pastryani

@Marina It looks like a pretty standard dome mold, I'm thinking maybe CW2295? https://www.pastrychefsboutique.com/chocolate-world/648982-chocolate-world-cw2295-polycarbonate-chocolate-dome-mold-29x21-mm-32-cavity-13gr-modern-shaped-molds.html Hard to tell from the pic but hers might be a tad larger... Edit: Just found this one which looks a little bigger: CW2116 http://www.pastrychef.com/CHOCOLATE-MOLD--DOME_p_1092.html

I knew it was a longshot, but figured if ever there was a group of people who used (and likely cleaned) airbrushes, this would be it!

2 Qs for the workshop folks: 1. I read something about a mold swap - will people be doing this in LV? 2. Does anyone attending know how to take apart an Iwata airbrush AND put it back together successfully?! . Mine has been having issues spraying and I'm not sure if it's just clogged or I've somehow messed it up.

Thanks @cakewalk. I've got a Tartine olive loaf in the fridge for an overnight fermentation, but I'm concerned because the dough feels dense and heavy. It was very wet while pre-shaping so I kept adding flour to cut down on the stickiness. It doesn't seem like it's developed a lot of gassy bubbles and I'm worried that tomorrow it'll bake up like a salty rock. Any suggestions for getting it airy before baking? I'll keep it out for 3-4 hours to come to room temp. Edit. I should add that I almost doubled the amount of levain called for (used 190g instead of 100g), but I took out 45g each of water and flour from the final formula to compensate. Could this have made the boule heavy?

I've tried "gluing" both ways: (1) with a chocolate backing as pastrygirl said in which case the center of your finished piece has 2 layers of chocolate in the middle dividing the fillings, or (2) just slightly overfilling the cavities, adding a drop of chocolate to each side, closing them together, and hoping for the best. The advantages of the former method are that the halves tend to stick together better and there's no spillage of filling. The downside (for me) is that you get that center of chocolate which together can sometimes be quite thick. With the latter method you don't get that thick chocolate center, but the halves don't stick together very well, and if your filling is runny then good luck trying to join the halves without making a mess. I find this works best with thick or sticky fillings like peanut butter, but expect to join a good number of halves together manually.

Thought I'd add onto this thread as it's related (but please move if needed). Is there a bare minimum number of chocolate pieces you require per flavor for each order? I recently made 4 different flavors with a minimum of 25 pieces per flavor but found that that should have been higher. (Or maybe I'm just lazy haha).

Ah but if you join them together... 17g! Btw, are are these pieces longer? I thought they were the same dimensions as the quenelle. I have both and they fit perfectly, so perhaps I included the wrong link.

@Jim D. & @keychris - if you like this shape but want something that yields a bigger piece, you might consider this sister mold that is the same shape but has the base shaved off so that once joined, the piece will sit flat: https://www.pastrychefsboutique.com/chocolate-world/648840-chocolate-world-cw1692-polycarbonate-chocolate-mold-flattened-quenelle-455x25x1250-mm-2x8-pc-7-gr-275x135x24-modern-shaped-molds.html

Oooh gold dust... that's a good idea. Thanks Kerry!

Is there a way to highlight the etching on this mold? http://cmc.best-options.ca/chocolate-making-shop/chocolate-molds/mayan-pomponet-chocolate-bonbon-polycarbonate-mold/ With white chocolate the orange spray works well, but I'll be using milk chocolate so I'm not sure if I should use a little white chocolate over the pattern first or do something else. Ideas?

@Jim D - thanks for starting off with the questions. As a first-timer, I've got a couple of questions too. 1. I gather we're supposed to bring some chocolates for the group to sample. Are there any guidelines as to how many types/flavors, how many of each kind, etc? Are we limited to just chocolate? 2. Do we need to specify food preferences for the lunch on Sat? If so, ovo-lacto vegetarian here. 3. Re: Chef Rubber showroom - EGADS!! Will the whole store be closed?? That would be such a shame... Bonus: Is anyone staying an extra day (Monday) and interested in sight-seeing? If so just message me. Looking forward to meeting everyone, learning, and tasting all the treats along the way.

Not sure if this is the right place to pose this question but I got some starter from a very generous baker and I'm quite anxious to use it. She said she feeds hers everyday which I know I won't be doing (once a week would be more like it for me). My question is - since it's kept in the fridge, what is your process for making bread? That is, do you take the starter out of the fridge and use it right away in your recipe (as-is without feeding), or do you take it out and feed it the night before and then use a little bit of the starter in your recipe the next morning, or something else? (Can you tell it's been a while since I baked bread?!)

Agree completely. I was always taught that coffee enhances the chocolate flavor in cakes and pastries while being undetectable itself. Never tried it in a ganache though... Perhaps I'll have to do a side by side taste test.

Does anyone know of some good kitchen ware stores in or around Seoul? Places where you can get bakeware, silicone molds, or even polycarbonate chocolate molds? Also what about any must-see pastry or chocolate shops? Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. .

Does anyone here wholesale their chocolate bonbons? If someone asks you to wholesale (and you've never done it before!), what kind of questions should you be asking? And if they want to buy chocs from you and then label them with their own logo, is that standard practice? Any reasons not to have them re-label? Also, what is the standard "wholesale rate" as compared to what you would normally sell them for? (sorry, that's a lot of Qs but if anyone would know it would be y'all...)