tammylc

If you're saying that your usual reaction to a Twix bar is for the world to stop, then yes, you'd probably get that reaction from mine too, although they're not totally where I want them to be yet. And I've decided they're probably too labor-intensive for production, so I'm not sure how much more experimentation I'm going to do on them.

A little late, but yes, glucose can be used 1:1. Early on, I discovered that there are differences among glucose manufacturers. I, too, wanted to avoid products derived from corn. I got a pail of glucose that was wheat based and it was terrible; the flavor cast was anything but neutral. I wish that I could remember the name but it was a long time ago. The one I use now doesn't say what is the source of the glucose, so it may/may not be from corn. Glucose manufactured in the US is almost always made from cornstarch. ← Thanks, John!

Thanks, Kerry and Vanessa. I'll try a straight one to one substitution next time and see how it goes!

I try to keep my products as natural as I can, using organic fruit purees and local dairy cream, etc. HFCS is an incredibly processed product, and one that (deservedly or not) has a bad wrap among people who pay attention to what they are eating. So the biggest reason is that I want to respond to those concerns, and not have to list it amidst all the "wholesome and pure" ingredients on my labels!

I'm trying to get away from using Karo and other light corn syrups, because I don't like that they contain high-fructose corn syrup. But given the consistency differences between light corn syrup and glucose syrup, I'm not sure that substituting gram for gram would give me the same result in my recipes (I'm mostly thinking about caramel recipes). Any tips for me to keep in mind before I just jump in and try it?

Congratulations! Everything looks wonderful!

You just dip it. I use a 3 prong dipping fork, and might actually invest in a 4 prong. I actually find them MUCH easier to dip than little ganache squares! I'm making fairly small bars - 1 inch by 3 inches.

Thanks, Sugar Girl. I'd come across your website when I was Googling for something, and your creations look great! (I've avoided looking very hard for fear of accidentally stealing something, though!) I'm trying to avoid ganache in the line of bars I'm working on, as I'm hoping to get a longer shelf life for them. This was my first attempt making the twix-bar, so I haven't tried any other cutting methods. The recipe I used advised against baking the cookies in a sheet and cutting later, as they tended to break. But another recipe might be more amenable to that. I can't speak to moisture migration either, since I made them on Saturday and they all got eaten Saturday night. But I'll be holding some back from my next batch in order to do some shelf life testing and see how they hold up. Thanks for the great ideas - I'll definitely keep these in mind as I move forward!

Despite warnings about breaking, I find most ganache recipes to be fairly tolerant of a little bit of tweaking like you describe. The increased moisture content might be a concern if you were wanting a longer shelf life, but not a problem for something that's going to be eaten in a couple of days. I punch up the orange flavor in my orange truffles by infusing finely grated orange zest in the cream. Then I actually leave the zest in when I make the truffle. I call them my "intense orange" flavor, and they are definitely that. It's recommended to use non-tempered chocolate for the foot for exactly the reason you describe. Stays spreadable longer, and doesn't harden up as much. Fortunately for us chocolatiers, most people have only had really bad truffles - so even the things we're disappointed with can garner huge raves! But it sounds like yours weren't disappointing at all, so that's great.

That's one of the (many) great things about living in cohousing - finding homes for my creations is never a problem. At last night's party they ate 26 twix bars, ~20 rocky road bars (both cut into thirds for serving), 30 guava chocolates, and another 30 or so leftover pieces from my Valentine's Day collection!

I used the Epicurious fleur de sel caramel. I'd be happy to entertain other caramel recipes, though! I think cooking it to the right temperature would help a lot - it's a pretty buttery caramel. And I agree that I thinner cookie and higher ratio of caramel to cookie might be just the ticket. Or a thinner but longer bar, so there's less cookie in each bite. I made another batch of the rocky road this morning, with toasted almonds, candied ginger, and 72% chocolate instead of 60%. Oh my. Definitely not boring anymore! Much more interesting both texturally (crunchy almonds, puffy marshmallows, chewy ginger) and flavor wise. That's a keeper. Just have to work on the ratio of nuts to ginger to marshmallows so that the ginger doesn't completely overwhelm the rest.

I'm not overly concerned with making it exactly like the original, so I didn't really take similarity to Twix into account - just wanted something that tasted good. That said, I think it's pretty close - one of my neighbors called it a "pretty faithful improvement on the original." The overall effect is pretty dry, though. Having a looser caramel will help with that, I imagine. A softer cooker would too, but then it wouldn't be as shelf-life friendly. It's still a work in progress - creative suggestions and ideas most welcome!

Those are great, Patris! I love that bunny! I've been continuing my candy bar experiments. Between last night and today I made two - one a rocky road kind of thing and the other a take off on a twix bar. I also made some guava chocolates. All these experiments went to a party at my community tonight - I got paid for the cost of materials and got to test out the things I've been working on - win-win! Here's the three things I made. The rocky road bars are just a basic rocky road candy recipe, upscaled a little bit. Homemade vanilla mini-marshmallows and salted roasted cashews in a mixture of chocolate, sweetened condensed milk and butter. I cut it into bar shapes and dipped it in dark chocolate. The description sounds really promising, but in reality they were bland, bland, bland. The cashews don't add anything in terms of texture or flavor. I'm going to swap them out for toasted almonds, and add some chunks of crystallized ginger to punch things up. The twix bar was supposed to have a chipotle caramel, but I underestimated how much chipotle I needed to infuse, so you can't really taste it. Next time. I took a few "in progress" pictures of the process. I used the cookie recipe and method from this website, with my own caramel recipe. First you make a shorbread dough, roll it out, cut them, and bake them. I forgot to take pictures of any of that. Then you make caramel and pour it into the frame, then lay the cookies on top. After it sets up, you cut around each of the bars. Then you trim each piece to make the caramel the same size as the cookie. And you end up with this. And here they are, dipped in milk chocolate. I overcooked my caramel a little bit, so it was a touch chewier than I would have liked. (I'm thermometer challenged at home right now, as my brand new candy thermometer won't go above 228 degrees, and my thermapen suffered a near-fatal accident and isn't accurate for high heat work anymore.) But the overall concept is good, now I just need to work on getting the caramel right.

Well that's good to know! I saw the big hotel pan size melters in use on one of the Food Network chocolate challenges; I had wondered if those things held the chocolate in temper.....now I know! Sigh.......boy would I like to have one of those........... I bought a Chocovision Revolation 2 off of eBay. $250. It's ok, but only for home use. It only melts and tempers up to 1.5 lbs of chocolate, and when you're working with chocolate, you know that's not much at all! ← Yeah, the Rev2 would be okay for small amounts of dipping, but is really useless for any significant molding. One caveat on the melters, which you can read about in depth in other threads, is that while they will hold the chocolate at the right temperature, the chocolate will eventually begin to thicken anyway as it overcrystallizes. So some continued attention is needed - adjusting the temperature on the thermostat (once it's overcrystallized, you can go up a couple degrees without taking it out of temper), or using a heat gun to take some of the chocolate out of temper and thus dilute the crystals.

Yes, I believe the technical term is indeed "super sensitive fancy pants thermostats"! Once you get the chocolate into temper, they will hold it there, because their thermostats do have a very tight range. But even knowing that, I still ask myself this same question all the time! I think the other answer is that the market is small, so they're not being mass produced and driving the price down. Tempering machines are even more expensive. The lowest end model is the Chocosphere X3210, and its list price is $1600. http://www.chocovision.com/choco/site/x23_spec.htm

Chef Rubber has them too: https://www.shopchefrubber.com/home.php?cat=926 I have a 3kilo round one, and I borrowed a 6 kilo from David J for my Easter production. So much nicer! Now I just need to save up my pennies for one of my very own.

That's a LOT of people, Vanessa! I can't even imagine! How many other vendors will there be, and how long does the event run? Are you planning to hand out any free samples?

LucyinAust - I second Kerry in the love of the Hot Cross chocolates! Very clever idea.

I don't know where you're located, but around here you can find 1 lb blocks of Callebaut in nearly every supermarket. It's not my favorite chocolate, but it is likely better tasting than Hershey's, and less likely to be adulterated by non-cocoa butter fats which would affect your tempering.

I've always used Knox. It's worked fine for me, consistent quality results, but I've mostly used it because it's available retail. Quick related question; can one sell homemade foodstuffs at a farmers market? Items not made in a commercial kitchen? ← Depends on the laws in the state that you live in. For example Ohio allows it, Michigan (where I live) does not. Re. gelatin - I use my cheap store brand (Meijer) which comes in a box of 32 packages for $6. I've never had a problem with it.

Everything looks great! Good luck at the festival!

Well, the effect is absolutely gorgeous, however you achieved it! Are you using the FDA approved pearl powders from Chef Rubber?

Thanks, Kerry! And Vanessa - gorgeous as usual! Can you talk about how you decorated the flat top pyramids? That looks like a really neat effect, but I can't see it well enough to guess at what you did. And I love your ribbon! I've been thinking about getting some custom ribbon done too, but haven't ordered any yet.

Happy to help, John! Does this mean you won't mind me borrowing your idea of selling 5 in the little round?

I didn't order an entire case of the small rounds, so they had to repack those for me, and they all arrived in perfect condition. I think the manufacturer needs to use better boxes!