Jim D.

My first attempt at Easter eggs: Clockwise from top left, the flavors are: strawberry cream, crispy hazelnut gianduja, dark salted caramel, and layers of crispy peanut butter gianduja and cherry pâte de fruit. The caramel proved to be a challenge. With the first batch, using my standard caramel, about a third of the shells developed hairline cracks. So I washed the molds, decorated them again, and made more caramel, this time using a recipe that included added white chocolate and cocoa butter. None of those has cracked so far. Any ideas as to what might have happened with the plain caramel? I used Ewald Notter's recipe, and it has not leaked or caused cracks when piped into smaller cavities, so I'm guessing the larger volume of the egg molds is a factor. The eggs are 2 3/4" long and, with the caramel filling, weigh about 50 grams.

"That being said, there's some pretty nasty artificial vanilla out there." Not to mention the fake Mexican vanilla that comes in huge jugs and fools so many tourists (including my late mother). Not long ago I bought some Mexican vanilla beans from Beanilla and was quite surprised at the much more subtle flavor, compared to what my mother inflicted on all of us. I think it was CI that stated that product was not safe to consume.

Since I was not familiar with the term "vanilla essence," I checked Google and got this information: "Vanilla essence...is artificial and made using chemicals to recreate the flavor of vanilla." Do you think that is what the original poster was referring to as "imitation vanilla" or is it something different? Labeling requirements in the U.S. are rather strict and (I think) require the use of the "imitation" term when appropriate.

That is great news, Kerry. Any chance we will see one in operation? I may be mistaken, but I have gathered from comments here and there that you don't use the Fuji that much. On The Chocolate Life someone recommended against it for fairly small chocolate operations, but with the small Fuji cup, I don't see much difference in setup between it and a regular airbrush, and it appears to do so much more.

@Chocolot, what Fuji model (the one you like) did you end up with? This is somewhat off this topic, but I'm hoping this subject can be discussed at the upcoming eGullet workshop in Las Vegas.

I second Kerry on the Paasche model (which she recommended to me a few years ago). The crucial parts are made of metal and so can withstand the heat gun you will need to use better than an all-plastic airbrush.

Beautiful decoration. Do you mind telling how you achieved the effect?

Just wanted to say that I ordered from that site, paying through Paypal, and I never heard a word from them or received an answer from a phone call (or received the glassine sheets). I had to go through the process of getting my payment back. I may be wrong, but I concluded that they are out of business. I purchased a substantial amount of glassine from fancyflours.com, but they no longer sell the sheets (they still have some bags, though not in black).

Previously I mentioned calculating the cost of a hazelnut (meant to be an extreme example, but calculating the true cost of ingredients is difficult). How closely do you think this needs to be done? For those of us who work in our own kitchens, we buy a quart of cream, use most of it in making ganache, but a little here and here for our own morning coffee (buying separate quantities would seem to me ridiculous and ultimately wasteful). Would you make a guess as to how much went toward the business or keep track of it rigorously? Let's say I have tracked it rather closely, so I divide that by the amount of ganache made from it, then the number of pieces made, but there is leftover ganache to think about. At least in the U.S. turning a hobby into a business requires proving that you have made a profit for several years. Only then can one take business deductions, which are a big part of making a business succeed financially (hobby deductions are allowed, but only up to the amount earned from the hobby, which sounds much better than it actually is). And it is quite possible (assuming enough IRS manpower) that one will be audited at some point. So what is your view on record-keeping--wild guesstimates or OCD detail?

I neglected to mention that I also sell chocolates on consignment at a local florist shop. The store did quite well at Valentine's, linking chocolates and flowers (there's no customer like a panicked husband/boyfriend on the afternoon of February 14 who's forgotten the roses and the chocolate!). I get 60% of the sale price (the owner offered 70%, but that seemed a little greedy). I like the consignment arrangement because it removes the merchant's understandable tendency to hold the product until every last box is sold, regardless of what the chocolates may be like. This way I take the hit if they don't sell, but better that, in my opinion, than a disappointing product. I once bought a box of chocolates from the best-known chocolatier in this part of the state, and several pieces definitely tasted stale. There is no bigger reputation-killer than a product sold well beyond its "best by" date.

I think the discussion of pricing is a very interesting topic. I live in a small city in an area where people are quite frugal (a nice word for what I am actually thinking); to add to the perspective, there is a Hershey factory in the area. A pastry chef in town charges (the last I knew) around $1.60 per piece but less for larger size boxes. As I am retired and too old to start an actual business enterprise, I began making chocolates as a hobby and I charge considerably less. Some people who have previously lived in metropolitan areas comment on my low prices, but most people here would not pay a lot more. I am an actual licensed business technically speaking (paying all the taxes and fees--including a "litter tax," of all things), but the U.S. Internal Revenue Service considers what I do a hobby. I have tried several times to calculate the cost per chocolate, but it is quite complicated (if I buy several pounds of hazelnuts and use one to top each piece, how much is each nut costing?--far too much work to figure that out, especially since it is not relevant to my situation, though I am sure others on the forum have gone through this). I don't know what sort of area economically you live in, but $1.27 per piece sounds quite reasonable, probably low if you have invested in equipment, which can be quite expensive. It seems to me that potential customers fall into two categories: either they know what good chocolate tastes like and therefore believe $1.27 is a bargain or they think Hershey's chocolate is just fine and so assume you must be crazy to charge so much. The usual advice given to businesses is not to set prices too low in the beginning because customers resist a noticeable increase later on.

If you are speaking of Australian dollars and if the conversion rate I found online is correct, that amounts to $1.92 US. But I'm sure yours are worth it!

Host's note: this topic was split from Pâte de Fruits (Fruit Paste/Fruit Jellies) (Part 2) I took a look. Rather manipulative site: you have no idea what your selection will cost until you have finished choosing chocolates. And the descriptions are a masterpiece of marketing: dulce de leche is "succulent homemade milk jam"--a rather grand description of cooked sweetened condensed milk. Really! But you are so right, they look amazing.

Just wanted to report that finally I did purchase a box of Kate Weiser's chocolates. I bought 15 pieces and made a point to include all that had PDF. Those were: grapefruit with cashew praline, cherry with Dulcey almond praline, strawberry with white chocolate and basil, apricot with lavender dark chocolate ganache, raspberry with dark chocolate ganache. First, the chocolates are beautiful, almost like paintings. I assume the outsides were mostly hand-painted cocoa butter because they didn't look airbrushed and also there were substantial variations between the photos on the enclosed guide and the actual product. They are on the small side, but that statement comes from someone who prefers chocolates on the large side (I like more than one bite). There is no question they are as delicious as they are beautiful. Some flavors are a bit muted and, like many chocolates, the description helps discern the flavor. The key lime bonbon is outstanding--no wonder the website suggests that if the customer wants to order an entire box of those, it's OK--("make a box of all Key Lime Pies - we won't judge you"), although I must confess that the lime ganache is paired with "graham cracker ganache," and I didn't taste graham crackers. But the PDFs are the point of this post: They are quite good. Aside from the grapefruit, the taste really hits you, and there is no question what the fruit is. The texture is soft but not runny--the PDF layer does not melt into the other layer of the bonbon--but it's not the texture of a fully set PDF. So, as others have deduced, it may be a finished traditional PDF that has been put in a blender or it may use less pectin and therefore not be fully set. Whatever the method, it's delicious and offers a great contrast to the other layer. I would have conducted a water activity test (since shelf life is a question with somewhat liquefied PDFs in a bonbon--what was done to get them soft?), but there was not enough PDF in each piece to run the test. For the record, the box of 15 cost $35, 2-day shipping was $21 (all from my "research budget," of course!). If you think the price is high, someone just sent me an ad for chocolates from Madison, Wisconsin, that are $2.60 each.

I wrote to Aqua Lab asking about this issue and got this reply: "The statement was quoted from the 4TE manual that used the chilled mirror sensor. I've attached the link to the maual, this statement is on page 51 section 8.4." I replied to them, asking specifically: "But does the statement also apply to the Pawkit, meaning that it too may not give accurate readings with high amounts of volatiles in the sample?" And the reply to that was: "Not at all James. Pawkit uses the capacitance sensor, there is not a chilled mirror on the Pawkit. Our Series 4TEV instrument uses the same sensor as the Pawkit."

I was quoting what Wybauw says about the 15% figure; he does not mention "free water."

Jean-Pierre Wybauw states that extending shelf life with alcohol requires adding 15% alcohol to the amount of other liquids in the ganache. This means that a ganache using 500g of chocolate and 250g of cream would require 37.5g of alcohol. That's not a huge amount, but it's not nothing.

I thought I should follow up with what I have learned in regard to this Stilton and port filling. I posted the basic issues about shelf life on The Chocolate Life forum, and Sebastian, who appears to be very knowledgeable about all things chocolate, replied first with information about the impact of alcohol on water activity: "The impact of the alcohol you add will be factored into any Aw reading you take." And in another post: "...an Aw meter will give a reading of the overall Aw of the food system being tested, and will be agnostic of individual ingredients. It considers the system as a whole, and if that system contains alcohol, that will be considered as well as part of that system. As Clay notes, port, while relatively high alcohol for a wine, is still relatively low in overall alcohol content, and as such the contribution of alcohol to the overall formula will be nominal at your likely use level. While it may be measurable, it's not likely to be meaningful in terms of its ability to provide extended microbiology shelf life." So the good news for those with Aw meters is that those devices do take into account any alcohol; the bad news is that it takes a lot of alcohol to make a substantial difference in shelf life. Then there is the cheese in this bonbon. On that issue Sebastian wrote: "Perhaps consider grating the cheese, putting it in a sous vide bag, and then into a pressure cooker - sort of a DIY HPP process to reduce the micro load of the cheese? I've no data on it, but theoretically it should work pretty well. Better yet, grate the cheese, add it AND the port to the bag and pressure treat them both - that way you get the impact of heat, pressure, and alcohol working on micro load reduction." I don't have the equipment to perform that experiment, and frankly the mention of "micro load reduction" would keep me from making this filling in situations where the seller of the chocolate has no control over how long or under what conditions the buyer keeps it. I might make it for guests who I knew were going to eat it right away. So, long story short, I might experiment with this in the coming summer months and, if it tastes good, make some Stilton and port chocolates for Christmas for friends, but, because of the issues with the cheese, I would not see adding it to the list of items I regularly make for sale.

Before you go to a great of work, possibly with a disappointing outcome: If you have a little bit of ganache left over from another project or can throw one together quickly and also have a little bit of chocolate you can temper, you can experiment with a small number of the shells and see what happens. If after watching them for a while, they are OK, then you can (with guarded confidence) use the rest, with the usual caveat that chocolate behaves differently from day to day (or so I have found).

@ChocoMom, Thanks for those ideas. I'm glad to hear that the pineapple oil tasted "true," since I have had some unsuccessful purchases of similar products. Once when I was working on apple flavor, I bought 3-4 products (all of which tasted like the chemicals they were probably made from) until I found a French green apple "essence," which really works.

Very funny, Kerry, but you are the one who seems to enjoy endless experiments. I was looking for examples from the experience of others who add flavorings at the end.

A question on flavored caramel filling for chocolates: How much liquid (fruit purée or liquor, for example) can one "get away with" adding at the end of the process? Liquid needs to be boiled away for caramel to reach the proper temperature, and obviously there would be no chance for that to happen with added liquid. As I discussed previously in making Wybauw's pineapple caramel, the pineapple flavor is best when some fresh purée is added at the end, but more than a little, and the caramel is too runny. I would also like to add some dark rum to this caramel. I have experimented with this recipe to the point where it works satisfactorily: I add simmering cream to the hot caramel, heat it to at around 250F/121C, then add the simmering pineapple purée, which causes the temp to drop to around 220F/104C, but it doesn't take too long to get it back up to the desired final temp (around 234F/112C). This two-step process keeps the pineapple flavor from cooking away too much and doesn't give the fruit long enough to scorch. Today, in order to be able to add some extra liquid at the end, I went to a final temp around 238F/114C, then when the mixture had cooled, added a few teaspoons of fresh pineapple (I didn't try rum today). The caramel has now cooled and is at a perfect consistency, but I am looking for any suggestions on how far I can take these additions--or how high I can take the caramel/cream mixture before adding the pineapple (since it's not possible to eliminate the temperature drop when the purée is added). The recipe has 280g sugar, 70g glucose, 160g cream, 185g pineapple, 65g butter. I doubt that there is a mathematical calculation that would give an exact answer, but would be happy with a ballpark figure which would keep me from having to do endless experiments to find out.

@Bentley, thanks for that suggestion. I will give it a try.

@ChocoMom, Thanks for all that helpful information. I have a Paasche airbrush, which is very similar to the Badger. To use that, you must have sprayed very briefly in each cavity, correct? Otherwise I find that the cocoa butter starts to spread rather quickly (usually that is what one wants, to get full coverage, but not in this case). Jim

@ChocoMom, welcome back to chocolate production. It's obvious you have not forgotten, in the course of your terrible ordeal, how to make beautiful bonbons. Do you mind telling how you got those nice white dots on the black and white piece? I don't have one of those airbrushes that are adjustable and are good for this sort of decoration, so using various hand-held brushes, I get more splotches and drips and dribbles than dots. I need to find a "brush shop" (like the Container Store) somewhere and keep experimenting.