tammylc

Finally got around to trying my Take 5 take off. I made a 1/3 batch of praline pretzels and spread them out in as close to a single layer as I could manage in 8 inch caramel bars. Then I made a half batch of Fleur de Sel caramels, although I should have made a full batch - the pretzels didn't displace as much as i thought they would. But that's just as well, as I didn't really want to be dipping a whole 8x8 square of bars. If I were making these for real and not just playing around, I should have pre-bottomed them at this stage. But I didn't bother. After the caramel set up I spread a layer of Koeze natural peanut butter on top, then pressed on roasted peanuts. Cut into roughly 2 inch by 1 inch pieces, and dipped them in Cluizel 60%. The pretzels are really crunchy, the caramel is really chewy, the peanut flavor is pretty well balanced - although maybe a little more peanut butter would be better. The pretzels and salty caramel mean the sweet/salty balance is great. I think I'm pleased, although I haven't been eating well today and am kind of sugared out - I'll try one tomorrow and be better able to assess!

I'm trying to assemble a list of what I'd term "micro-chocolate-makers", particularly the US ones. Small operations - usually one or two people - making bean-to-bar chocolate. here's the ones i know of: Askinosie, Amano, Patric, DeVries and Rogue. Is there anyone else that fits that category? Thanks!

A quick Google search turned up instructions for making your own, but not a commercial supplier.

Chris - I think the point of using the oil is to address the consistency issue you had with your batch of Habanos - when you use fresh habaneros, the level of heat can vary quite dramatically from batch to batch. A habanero (or other chile) oil will let you reproduce results exactly from time to time. So if you're in a rush to make your truffles, you could just infuse your cream with habanero and take your chances, rather than looking for the oil.

I love, love, LOVE, Prince Albert Diner. I can't believe it's still there! And apparently still good? That was one of my chief hang outs when i was living in London in my 20's - my ex and I lived just a few blocks away. The poutine was my favorite. Not real poutine, because they use shredded cheese instead of curds, but i loved it all the same. Their fries are amazing. Thanks for the memories. Poutine and a chocolate shake - those were the days...

I like that Ginger Garlic meal quite a lot. All the Lean Cuisine meals here have WW points on them - I loved that when I was counting points - it made it very easy. Another tasty one to look for when you're over here is the butternut squash ravioli - it's tasty too. And the roasted garlic chicken pizza - YUM! Since a lot of people on this thread have chimed in with their experiences and tips for WW, I thought I'd do the same. Somewhere one of you posted about estimating a tablespoon or two of mayo or another condiment - one of my rules for myself was to always always measure that sort of thing out. Because at 3 pts/tbsp for mayo, an extra half a tbsp is a big deal. So i always measured things like peanut butter, butter, etc. I didn't use the Weight Watchers site, so I kept a Google spreadsheet that I could update from home or work. I would usually plan out my days in advance - I'd know how many points I had for breakfast and had planned for lunch and snacks, then I could figure out what I could eat for dinner based on what I had left and adjusting for any extra snacks. As often as possible, I'd try to stick to my base points, and not dip into my flex points. I usually had flex points leftover at the end of the week. Usually I'd do base points only during the week, and then use flex points for dinners out or whatever on the weekend. I've since heard of other diet programs that purposely build in "splurge days" to tell your body it's not starving, and I think that pattern had a similar effect on my body and let me keep consistently losing. And my last "critical success factor" was to always round up when point counting. The salad dressing I use is 1 pt for 2 tbsp, but I counted it as 1 pt even though I used less than that. It sounds like y'all have similar tricks and systems in place for your programs, and I wish you the best of luck in meeting your weight and health goals!

A few words on organic chocolate... Most of the organic and hippy rainforest chocolate brands are exactly the same as each other. There's a very small number of organic chocolate factories in the US, and they make the same chocolate and just repackage it for different brands. Which explains why most of those brands are all about the inclusions, not about the chocolate. Also, organic cacao is chosen on the basis of whether or not the cacao grower paid to have the property certified, not based on flavor. So if you're looking for the best tasting chocolates, you won't necessarily find them in the organic selections - that's just not their priority. Most cacao is grown on very small plantations (less than four hectares) and is essentially organic - the growers can't afford pesticides anyway. But they also can't afford to pay for certification.

Good luck in the weight loss quest, foodbloggers! I lost 56 lbs between August of 2006 and August of 2007. And better yet, so far I've managed to maintain that weight loss and my weight has been very stable. My goal was to lose 50 lbs, but I didn't change what I was doing after I reached my goal, and this is just where my weight has stabilized. I think taking that long to lose the weight was key to the fact that I'm able to maintain - I had a lot of time to completely relearn how to eat and to recalibrate my understanding of portion size. I used Weight Watchers point system, just on my own, not going to meetings. Like some others have mentioned, I avoid fake foods and low-fat versions of the real thing. I'd rather not have cheese than have fake cheese, for example. I did (and still do) eat a Lean Cuisine or something like that for lunch every day. There are some that actually taste pretty good, and it's just easy - I think of it as my meal replacement program. I'm sure this will be a fascinating blog.

Magus, have you been able to get the zoning and everything for your location? The reason I ask is because Zingerman's Roadhouse has a trailer they use as a drive-thru. Recently they had to actually physically connect it to the restaurant, because it turns out that Ann Arbor has a law on the books prohibiting those kinds of food establishments. As to your question - I think you could put up a "Coming Soon" sign as soon as you wanted - it will just keep people's interests up and remind them to keep looking for you.

I think - just like with truffles - that not having perfectly square pieces is fine for a small chocolatier. Your items are not machine made carbon copies - that's part of the charm! I score my ganache slab to the size piece that i want. Then I cut the larger slab into smaller sizes to work with - if I have an 8x8 slab, for example, I'll start by cutting it into quarters and cut each of those into strips, then into individual pieces. I use the narrowest edge knife I have, sharpen it well before cutting, and clean the blade off after every or every other cut. It's time consuming, but I get pretty good results, and it will have to do until I can buy or make a guitar cutter...

Yeah, that demo was very helpful. My problem was that I was getting a little too vigorous when I tapped the chocolate to the surface to pull the excess off and sometimes would lose balance of the chocolate on the fork. I was trying to place the chocolate right at the edge of the fork tines, overhanging a little to make it release cleanly when I put it on the parchment, and sometimes it was just overhanging too far to be stable. ← I tell the people in my truffle workshop that if they're never losing truffles off the fork and having to re-dip them, then they don't have them near enough to the end! It's better to have to re-dip a few than to have them stuck on the fork. Like everyone else, I'm also totally impressed at the progress you've made! If you're reading to invest in some more toys, you could buy some molds and try out molded pieces next.

Chris, I use the immersion blender in the chocolate when i'm tempering it - for making ganache or for dipping/molding. You do want to be careful about incorporating air, all the same, but it's not as bad as mixing it right into the ganache.

That baby Dedy is great - do you know if anyone's selling it, and how much they're charging?

Yes, white chocolate is a complete pain to work with. One tool you might want to add to your arsenal is a stick/immersion blender, if you don't already have one. It's great for blending in the unmelted bits at the end of seed tempering.

sounds good, but how would you cut it? is the praline like a southern praline that is soft? ← They're not soft. My understanding is that the result would be a fairly thin coating of a somewhat sandy textured caramel on the pretzels. (More description hereI'd be cutting it with a chef's knife. And in mini-candy bar size pieces, bigger than i'd normally do.

i want to make these Pretzel Pralines. And that got me thinking about my long desire to make a gourmet version of the Take 5 candy bar - i figure using praline pretzels would definitely push it up a notch. Salty caramel, peanut butter, roasted peanuts, dip it all in dark chocolate. How would you layer such a concoction to make it easy to dip? I'm thinking of putting a layer of the pretzel praline in a pan or caramel bars, and then pouring the caramel over that? Then spreading peanut butter and peanuts on top?

thanks earlgrey_44 - i like the nutty flavor the whole wheat pastry flour adds. But the pancakes still turn out light enough that my picky 3 year old will eat them!

I'm with Chris - doesn't take much equipment to do chocolate! It does help to have a good thermometer for tempering, but that's about it! I made and sold 100's of truffles without buying anything special. I have some fun toys now, but they just make my life a little easier, is all. I used a regular dinner fork for a long time, not even bending the tines back. Now, when I teach truffle workshops I used desiderio's trick - just break off the two center tines of a plastic fork. The best trick i know for neat dipping is just to wipe off your fork after every dip. It makes a huge difference.

I've had bloom problems with marshmallows as well, in chocolate that I know was well tempered. I find it happens when the chocolate is too thick, and the heat generated by it setting drives it out of temper. If I have a thin enough shell, then I don't get any bloom.

And now for something a little different... 1 LB sprouts, cleaned and cut in half. 1/2 cup water 1 T oil 2 T sesame seeds 3 T tamari 2 T sugar Boil sprouts in water for 3-4 minutes. Drain. Heat oil and sesame seeds until golden brown. Let cool a few minutes. Add all remaining ingredients, and toss all with sprouts. Serve hot (or cold). These are really, really good. As I was cutting up 2 lbs of sprouts for Christmas dinner I was wondering if I really needed that many, but they all got eaten, and I was sad I couldn't get seconds.

My formula is from the Joy of Cooking, with some whole wheat pastry flour substituted for some of the AP. 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour 1/2 cup AP flour 3 tbsp sugar 1 tsp salt 1 3/4 tsp baking powder 4 tbsp butter, melted 1 1/4 c milk 1 egg I mix the dry ingredients in one bowl. Melt the butter in the microwave, add in the milk, then the egg. Add to dry ingredients, stir to mix, add extra milk if needed. I use an old griddle - aluminum coated in non-stick. I spray it down with a little Pam, then use a (scant) 1/4 measuring cup to portion out my pancakes. I can cook 5 at a time on the griddle and the recipe above makes about 12. We eat some right away, and keep the rest in the fridge for weekday breakfasts for the 3 year old. He likes to eat them with cream cheese. With 3 tbsp sugar, they are pretty sweet all on their own, so a friend of mine likes them because her kids will eat them plain - she doesn't have to worry about syrup, etc.

Marshmallows killed my KitchenAid! It's not totally dead - it still does a fine job on cookie batter - but it's not able to maintain speed 10 for 10 minutes and sounds really sickly when it tries. So now I have to decide whether to abandon marshmallows, or buy a new mixer. It will certainly drive up the per batch price... On the other hand, i've had this mixer for 10 years, and it's the 4.5 quart baby model, so it might be time for a new one anyway. What kind/size of mixer is everyone using for making marshmallows?

I had never even heard of green bean casserole until I moved to the US. It is one of the finer things you can do with a can of cream of mushroom soup, so good on you for introducing it!

Just to prove that not everything turns out perfect... I made some peppermint marshmallows. But something happened - my sugar got too hot, or maybe I'm just blowing out my KitchenAid motor with all this marshmallow making (it's not sounding very good these days) - and it ended up dense and chewy rather than light and fluffy. Still tasty, just not marshmallows. So I decided to proceed with my plan to dip them in chocolate anyway. I half dipped them, then set them chocolate side down on an uncut structure/texture sheet. As you can see, that was only somewhat successful. And here's my attempt at making that spiky effect on some milk chocolate raspberry truffles. I was attempting to work with too little chocolate, and then it got too thick, but i overheated it slightly in the microwave so i have some little bits of bloom showing at the ends... But, all in all, not bad for a quickie Sunday morning thing, and i'm sure my milk chocolate raspberry loving friend won't mind a bit! I also made a tray of 24 of the coffee pieces from my Christmas collection. They were a collaboration with a local coffee roasting company, and he called me up on Friday to see if I had any left - he wanted to take them to family for Christmas. I didn't, but happened to have that mold here at home with me, so I went ahead and made some up. Now I think I'm really done with confectionery. For a couple days, anyway.

I made my first molded chocolates right at the end of 2006, so 2007 has been a year of lots of learning and getting better at that for me! Lots of fun with colored cocoa butter, and exploring a million different ways to decorate the same mold. I took a stab at making my own transfer sheets (but not with a silk screen a la Kerry) and had mixed success. Towards the end of the year I entered the cult of the marshmallow, and have had lots of fun playing with different flavors. And just today I tried making spiky truffles for the first time. On a related note, I also learned a lot about marketing and promotion and just how godawful long it takes to package and ship.