Jim D.

Pouring fondant can be found in small (and very inexpensive) quantities at L'Epicérie--a wonderful source for many things in the pastry realm. In fact, the business was created to provide small quantities to small producers.

@AlaMoi, I can't answer all your vanilla questions, but I can tell you that $10 per bean is quite high. I get my supply from Slofood Group. I like their Madagascar beans the best, but they have many other varieties. I have been very satisfied with the freshness. They have 25 Madagascar beans for $24 and offer many other price points.

The cream cheese contains water, so the strawberries probably won't stay crunchy. There is a wall between ganaches/caramels and giandujas (and similar water-free fillings), meaning that if there is any water in an ingredient, anything crunchy won't stay that way. Some recipes from professional chefs call for including nuts in a ganache (Peter Greweling has a recipe like that); the whole hazelnut he uses remains crunchy for a while but eventually becomes soft--or as soft as a hazelnut can get.

As I mentioned in our phone call, you married well!

Good to see you on eGullet. From our phone conversation I know you have already been down many of the rabbit holes on this forum, so it's too late to warn you about that pitfall. Using freeze-dried eggnog sounds like an interesting possibility. I'm currently swamped with Thanksgiving and Christmas chocolates and so don't have time to experiment, but I would like to do so after December 25. After the post quoted above, I took a couple of Kalle Jungstedt's online courses, and he has a section on cookie layers. Many people call them praliné layers, but they don't have to contain nuts. So when I needed a crème brûlée bonbon for an October wedding (in my area October now sometimes seems like August), I tried Jungstedt's idea. I had some of the ground caramel in the freezer. I mixed that with melted white chocolate and cocoa butter plus a little feuilletine, then piped that on top of the vanilla ganache. It worked surprisingly well--the caramel bits maintained some of their crunch and did not have a chance to clump together, and the "mouth impression" of the layer was close to the caramel crunch of the original dessert. The layer, however, ends up on the bottom, rather than the top, of the bonbon. Aside from that minor issue, the layer doesn't have the close approximation to a crème brûlée caramel layer that the ground caramel alone does.

@Kerry Beal@pastrygirl I got back to the Wybauw pear and almond ganache discussed a few days ago. You will recall that I had already enrobed it in dark chocolate when I noticed something like syrup leaking out. I experimented with melting down 50g of the enrobed pieces and adding 10g of melted cocoa butter (the idea was to add cocoa butter to balance the sugar but not add flavor that would cover up the delicate pear). It turned out that 10g was far too much--the ganache improved in texture but was far too solid. Therefore (I guessed) I was on the right track, but the dark chocolate used for enrobing might be enough to eliminate the stickiness. So today I melted down all the enrobed pieces. The resulting ganache was very fluid, but a sample left in the fridge for a few minutes showed that it would eventually be OK. I had every chocolatier's dream-come-true: a ganache easily pipeable that eventually crystallizes (and yes, the Aw is OK--0.68). I was even able to use the confectionery funnel (one of my best purchases) to deposit the ganache into shells. It worked, so I thank both of you for your suggestions. I will, however, make a note in the recipe NOT to try enrobing it again. Never tempt the chocolate gods to strike the same recipe twice.

I don't know of any solution to problem #1. You might try Cacao Barry's Zephyr white chocolate; it's less sweet. Or if money were no object, Valrhona's Opalys, even less sweet. But all whites are sweeter than most people would like. The more acidic the fruit filling is, the less sweet the shell will seem--think lemon, lime, unsweetened passion fruit, kalamansi, yuzu.

@Kerry Beal, do you have any ideas as to why the ganache turned syrupy and leaky and refused to dry out properly?

Do you know someone who could arrange it? It might be worth it. I believe today is an appropriate day for such adventures.

Another day in this saga. The test pieces still looked fine today, whereas the squares awaiting enrobing still were sticky to the touch. With this conflicting evidence, I decided to forge ahead. I got all 120 pieces dipped without major incident. They didn't stick to the dipping fork. I let them crystallize for a while, then began removing them from parchment to put them in boxes for Christmas freezing. They still looked OK. Then I noticed some shiny spots on the parchment, and these began to increase. Whatever the syrupy component in the ganache may be, it was determined to leak out of the shells. The squares (minus their decorative almond) are now sealed in bags awaiting further attempts at salvage. It is quite discouraging--not just because I have one less finished Christmas item but mainly because I have absolutely no idea what went wrong. And, alas, Chef Jean-Pierre is not reachable...by any method I am aware of. One small consolation: the ganache is quite delicious.

Yes, I have made it before, always piping it into shells (so whether it was sticky or not never showed up). Yes, there was a foot, but the pieces still stuck. The dipping may be easier once I get a large bowl of tempered chocolate and can dip each piece deeper into it. The test pieces still show no sign of anything amiss. If that is still the case tomorrow, I think I will go ahead and try more pieces and see what happens. Even if they are coated in chocolate, they can still be melted down for other options. Thanks for the ideas.

I'm having difficulty with a ganache and lack of sufficient crystallization. I have made Wybauw's pear ganache with almond praliné. It's intended to be piped on top of disks, which are then dipped in chocolate. I assumed that technique meant that it would be firm enough to dip, so I decided to pour it into a slab, then cut it on the guitar, and dip each piece into dark chocolate. to be topped with a chocolate-covered almond. The finished ganache was extremely fluid. Although it has a sufficient amount of cocoa butter, I added some cocoa butter silk to help it crystallize. After a day it was still too fluid to cut. So I refrigerated the slab until it was firm enough and managed to cut it on the guitar, even though the pieces were softening as I worked with them. I put the cut pieces in my cooling room (60F) and left the container open so that a crust would form (this has worked many times in the past). Today the pieces are still sticky to the touch. As an experiment I enrobed a few in dark chocolate and am looking for signs of sugar bloom or something like that; so far they are OK, but they stuck to the dipping fork and had to be removed from it with a small knife. That technique is a pain, but it does work. I am afraid that the experimental pieces will eventually develop bloom and ruin the dark chocolate coating, but I can't wait forever. Any ideas on what to do? I am certain I followed the recipe as written (except for the added silk), but in the past I have always piped the ganache rather than slab it. Obviously Wybauw intended it to crystallize sufficiently. Following my primary rule for chocolate (always have a backup plan), I can melt down the cut pieces and turn them back into a pipeable ganache, but that is a last resort since I was counting on this item to be frozen for my Christmas assortment.

Just to be clear: The pre-filter is held in place only by suction from the fan. Changing it entails lifting off the used filter and putting a new one in place--takes maybe 5 seconds. I am curious what sort of filter the CW device uses that can last that long.

I had forgotten about this particular topic in this thread, but thought I should add my latest discovery. Since I took a couple of Kalle Jungstedt's online courses and discovered his technique for a "cookie layer," I may have solved the crème brûlée quandary. This technique is by no means unique to Chef Jungstedt, but I hadn't tried it before. He calls for melting cocoa butter and chocolate, then mixing that with a little sea salt and finely ground cookie crumbs. It can be piped on top of a ganache or any other filling (if done quickly enough) and hardens into a crunchy layer. It's much neater than my previous method of making little cookies and surrounding them with a "moisture barrier" (a meltaway essentially). The cookie layer is not quite as crunchy as the whole cookie is, but it's a lot easier and looks better. So I tried the technique with the ground-up caramel bits plus a little feuilletine added to melted white chocolate plus cocoa butter. It worked and provides almost the same crunchy experience as just the caramel did. This method is much like some of the other ideas in this thread (such as spraying the caramel bits with cocoa butter or chocolate).

@Anthony C, as you have no doubt read, I am a fan of the CakeSafe spray booth. When I moved to my basement for CCB spraying, I considered venting to the outside. I saw a couple of examples of such setups when the eGullet chocolate workshop was held in Las Vegas (Melissa Coppel's was one). I was impressed, but the more I thought about it, I realized that CCB crystallizes very quickly (more or less as soon as it hits a mold), so it would take an extremely powerful exhaust fan to get it out of the area before it crystallized on the sides of the vent. If it got outside, then there is the issue of where it lands. As you pointed out, cleaning it off the landing area (wherever it might be) is a daunting task. The CakeSafe concept is to catch the CCB before it gets into the air, thus the various filters inside the fan box. Yes, the first one catches most of the spray and has to be replaced rather frequently (Kerry Beal had a suggestion for reducing the cost of that). But the device really does work. The CCB that contains a lot of white produces the most overspray (in my experience), so some of it does get into the air around the box, but not much. I still wear a mask, and I also use a small fan aimed at the CakeSafe booth that helps to redirect the spray back toward the CakeSafe fan (the CakeSafe people said they were going to start recommending that to customers). For spraying I mostly use a Fujispray spray gun, and the CakeSafe fan is able to cope with its rather powerful output. I have referred previously to the CakeSafe video with chocolatier Sydney. The company where she works has a very large chocolate output daily, and she loves the CakeSafe (I spoke directly to her). I just checked, and CakeSafe ships internationally. It is also useful that the inventor of the spray booth is co-owner of the company and is available for more information and troubleshooting. I use just one of the fan units, and it is quite sufficient. My output is far less than yours, so you would need to consider that factor. Apart from Christmas, Valentine's, and Easter, I make about 1,000 chocolates per month, which amounts to about 48 molds I have no connection to CakeSafe except as a customer, but would be glad to try to answer any questions. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it does work.

You make all the delectable treats you have been posting in a toaster oven?! I am impressed; in fact, I am in awe.

Does anyone know why the cooked taste doesn't happen in the microwave?

We can file this post under "You're never too old to learn a new trick with confectionery": I used RLB's raspberry purée method (via @JeanneCake) for my raspberry cream (a recipe originally from @Kerry Beal). I kept the raspberry juice in the purée (an idea from @pastrygirl), then reduced the purée in the microwave. The flavor was a revelation--no cooked taste at all, strong raspberry flavor. As Jeanne warned, the reducing process is tedious and could be rather messy--though I reduced the microwave power so that the raspberries didn't boil over. Thanks to all concerned.

Can you explain what you mean by "a praline" and how it differs from gianduja?

Thanks for those insights. I agree about home grown vs. frozen: using fresh sounds good (and sometimes is better), but usually frozen has stronger flavor. I read somewhere that when using fresh berries, freezing them first helps break down the cell walls. I too drain the thawing berries, but your description of microwaving the juice sounds scary. I'll give it a try some day when I am feeling very adventurous (and ready to clean a very messy microwave). If it really does prevent the cooked taste, it's worth a try. Have you ever used Valrhona's Framboise chocolate? It's delicious and contributes a strong raspberry flavor, but it does have that same cooked taste.

So do you boil those purées down to reduce them? I suppose they could be thickened in other ways.

Lest you think I am a barbarian, the recipe calls for bringing the raspberry purée to a boil. I just wanted to avoid boiling it a lot in the act of reducing it. I love @JeanneCake's mention of the strainer. I think seeding raspberries must be one of the worst kitchen tasks imaginable.

When a fruit is frozen, it becomes watery when thawed. Obviously it's all juice that was originally inside the fruit, so I misspoke in the previous post. I just meant that making something like a sauce out of thawed raspberries would be rather watery if the berries weren't drained. As I said (and as Greweling usually prescribes), some reduction is usually called for to boost the flavor. With any frozen purées, that's the only option for increasing the flavor, but when I'm using frozen fruit, I have the chance to increase its flavor by draining out some of the juice in the early stages and so avoiding the cooked taste. My mistake with the raspberries in the ganache recipe was that I removed too much water/juice.

Are you tempering the gianduja? There are various ways of doing this: You can use cocoa butter silk if you have access to that. Otherwise "table" it, or put the pot in a larger pot filled with cold water and stir the gianduja. It will thicken as it crystallizes. As I said previously, if it gets too thick, you can always melt it and repeat the process. When you say "hazelnut paste," I assume you are speaking of plain paste (not hazelnut praline paste). If so, then you may need more chocolate.

Probably a mixture of both. But frozen raspberries have to be drained at least to some degree. I dislike recipes that call for reducing purées as they acquire that cooked taste, so whenever possible I use the method I described.