have a long shelf life, perhaps the mixing in of air does shorten it (I have also read that somewhere), but I have never had an issue with spoilage. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable will speak to this point, which is an important one as I am not entirely sure whether something with a low Aw can still have an impaired shelf life.
Of the two approaches, I prefer the taste of the butter ganache.
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I know that I should say nothing in this thread, but I am sure you will get some acceptable answers (you already have one) to your question. But I cannot resist saying that (IMHO) there is really no substitute in taste for a crust made from butter. If you have a food processor, you might try Julia Child's recipe (the one in From Julia Child's Kitchen). I make some minor alterations to it (such as mixing in the water with a fork), but it is fine the way it is. With very little practice you would be able to whip up a great crust in a short period of time.
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If all the seed has not melted when you get to the working temp (you mention 89F), you should take it out. This can be difficult if you have small pieces (such as I think yours are). A slotted spoon would help get it all. It is easier if you have a large chunk of the seed to start with--perhaps after you get some of your chocolate properly tempered, you could use a piece of that. Just a thought.
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Bentley,
Beautiful and delicious-looking as well. Did you use an airbrush for that great yellow color? Do you mind saying a little about how you did the shell?
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1 hour ago, pastrygirl said:
LOL! Um, I might have to invoke my 5th amendment rights
Would it help if I tell you I used purple, orange, and dark chocolate and the test shells came out shiny but super ugly?
I definitely need to play with pressure and possibly tip sizes, I think the spray was a bit too fine, the color was not very saturated. And I'm not sure how to get splatter, is it lower pressure, thinner CB, larger tip, or some combo?
Did you have to stop fairly frequently to heat up the brush and chocolate? That is the problem I have far too often; I have to stop maybe 10 times in the course of spraying a mold. I'm using a Paasche. I think I need help (about airbrushing, I mean).
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20 hours ago, pastrygirl said:
I tried out the new Grex airbrush and Point Zero compressor today, worked fine with no need for an adaptor (got a Grex hose at Chef Rubber when I bought the airbrush). Reasonably quiet, like a refrigerator running. MUCH quieter than the Wagner airless paint sprayer! Or even my KitchenAid mixer. Now to practice ...
Your public anxiously awaits the results. If you tell me it went perfectly and you produced beautiful chocolates the first time, I think you should be banned from eG.
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I have had situations where I had to hold chocolates for customers for a long enough period of time that they (the chocolates, not the customers) would have deteriorated and have kept them in the refrigerator without an issue. Some luck may have been involved, but I sealed the chocolates (in their individual boxes) in plastic bags. I used a vacuum sealer but without any vacuum (because of what it does to the chocolates--not a pretty sight). When I take them out of the fridge, I leave them still sealed for some hours before opening the bag. So if you have access to a (vacuum) sealer, you could try that. At the moment I have some sealed in bags in the fridge, waiting to be transferred tomorrow to my new chocolate freezer. I will reverse the acclimating process when I take them out and hope for the best.
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9 hours ago, Tri2Cook said:
Thanks Jim. There are some variations in there from what I had figured out based on their recipes and your posts so I really appreciate the walk-through.
Some variations came from exchanges with Pomona's staff. I lowered the amount of pectin to get something less firm than a traditional PDF. I tried adding the dried fruit, which gives a stronger flavor and also means less pectin is needed (but the method also works without the fruit--I made cherry with just juice the first time). I did not continue to post the results of my experimentation this past summer since there did not appear to be any interest on eG in the minutiae of my trial and error attempts on a rather arcane subject.
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This is what I do for a PDF with Pomona's. I am in the process of converting the directions to weight rather than volume measurements, but with purées differing so much in weight, I haven't gotten that far. So the sugar measurements are in grams, but the others are still in volume.
Begin by weighing the pot in which the PDF will be cooked.
Measure 4 cups fruit purée (Note: If it is a fruit that also comes in dried form, such as apricot or cherry, I chop about 1/4 of the final volume very finely, making sure it is fairly soft. Then I fill to the 4-cup mark with purée and heat the fruit and purée slowly so as to soften the fruit more). Add 2 tsp. calcium water and 1/4 cup lemon juice to the purée and heat to the boiling point. If you are using fruit juice with no added fruit, Pomona's calls for doubling the amount of calcium water.
Meanwhile in a bowl mix the first amount of sugar (400g) and 3 tsp. Pomona's pectin. If you are using fruit juice with no added fruit, Pomona's says to double the amount of pectin.
Whisking constantly, add the sugar and pectin mixture to the purée mixture and cook until the mixture returns to a full boil. Remove from heat. Add the second amount of sugar (280g) and 120g glucose. Weigh the pot with its contents, subtract the initial weight of the pot, then calculate 5% of the weight of the PDF. Add that amount by weight of powdered sorbitol. Return the pot to the heat, whisking to make sure the sugar and sorbitol are completely dissolved. Bring back to the boil.
The next part of the process can vary somewhat: If you are looking for a fairly loose final result, you can stop at this point. If you will add more flavoring, such as a liqueur, to the PDF, boil it an additional minute to take the liquid into account. If you are seeking a thicker consistency (like a traditional PDF) or if you are using fruit juice without added fruit, cook the PDF a little longer. You can test the PDF's final consistency by putting a dab on a chilled plate to see how it looks. The helpful thing about this kind of pectin is that if the texture when cooled is not what you want, you can simply heat it up again and cook it a bit longer or you can add a little water or liquor to thin it out. There are other hints on how to fix things on the Pomona's site.
Final notes: The sugar must be added in two amounts because apparently Pomona's doesn't jell properly with too much sugar at first, but more can be added later. I wanted to reduce the second amount, but it turned out that it is this extra sugar and the sorbitol that reduce the water activity (Aw of 0.59 for both apricot and cherry). Pomona's recommends using lemon juice only for certain fruits that might be dangerous to can because of their low acidity (such as blueberries), but I have found that it really helps counteract the sugar and perk up the flavor and so always use it; supposedly the added acid also helps with safe shelf life.
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Tri2Cook,
I am not an expert in the traditional PDF, but I would say that the recipe you included is in that style (mainly in cooking the mixture to 225F/107C). It is a bit unusual, though, in having more purée than sweetener (sucrose + glucose). All the traditional PDF recipes I have seen have more sweetener than fruit. That should make the Fat Duck recipe taste better. I don't know what its water activity reading would be (with the slightly reduced amount of sweetener), but traditional PDFs have fairly low readings My reason for moving to Pomona's is that I didn't like the cooked taste of traditional PDFs. Reaching 225/107 takes longer than one might think, and the fruit flavor (IMHO, of course) gets muted. With Pomona's you bring the mixture to boiling and then take it off the heat. That makes for a high Aw reading, but I use sorbitol to bring the water activity down dramatically.
In the thread on PDF, @Bentley, who experimented with making a traditional PDF and then using a food processor to make it pipeable, nearly ruined his processor doing so. In that thread, @gap mentioned adding some alcohol to avoid this issue.
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7 hours ago, teonzo said:
Lavender!
Teo
An excellent suggestion. Thanks. And I have some lavender in the cabinet that I can use for experiments.
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8 hours ago, keychris said:
Thanks for that info Jim, I have some of that in the cupboard!
Did the lemon juice decrease the pH or increase it? I would have expected a decrease.
Of course you are correct, it would decrease the reading--I had it backwards (this occurred to me after I had posted and gone to bed last night).
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Bentley,
I'm glad to hear from you. We had been discussing how to achieve Kate Weiser's pipeable PDF, but since I didn't get any feedback to my attempts to use Pomona's pectin, I never bothered to complete the description of my experimentation. For the cherry PDF in the cherry-coconut recipe, I used Pomona's. It thickens but does not get firm (because, after consulting with the Pomona's people, I used less pectin than a person making jelly would use), so it remains pipeable. I tested the water activity reading, and it was 0.59--quite respectable; I also used Pomona's optional lemon juice, which not only cuts the sweetness but increases [edit: should be "decreases"] the pH reading and thus lifespan of the PDF. With the minimal cooking and reduced amount of sugar, the flavor was--if I do say so myself--delicious (I'm going to have the rest of the cherry PDF on my toast tomorrow!). The next attempt will be with apricot, though I'm still pondering what to pair it with. Once the weather in Texas gets to the point where Kate begins shipping her product again, I plan to order some of her bonbons that include PDF to see if the flavors are as spectacular as the colors are.
Jim
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My first effort since the summer hiatus from chocolate-making:
Top row: (1) Fig with port and anise, molded in dark chocolate. (2) Fresh mint and lemon ganache, molded in dark chocolate. (3) Passion fruit ganache, molded in white chocolate.
Middle row: (1) Crispy hazelnut gianduja, dipped in milk chocolate, topped with caramelized cocoa nibs. (2) Toasted pecan caramel, molded in dark chocolate. (3) Layers of Morello cherry pâte de fruit and coconut cream, molded in dark chocolate.
Bottom row: (1) Milk chocolate mousse flavored with orange blossom water, molded in milk chocolate. (2) Mocha latte ganache (Kahlúa and cream), molded in milk chocolate. (3) Pink grapefruit ganache flavored with Angostura bitters, molded in white chocolate.
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54 minutes ago, pastrygirl said:
Or you can get it pretty smooth in a food processor then push it through a fine mesh strainer. If you're obsessive about it, that is
I trust that--particularly on this forum--you were not using the word "obsessive" in a negative way!
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On 9/27/2016 at 1:02 PM, Bentley said:
Looks beautiful. How do you get your gianduja so smooth? Mine,which I process in a cuisinart, is always grainier.
Bentley,
Alas, I am not the creator of that beautiful chocolate, but I can probably answer your question. As you already know, you can get close to what you want if you run the food processor a long, long time, but it's not possible to make completely smooth hazelnut paste in a home processor. I understand that there are stone grinders (from India, I think) that can do it. But if you don't want to go to that length, L'Epicérie in NYC carries various sizes of Cacao Barry hazelnut paste and hazelnut praline paste, and I think they are delicious. Recently I have discovered that I prefer gianduja made with 1/2 hazelnut paste and 1/2 dark chocolate--you don't get the added sugar of the praline paste. If you should order either of these items, be aware that L'Epicérie also carries a paste that is not completely smooth.
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1 hour ago, dannysdesserts said:
They released from the molds and I placed them in a 76F room with a fan blowing across them. 40 minutes later they still looked great but were completely soft!
Any thoughts on why the regular fridge items didn't stay in temper? I'm starting to wonder about this chocolate...
If you saw what I wrote about my July 4 experience, you have duplicated that in your kitchen. It isn't a question about whether the chocolate is still in temper. It can have all the Type V crystals in the world, but it can't cope with a warm environment. My guess is the best you can do is to take them out of the regular fridge in the coolest part of the day, unmold them, seal them as close to airtight as you can get, then rush them into the wine fridge, and leave them there--until it's time to eat them!
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Impulse Sealers
in Kitchen Consumer
Posted
The size of the boxes is a sore subject: I went through what seemed like hell to have those boxes made. It revolved around the available sizes of trays. I know that sounds insane, but the cost of having specially made trays is in the thousands of dollars, so I went with having boxes made that fit the trays. To get into entirely too much detail-- it all comes down to the fact that the stock boxes I was using became unavailable because the labor strike on the U.S. west coast made Chinese boxes impossible to obtain for nearly a year.
I know what you mean about waiting 2 days. I am going through all of this because a local store wants to sell my chocolates and the only place they (it's a florist) have to store them is the flower fridge. So I will supply the chocolates in sealed plastic bags. But I will need the 2 days to move them from my freezer. I know this is all a risk, but actually one year when I had emergency surgery just before Easter, I stored chocolates in sealed plastic bags in a refrigerator for several weeks with no discernible ill effect. I am glad to hear that you think a gradual change in temp works. I have experimented with a frozen box (just as I will supply to the florist), moved it to the fridge, then to room temp. I ate one tonight, and no sugar bloom or any other ill effects. And yes, I do realize that, with my last sentence, I am daring the chocolate gods to do their worst. At least I did have the experience today, for the first time, of seeing sugar bloom--with the chocs moved directly from freeze to room temp.