tammylc

I have a recipe for a chocolate pie that's made with tofu. It's pretty good too, rich and decadent. You use a prepared graham cracker or oreo crust, then mix silken tofu, melted chocolate chips and a bit of honey in a blender. Pour and chill.

I do something similar in terms of calculating quantities. I have an Excel spreadsheet with all my recipes in it, set up to recalculate based on the total amount that I want. I use 9 gram molds, and have learned that it takes about 225 grams of ganache per mold (give or take - single molds need a little more and multiple molds a little less, presumably because of waste issues). So depending on the number of molds I'm planning to make, I just plug in the quantity of ganache I need, and then print out the formula. I use the output from those formulas to compile my shopping list for any given production, subtotaling all the cream, for example, so I know how much to buy.

I don't know what Grewling's technique is, but I did a lot of pumpkin marshmallows around Halloween last year. I put the pumpkin pie spice directly into my sugar syrup (and also in with the gelatin/puree mixture IIRC) and never had any problem with the spices separating.

Gingerbread and other heavily spiced cookies have a tendency to make everything in a tin taste the same, so you'll need to be careful about that too.

Thank you Kerry, for all your amazing tips and tricks. But the thing I am most grateful of all for is that you don't take chocolate quite so seriously as some of the rest of us (myself included). It's a good reminder and lesson for me!

Intention sheshmention. Sometimes inebriation happens in a bar. I would just say to make sure you stay 3 nights so you can go twice with a hungover day between. Then get on the plane on the forth day and head to Betty Ford, or some awful lemon juice/maple syrup/cayenne cleanse. Between the food and drink you will need it. Toby ← Inebriation at the Violet Hour? I would know absolutely nothing about such a thing as that. (Thanks Toby!)

I do what Carol does and experiment at home, saving the kitchen for real orders. Usually I'm doing small enough quantities at home that I don't even bother with my melter, but I have been known to move it back and forth (and some other equipment that I don't have duplicates of, like my Thermapen digital thermometer). I leave all my big stuff at the kitchen, though (compressor, vibrating table, most of my molds, etc). For me, when I think about all the work and overhead that would be involved in getting my own space, I'm quite happy to continue with my rented kitchen. But I'm lucky that it's owned by a couple of great women that are fabulous to work with. And that my financial arrangement with them means I can take small orders as easily as large ones.

The model you describe is how I run my chocolate business. I send out what my current offering is and in what form factors you can buy it, collect up the orders, do all my production in one or two rounds, then get it to my customers. This model works really well for me, given that I have another full time job - it makes the work very "containable" and sounds like a great way to test out the concept. As for the form factor to offer, it seems like offering both of what you describe would be a good idea. Selling whole pans minimizes your labor, so be sure to upcharge accordingly for materials and time if you are preparing mixed trays. Good luck!

I think you do need to sample product to sell it. Especially when you're selling an artisanal product - people need to see and taste to understand why they should be buying from you instead of getting a box of Pot O' Gold.

I do my sea salt caramels in dark as well. The contrast is perfect. When I've tried coating caramels in milk I find that the chocolate flavor pretty much disappears. Maybe my milk chocolate (Cluizel) just has a lot of caramely flavors...

For future reference, Darienne, you could have used some of your 60% chocolate as seed to retemper the 70%. And you can also temper without any seed at all, by bringing your chocolate down to the bottom of the tempering curve (82?) and then carefully heating it back up to working temperature. Have fun with Ruth!

I agree with Kerry and Rona. When I do events like this I cut each piece into 2 or 4, depending on how much I have and how generous I'm feeling/how likely I think the audience is to buy. I'll usual offer samples of everything I have, and if I'm cutting small pieces, then I don't mind giving multiple samples either. Good luck!

Good idea Kerry!! Where do you buy it in syrup? ← We have a store close by called the Punjab market. The owners bring in all the things that the european customers want. They sell me whole pails of the australian ginger. It's a beautiful thing. Of course you could always use Andiesenji's method to make your own ginger, just keep it in the syrup rather than dipping in sugar at the end. ← Is there a link to Andiesenji's method? I'd love to try it.

My documentation for where and how water is added is the ingredient label on the back of the bottle. Ingredients: Light corn syrup, water, high fructose corn syrup, salt, vanilla. For comparison purposes, the ingredient list on my glucose syrup: Ingredients: Corn Syrup Most glucose syrup in the US is going to be corn syrup - corn is plentiful and cheap. European glucose is - as you say below - more like to be from another grain like wheat.

At least here in the US, grocery store corn syrup also contains high-fructose corn syrup, which is - as someone mentioned above - sweeter than regular glucose.

Well, if it was her last meal at least it was a meal she loved! And I'm sure it wasn't your fault. But quite the shock to find out about, I bet!

And I appreciated her obsession. I'm just sad that we were both to busy recovering the next day to do anything about it!

Great pictures, Nancy! I agree re. Marmish's coleslaw. It rocked so much I asked her for the recipe and served it to 45 of my neighbors at dinner a couple nights ago.

Karen M - can you talk about what the topping you drizzled on the confit byaldi was? I'm not seeing it in my version of the French Laundry cookbook - is that something you came up with on your own?

Wow, looking at all those pictures of the market I am soooo disappointed I had to leave early. :-( As it was, I only made it back to Ann Arbor with a half hour to spare before I had to go out to my next multi-course dinner. It was really a crazy eating weekend!

Thanks for the rundown, Fat Guy. I think the trout and egg would have been even better had we remembered to season them. A little salt and pepper on the eggs would have totally kicked it up a notch. Oh, and actually, it was dill on the trout and eggs, and chives on the goose and fruit. Which I agree was too sweet and not as fabulous as I'd hoped. Ah well - it was worth the experiment.

Agreed! There were so many cameras clicking all weekend long, there's got to be more to post!

Thanks, Ronnie - I knew I would forget things from the pre-dinner noshing, so I figured I should focus on the dinner menu and leave somebody else to create this list! Did HOLLY_L's chicken liver pate ever make it out?

And I want to add kudos to LAZ for putting together an excellent ethnic market tour. There were full-color printed guides to each shop, with recipes even! And crazy Korean etiquette videos. And a million wacky ice cream flavors, like mangosteen, maiz, queso, and - my favorite - avocado. It was a great trip, and she (and Dick) put a ton of work into that I really appreciated.

The official Heartland Gathering Feast menu, for the use and benefit of picture posters and commentators. Bread - 3 loaves of honey whole wheat bread, 3 loaves of Red and Black bread, 3 loaves of olive rosemary bread, 2 loaves of sweet potato bread (Tino27 and bread workshop) Ethnic Market Amuse (tammylc, Fat Guy, Torakris and a lot of sous chefs) - the challenge - at least one ingredient from every one of the ethnic markets - the result: 1) fried plantain chip with apricot/mango schmear, smoked goose breast, asian pear, and chives (Filipino, Armenian/Middle Eastern, German, Korean) 2) crostini with smoked trout, fried quail egg, and dill. (Polish, Korean) Watermelon-Tomato-Mint Soup (Alex) Nicoise Salad (CaliPoutine) Beet Salad & Beet Fritters (LuckyGirl) Shrimp DeJohnge (LAZ) Confit Byaldi (KarenM) "Chicken and Waffles" (NancyH, BobH, Edsel, Tino27) Smoked Ribs (Ronnie_Suburban) Coleslaw (Marmish) Foil wrapped potatoes of yumminess (Ellen) Desserts: I might forget something here, as there were so many things on the table, and i wasn't as involved in thinking about what order or time they needed to be ready... Chocolate mousse torte (nsxtacy) Blueberry peach crisp (CaliPoutine) Apple cake with raspberries, whipped cream and caramel sauce (Kerry Beal) Creme brulee in chocolate cups (Kerry Beal and chocolate workshop) Assorted chocolates (dulce de leche, pate de fruit, bacon-salt bark) (chocolate workshop) Pavlova (Kerry Beal) Baylor Watermelon (Kathy) I think this was our best meal yet, in terms of cohesiveness of the menu. And although we still sent lots of leftovers home with people, we did better on portion sizes than ever before, as evidenced by the fact that people headed to the dessert buffet right away. Thanks to everyone who shopped, chopped, measured, cooked, set tables, or cleaned... Which was basically pretty much everyone. We all rock.