tammylc

What a glorious post. Thank you!

That spiky effect is lovely, irishgirl! I think I'll try that out this weekend with the batch of milk chocolate raspberry truffles I'm making for a friend. Any tips from anyone on getting that effect?

This problem is exactly why I abandoned round truffles! Pre-coating, as David describes, will work. Changing your dipping chocolate might work - chocolates that have a very high cocoa butter content and corresponding low viscosity are much more likely to sink through.

Thanks Lior! Re. everyone amazing you - the trick is only to show pictures of the pretty ones. As of this morning, I'm completely sold out of the few extra chocolates I had from last week's production. And I'm pretty much completely out of chocolate (which reminds me, must call and place an order), so can't make anymore anyway! It will be nice to have the weekend off. (Although I am planning on making up some milk chocolate raspberry truffles and peppermint marshmallows as gifts for friends, and I've promised my son we'll make cookies for Santa.) Lastly, I'll chime in with a Happy Holidays to all my favorite confectioners! Thank you all for the support and inspiration! You are all amazing!

I got hooked on making marshmallows from the marshmallow thread, and now I have a bunch of ideas for combinations. I think I'm going to do a "cappucino" one for Valentine's Day - milk chocolate coffee ganache with espresso marshmallow. And I have an idea for a raspberry pate de fruit/ raspberry marshmallow combo too. Grand Rapids is about 2.5 hours away, unfortunately.

Wow - that's a lot of chocolates, ibjack! Good luck with your business.

The E. Guittard probably has a higher percentage of cocoa butter than the other two you mention, and in my experience that leads to greater cracking. It's that cocoa butter that gives it its great workability, but then it does have a downside. You could double coat - put some tempered chocolate in the palm of your hand and roll the chocolate in it to create a very thin layer. Let that sit, then dip again as usual. That will usually help with the cracking problem. My solution was to move away from round truffles - I do slabbed ganache instead - those little squares are much less prone to cracking.

Wow - 1,700 pieces is amazing! Congrats on getting it all done. I'm going to use the proceeds from Christmas to invest in some more molds, so I don't have to turn so frequently. That will help a lot next time I get a lot of orders. Where are you going to be in Michigan? Maybe we can get together and arrange a chocolate swap.

This is what I mostly ended up doing. In a few instances, I had extra ganache, and in those cases I saved that and reheated it, and that worked out just fine.

Thanks John, I needed that giggle this morning... Yeah, okay, almost done isn't quite accurate. But the *chocolates* are almost done, and that feels like a big accomplishment. Fortunately the kitchen I work out of is only a mile away from my house, so I'll be able to get there despite the snowstorm we're in the middle of. We're probably up to 4 or 5 inches now, with total accumulation of 10-12 expected. Whee! Although all of that means that the assistant I'd lined up to come help package likely won't be able to make it from across town. I'm working on lining up a replacement now.

To say my Christmas orders got out of hand would be an understatement. I did some creative marketing, and it definitely paid off (and may kill me in the process). But I'm finally (almost) finished making the chocolates. Over 1,100 pieces. I need to back off my last round of molds tomorrow morning, and I may need to do some more this week. But the vast majority is done. Except for the packaging... I have over 100 boxes of various sizes to put together tomorrow, and 29 orders to get prepped for shipping. But before I came home tonight I made up one box, just so I could show it off! White with blue swirl – Egg Nog (from Grewling, with brandy instead of rum) Santa/Snowflakes – Peppermint Twist (peppermint marshmallow and peppermint ganache) Green – Fresh Ginger Orange splatters – Intense Orange Red dome – Coffee (this was part of my co-marketing with a local coffee roaster) Butter Nut Caramel (I liked it better not dipped in chocolate, so I didn't!) Now I'm going to fall over and collapse. I've been multi-tasking day job and parenting and chocolate making, and not managing more than 5 hours of sleep a night...

Thanks, John and David. I think I'll stick with doing them batch by batch - just seems safer that way, and you make a good point that reheating carefully takes just as much time!

So, Grewling is quite obsessive about having chocolate in temper even for ganache, and has really strong cautions against refrigerating ganache, etc. I've been very happy with the texture of the ganaches I've made using his formulas, so I kind of trust the guy. But... I have a huge volume of chocolates (for me, anyway) to churn out this weekend. And because I wasn't quite expecting such volume, I didn't stock up on extra molds. Which means I'm going to be turning my molds a few times over the weekend. It would be hugely convenient, though, if I could make all my ganache for each flavor at once. But then I'd need to a) store it until I needed it, and b) reheat it to get it to pipe-able consistency. What are your thoughts? Has anyone done this? Were there any problems? I'd plan to reheat carefully in the microwave, just taking it up to 85 degrees or less.

Yes, you can reuse the structure sheets. Packing and shipping takes up an obscene amount of time. Just be sure you charge for it because after all, it's a value-add to the product and you should be compensated. ← Thanks, John! After my very first sale, I realized how much time packaging took (and how much it cost!) and raised my prices accordingly. Similarly, I made sure to include a handling fee in my shipping costs. All these little things sure do add up!

Thanks everyone! This is a great list of resources, and I'll start cultivating some relationships with them in the new year, so I know who would be willing to work with me when another wine gig comes up. Keep em' coming!

Thanks David! Can you reuse the texture squares afterwards? We're about to find out how many pieces I can create in a day... this is my biggest sale by far, so it's really going to be pushing my production capacity. But I've lined up some assistants and have been doing some work prior to the big push - I wrapped up 100 caramels last night, and I'll do another 100 tonight, as well as make the marshmallow layer of my double layer pieces (peppermint). The big production push starts tomorrow night. The packaging and mailing alone is going to be a huge piece of time. But thanks to Vanessa's clueing us in up-thread, I got some fabulous boxes on closeout from Nashville Wraps, so I'm really happy about getting a chance to use them!

Nice work, David! I'm gearing up for my big Christmas production this weekend, so I can definitely relate. Right now I have orders for 99 separate boxes of various sizes, and orders are still coming in. I'm excited and terrified. Can you talk to me about how you're using your texture sheets? I picked some up from ChefRubber with an order earlier this year, but haven't done anything with them yet.

I too have noticed that the whole wheat designation is hard to find on some of the whole wheat pastry flour bags. I have a friend who accidentally made a cake with it - it was fine, but not really what he was going for. So I totally understand your frustration. I use whole wheat pastry flour to substitute 1:1 for AP in pancakes and muffins. Although I usually only use 2/3 to 1/2 ww, and leave the rest AP. I like the flavor, and it makes me feel healthy.

What she said! Great work.

I'm making a riff on the "Hot Chocolate" piece from Grewling's Chocolates and Confections book for Christmas. The Hot Chocolate has two layers - cinnamon marshmallow and creme de cacoa ganache - I'm doing a peppermint marshmallow and dark chocolate peppermint ganache instead.

Mom - I definitely want someone who knows their stock. Ideally what I want is to be able to call or email and say "I need x number of wines in these styles and price ranges, what ya got that's interesting?" And then be able to go in some time later and pick it all up. So yes - a Mary or a Tommy is exactly what I'm looking for!

Last weekend i went to Saltwater. We were dithering about a restaurant for the night, and by the time we called we couldn't get a reservation. But they have a lounge area and bar with full service, so we figured we'd do that. And as it turned out, with the snowstorm last Saturday they had cancellations and we were able to get a table after all. It's a great room - nice high ceilings, nicely appointed. Big tables in the center, smaller tables along the wall, and a bunch of booth like semi-private spaces that were really neat. In addition to the menu they have posted on the website, they have a 6 course tasting menu for $105. This was a no brainer for us, so that's what we ordered. It's been a week, and I didn't take notes or steal a menu, but I'll try to give some recollections anyway. The amuse was some sort of mousse, coated in a crunchy something and deep fried, served with a meyer lemon gastrique. This was overall a little sweet for an amuse, I thought, but certainly tasty. First course was a many layered tartare that i don't think is on the regular menu. At the bottom there was a hot potato pancake, then a couple different kinds of fish (tuna and something else?), then a layer of creme fraiche topped with caviar. Man, was that good. Like, really, really good. Second course was from the menu, and is - we later heard - their most popular appetizer. With good reason. "Hawaiian Blue Prawns, dungeness crab-stuffed, hot & sour reduction." Just enough zing in the hot and sour reduction to keep it interesting without killing your palate for anything that followed. Another really great dish. Third course was good, but I thought too filling for a 6 course menu. "Savory Black Mussel Soufflé, saffron-chardonnay cream." Individual small souffles are split open at the table and then the cream sauce is poured into them. Coming straight out of the oven, these are very, very hot. Which was noticeable - I can't remember the last time I had to blow on my food to cool it down in a high-end restaurant! Fourth course was a potato crusted snapper. I can't remember the saucing details, though. Fine, but unremarkable. Fifth course on the tasting menu was Kobe beef. We weren't overly excited about when we were ordering, so requested that one of us get the Berkshire pork from the main menu instead. They happily accommodated, and actually both dishes were quite good. The Kobe was served with a nice horseradish mashed potato that had just the right amount of kick. Sadly, I can't remember anything about the pork, except that it was really yummy! Dessert was a caramelized banana tarte tatin with maple ice cream, and was excellent. Even though i was really full going in, i still managed to eat the whole thing. Round about the middle of the meal, Don Yamauchi stopped by our table. We chatted about his tenure at Tribute (which we'd both managed to miss) and what the new chef there is up to. We talked about other favorite Michael Mina restaurants (this was my first, but my friend is quite a fan and has been to a bunch). We asked him about how the kitchen was set up - with an almost entirely seafood/fish menu at Saltwater and just two meat courses, we wondered if the two restaurants shared a kitchen, or if those coures were cooked in the adjoining Bourbon Steak. "Oh no, not at all" he said, and gave us his card, inviting us to go for a kitchen tour when we were finished. So that was cool. We got to see both the kitchens of Saltwater and Bourbon Steak. (They do share a dishwashing room.) Saltwater is the smaller of the two, doing about 200 covers a night. Bourbon Steak does 400+. Note to foodies - Bourbon Steak doesn't advertise a tasting menu, but Don told us they will happily put one together for you if you ask. One last note, about the wine list. It wasn't a stunning list, but there were some good options. The by-the-glass list in the reds look slim, until we remembered where we were, and that there were only two meat courses on the menu. And we were actually really impressed because they had a number of things that were really affordable. Like a $25 Gruner Veltliner. This is a wine that would be great with the type of food being served at Saltwater, and we gave them a hearty "good for them" for having a list that works at all levels. They also had a $26 bottle from India (i'm intrigued), but we got a nice Basque white. They offer pairings with the tasting menu but with the weather being what it was, we didn't want to overindulge. Service was the weakest point. The pacing was really slow, with surprisingly long waits between courses. But we had nowhere else to be, so that was okay. Summing up this really long report - great meal. Saltwater is a real boon to the Detroit dining scene, so you should all check it out. We talked a little with Don about whether he thought he was going to need to dumb down the menu to suit the Detroit market. He hoped not, but admitted that it was a possiblity. So you should all go eat there and encourage them to stay creative! Oh, BTW - Valet parking at the casino is free.

When he was biting into the moon pie, the chocolate was visibly bloomed.

And it would help if you were actually aiming for the right temperature. He said to heat the chocolate to between 94 and 98 degrees F. I don't know of any chocolate that would be tempered at those temperature!

My thoughts exactly! And those are beautiful boxes too!