pastryani

Here's a review by Kenji Lopez-Alt: http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2012/09/the-pizza-lab-the-baking-steel-delivers.html He brings up a good point (as others have here) that the weight of the 1/2" is 30 lbs, so it's not very portable and you'd have to make sure your oven could support that. I have the 1/4" and it does a great job. I think the 1/2" would retain more heat but that alone would not motivate me to get it. I do back-to-back pizzas with the 1/4" without issue (without having to wait for the steel to heat back up) and the portability of the 1/4" 15-pounder is important to me. I know I've read another article that does a direct comparison between the two but I can't find it right now. The gist of it was that if you have an oven that can support the 30 lbs AND can be solely dedicated to pizza making (so that you could leave the steel in the oven at all times and not have to move it) AND you don't mind paying more for it, then the 1/2" will yield slightly better results. Otherwise, the 1/4" does a darn good job with nominal differences.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions (and sorry for the delayed reply). I found veg food but didn't really have any authentic Japanese food, but then again the trip was also not primarily a foodie adventure and more of a sight-seeing thing. Hopefully another time. :-)

Hi all - I've heard it's tough to be a vegetarian in Japan. And even more so if you're not "flexible" enough to eat ANY fish products. I'm ovo-lacto veg, so I can eat eggs and dairy, but cannot eat fish and am allergic to shellfish. I may be going to Tokyo soon and I was wondering if you kind folks wouldn't mind giving me some tips and ideas to find some strictly vegetarian places to eat. Otherwise I'm afraid I'll be on a diet of instant ramen noodles, and that would stink. ;-) (Also, good recommendations for mochi places would be appreciated. Thanks!)

Thanks @paulraphael and @Tri2Cook. Is the freezer the recommended place for storage? I would think that there'd be far too much moisture in there. In any case it sounds like you should get only as much as you need because they don't keep well. If anyone here has used the Texturas products, I'd be interested to know what you think about them: https://www.amazon.com/Texturas-Ferran-Effervescent-Molecular-Gastronomy/dp/B00KA0V0PY/ref=pd_sim_325_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00KA0V0PY&pd_rd_r=TT1ZMVBNR4EBX51PRWGX&pd_rd_w=m2P7p&pd_rd_wg=DzG3l&psc=1&refRID=TT1ZMVBNR4EBX51PRWGX https://www.amazon.com/Texturas-Sparkys-Popping-Molecular-Gastronomy/dp/B00KDJU1XE/ref=pd_sim_325_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00KDJU1XE&pd_rd_r=AREE7B9PX4XPMD0AKN1R&pd_rd_w=9cLuM&pd_rd_wg=bFbS5&psc=1&refRID=AREE7B9PX4XPMD0AKN1R

Reviving this thread because I've got to make bonbons with a fizzy/popping component to them. I was thinking about adding pop rocks, and after reading here it seems that mixing them with ganache is definitely not the way to go since there's too much free water in ganache. The workaround seems to be coating them with fat (cocoa butter). What is the best way to do this - spraying with an air brush or panning? If it's the latter, would the coating of cocoa butter be too thick? Alternatively, if I didn't spray with cocoa butter, would it work if I filled a dome mold 1/2 way with pop rocks and then followed that with a thin layer of chocolate as a barrier before adding the ganache? Someone also mentioned something called "texturas fizzy", and there's also a "texturas sparkey". I haven't used either of these these before - does anyone have any experience using them? If so, which is better? Would the fizzy be weird with chocolate and feel like you're eating your chocolate with a tablet of "eno" fruit salt?

Couldn't you bypass the egg white step (fresh or powdered) and just stick with gelatin, or was there a reason to use egg whites?

Here's a pic of the Grapefruit-Campari PDF made today with @Beets3. These were coated in sugar a few hours after they were made. The rest of the slab is curing for a day to see if there's a difference in stability/weeping. Thanks @Kerry Beal for the info on the pectin. I checked the label of the Apple Pectin I had and there was no mention of sugar anywhere. I also tasted it and it didn't taste sweet, so maybe they've changed their formulation? It looks like it worked for this formula that was high in acid, but I'd like to see if it'll work with a lower acidity formula.

Here's a link to the Apple pectin I have: cuisine-tech Pure Apple Pectin Nope I don't have a refractometer, just a thermometer. Is there a workaround if you don't have one?

So is apple pectin the same as yellow pectin, and will it work to set a PDF? I feel like I've read conflicting info on the interwebs and I just wanted to make sure that my apple pectin will work. Second question is about how to not have weeping cubes of PDF (I know, I know - stop being so mean to them ). I've never had success with this and they're always a wet mess by day 2.

Thanks both. It kind of does look like the sheet moved, but I'm not sure how that would've happened (I cut the sheet so that it was laying flat when I attached the magnetic bottom to it). Also I should've specified that all the chocolates in the picture above were from a single casting in that mold, so if the transfer moved then wouldn't all the images be fuzzy?

@Daniel D do I need all 3 of those pieces to swap out the nozzle?

Left vs right, mostly non-smudged vs mostly smudged. Sigh. Why does this happen? Was my chocolate too warm? I painted the corners with a chocolatey brush to prevent air bubbles, but that was only in the corners and I certainly didn't linger with the paintbrush. Ideas?

Thanks for the info @Daniel D! Can I ask where you got the larger tip?

@Jim D. - my guess for the wires would be to oil them. I've tried cutting marshmallows both with an oiled and unoiled knife, and oiled is definitely the way to go (cleaner cuts, less stickiness).

@Kerry Beal - It's the Iwata HP-CS. It looks like there are other sizes of nozzles as @Daniel D just ordered one. I look forward to his review, because yes it does take a very long time to get full coverage of even one mold. @Daniel D - what compressor are you using?

No wonder I'm having issues with my Iwata - it's only 0.3mm. But the one I've got looks like the one Jin used during her demo and hers worked just fine, so perhaps it's a compressor issue.

Hi All - a little late posting, but here are a few snaps from the LV trip. Phone space issues meant I couldn't take all the pics I wanted to (until I figured out that deleting apps lets you take more). Jean-Philippe Patisserie chocolate clamshell waterfall: Payard at Ceasars Palace: Jin showing us some cool techniques to make decor: Jin's chocolate cigarettes - the thinnest I've ever seen. Such great technique! Obligatory food shot of vegetarian red curry from Lotus of Siam: Melissa Coppel's demo yielded this beauty (as others have also mentioned, her Atelier is the cleanest, neatest, and most well-organized workspace I've ever seen): Jean-Marie Auboine's nougat all wrapped up: I don't have any pics from the meal at Bouchon (which was amazing), but here's the Chili Relleno at Mesa Grill - very yummy: High Roller Wheel at the Linq hotel: View from the pod, a very smooth ride: This was my first time attending and it was a great trip! Such a friendly and talented group of folks, new techniques to learn, and new chocolatey friends made for a really fun experience. Hope to see you all next year!

@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