tammylc

Chefrubber has them: http://chefrubber.com/Shopping/shopexd.asp?id=2530

Inspired by some beautiful Valentine's Day chocolates Truffle Guy posted in another thread, I experimented with some new-to-me techniques this past weekend. I have usually either used the airbrush or hand-decorated with a paint brush, so this was my first attempt at doing both. My brush strokes still need some work, but overall I'm pleased with the general idea... Are there specific brushes people have found work well for them? I picked up a bunch of random brushes, and as I get more focused on trying to get a certain effect, I find I often don't have quite the right brush, and i'm wondering what your favorites are.

I've got a little brainstorm about a line of candy bars I want to try making. For my next one, I'm imagining the base being a coffee-flavored nougat. There are threads on here about Nougat Montelimar, but I'm looking for something that's more like a candy bar nougat. I've seen Kerry's recipe in the EGCI - would that work without the incorporation of peanut butter? Anyone have another recipe? And how would I go about incorporating the coffee flavor? Thanks all!

The salted cashew bark sounds incredible. I love salty-sweet combinations. If anyone balks, ask them if they like chocolate covered pretzels.

When I had my inspection, the only thing she really cared about was that I knew how to set up and test the sanitizing sink for dishwashing. She looked at my labels and made some comments, but that was pretty much it. YMMV, of course, as every state and every inspector is different. I didn't have to demonstrate any production. i store my equipment the kitchen i use, so she may have looked at that a little bit, but it wasn't a big deal. Good luck!

Very fascinating, Kerry. I may have to try the piping bag filling technique - my molds are always a mess. And wiping off the cocoa butter with a paper towel - smart! I have 2+ lbs of light green white chocolate now because I didn't do something like that before scraping my molds.

I do have a passion fruit heart also...(the orange one with purple). Not sure if this image is going to be very clear. We did a 18 and 19 piece heart box as well as some other boxes. ← Those are glorious, Truffle Guy. I'm looking at those going "oooh, how did he get *that* effect?" You're totally inspiring me to pull out my colored cocoa butter, airbrush and brushes and get back to work...

That was my thinking on the passion fruit too - passion for Valentine's Day.

That's lovely, Mark! I see great minds think alike - I think it's funny that we both decided to do passion fruit and white chocolate lime pieces...

No idea, Beth. I ordered 200 boxes in December, so I'm set for a while and haven't started doing any research yet. I'd also be really interested in other people's experiences/sources.

Thanks, Chris and Vanessa! Thoughts about chocolate packaging take up far too much of my brain power... I usually put the chocolates in cups before putting them in the tray, which mostly keeps them from rattling around too much. I just left them off for picture taking purposes. I also use a spacer in the bottom of the box so that the chocolates are flush with the top of the box. My dome chocolates still sometimes manage to turn themselves over, unfortunately, even with all those efforts. I have to thank Vanessa for the boxes - it was her posting about her new boxes that sent me looking at Nashville Wraps and buying these on the same closeout sale she took advantage of. They are gorgeous, but the big problem is that they are much deeper than i need for a single layer box. So as I said above, I use a foam block as a spacer in the bottom. If I'm still in the chocolate business when I run out of these, I think I'll have to finally bite the bullet and go custom so I can get just what I want.

My Valentine's Day chocolates (plus pretty new boxes): The white/green ones are white chocolate & lime The red/pink swirly ones are passion fruit dark chocolate butter ganache with honey The textured ones are dark chocolate with Earl Grey tea The bronze/yellow ones are milk chocolate curry inside a dark chocolate shell I don't usually like white chocolate, but this is one of my absolute favorites - it's adapted from the Grewling lemon/mint recipe, and it's just fabulous. Lots of fresh lime juice keeps it from being too sweet.

I'm in. Hopefully for everything, but certainly for dinner.

schneich, i use this salty caramel recipe from Epicurious, and it's great. I double the salt, though, as i like my caramel saltier than the base recipe.

Chris, your problem with the caramel probably comes from the bars you are using. While hollow 1/4 inch bars are going to be fine for ganache, they don't have the weight to support hot caramel. Short of getting solid bars, you could try putting some weights behind the bars to help them stay in place. I've never made any nougat, so I can't help you there.

Chris, i just checked out the latest set of pictures. Your enrobing sequence is amazing. I'm really impressed at your technique - I have to admit that my first reaction was "I ought to give up chocolate making right now - I'm still not that good, and I've been doing this for a lot longer than he has..." But instead I'll try to think of you for inspiration tomorrow when i'm dipping 220 pieces... What are you using to clean the bottom? Is it a bamboo skewer? Hard to tell from the picture.

Vanessa - I'm still looking for a good solution for calculating shipping! It was easy when I was handling orders on a case by case basis, because then I'd go to the FedEx website, find out what the shipping would be, then just add that to the amount for the chocolates and invoice the customer. Plus a handling fee for packaging materials and time spent packing and shipping (which is more than you'd expect). But if you're doing web sales, people are more likely to buy if they can complete the transaction all at once, and for that, you can't do such customized shipping. So what i did was to download FedEx rate tables, figure out (roughly) which states are in which zones (I say roughly because the zones are based on zip codes, and parts of a state may be in different zones). Then I figured out what weight different dollar amounts equate to - so if people buy one box, it's likely to weigh this much, two is this much, etc. Don't forget to take into account the cost for the shipping box and fill - even just a single box of chocolates ends up weighing over a pound once all that's included. Then i put all that together to create different shipping amounts for different weights for different zones, and entered that into the PayPal Shipping Calculator. I know if I had a good shopping cart instead of just PayPal "buy now" buttons it would probably do all this for me, but I'm not ready to spend the money on that quite yet. The system isn't perfect - FedEx charges a surcharge of over $2 for rural delivery, and my system doesn't pick up those addresses. And it doesn't differentiate between residential and business deliveries. Home deliveries have a $1.85 surcharge - since the majority of my delivers go to homes, I just include that in my base pricing, and the two things usually balance themselves out. And I don't know what I'm going to do come my Mother's Day sale, when some orders will need insulated packaging and ice packs, and others won't! That was probably way more information than you wanted! If anyone has a better solution, I'd love to hear about it!

Great, Lior, i'm glad it worked out for you this time. When i have leftover, i use the same method Kerry describes, although without the food saver for sealing.

Through practice, I've figured out how much ganache I need to make to fill the number of molds I have. If I misjudge and have some left, I will heat it up carefully in the microwave, and can usually get it back to working consistency that way, although it is always a little stiffer than when it was fresh. It sounds like you're trying to heat a more significant amount, and it's probably hard to do that evenly, which may be what's causing your emulsion to break. What's the shelf-life on your chocolates with a 1:1 ratio? Are you concerned about water activity with such a high percentage cream center?

I make my ganaches only when i need them. When i do mass production, I prep all my molds, make all my shells, then make my first kind of ganache. While that's cooling down to ~85 degrees, i make my second kind of ganache. By the time I'm done with that, the first is cool enough to pipe, but still very fluid. I pipe into the shells, bang the molds to get out air bubbles, then proceed to the second ganache, etc. I'm using a chocolate to cream ratio closer to 2:1, and my fluidity is still fine, so I think the problems you're encountering are definitely from making your ganache in advance and letting it set up before using it. Once i'm done filling, I usually let my molds sit overnight and back off the next morning, although now that I've been using Grewling's method and with my kitchen at 65 degrees, they are usually firm enough to back off within at hour.

i'll just add that if you use the separate pieces like David showed, you can adjust the size of your frame if it turns out you don't have quite enough ganache to fill the layer. Or too much and need to make it bigger. Very handy!

Double check if you even need to charge tax - here in Michigan, there's no tax on food items - that makes things much easier. Like John, I only accept credit cards via PayPal on my website. That might change if I were doing more events like Farmer's Markets etc, but I haven't done much of that, and when I have I've only accepted cash or checks. Good luck!

He doesn't specify percentages for dark or milk. And you're right that you could get different results depending on the chocolate you use, but knowing a recommended percentage won't necessarily help you. The thing you have to remember about percentages is that they indicate total cocoa mass in the chocolate, which includes cocoa solids and cocoa butter. IIRC, cocoa mass is about 50% each solids and butter. Many chocolate makers add additional cocoa butter to their chocolate to improve consistency and mouthfeel. But the amounts added can vary tremendously. So one maker's 70% could be 35% solids and 35% butter, and another's could be 20% solids and 50% butter. These differences will be as significant as using a 70% vs a 65%. You'll just need to try the recipes at some cocoa percentage, and then adjust it based on the result you get compared to what you are looking for.

Thanks all. I tried one after lunch today when I was in a much better position to judge. And yes, they are definitely a winner. Fair lot of work, though - lots of steps. Not sure how or if to commercialize... But I'm sure going to have a hard time keeping my hands off of them.

Thanks Randi! Brings back some good memories. And those fries - man, I want some right now. I'm definitely taking a trip to Prince Albert's next time I'm in London visiting my sister...