martin0642

Thank you as ever Kerry - very helpful. The vegan chocolate is a challenge that's for sure... I may give up on the white chocolate altogether as I think you're right about the added ingredients. It's les of an issue with the "milk" chocolate; that works ok and I've finally found ways of making the ganache work pretty well. In fact it's got a much cleaner taster than the dairy version which lets the flavours come through more in some ways. Definitely worth doing anyway. The white though...urgh. I just tried melting some down and got the same issue I always do - a crust forming on the bottom of the bowl (metal bowl over a pan of water). The temperature is around 40-42c at this point so it seems unlikely i'm burning it. I think the solids, especially the starch, are solidifying. It takes a lot of careful monitoring and basically ocnstant sirring to try and get past this, and even then it needs straining before use. Definitely not worth using for a ganache, seems okish for decoration but frankly it's too much work to make it worthwhile. I may give your water ganache a go for some fruit flavours..thank you for that. As for the caramel - yes it's a liquid caramel i'm after. I've just done some calculations to work out the fat content of the recipe I use and it looks like a 60% fat coconut cream I can buy may do the trick (given that i'm replacing both daiy cream and butter). I'll report back when I've tried it out tomorrow!

Hi Kerry :) I'm not using a water ganache, I can't find enough information about those and shelf life to trust them in something that will sit on a shelf for a while. So what I've tried so far has been a variety of milks (soy, almond, rice and hemp) and things like coconut oil and vegetable oil based spreads. What seems to work best right now us the hemp milk, alongside a sunflower oil based spread. For the most part the texture is great.... This is a new recipe for me... As in this week. The issue is with the milk and white vegan chocolates I use. They come from a company called plamil foods, because there isn't much else out there in the right form... Ie catering size packs. The white chocolate reacted very weirdly when I tried a fruit puree based ganache, went like jam and then separated when cooled. Both chocolates melt somewhat reluctantly and seem to set up very quickly. However my latest ganaches have been excellent . Except one which went very grainy . It's just quite unpredictable with this chocolate basically. I would LOVE to find a way to make a dairy free caramel. May have to experiment with the sunflower spread.

These look amazing! I'm pretty impressed by your webpage too..I was struck the reference to the Camino - hands down one of the best things I've ever one (twice!). Anyway - I'm curious about one thing- the chocolate mousse here...I've been looking for a decent mousse like recipe for a while but haven't found anything that really fits. Would you be happy to share yours?

You're correct in saying that I'm making some to sell...although still in very small quantities at this stage. I'd rather avoid using shortening though. I use vegetable oils in my vegan chocolates (which is essentially what shortening is) and the texture is just weird. If i'm using butter to make the full hit of flavour then shortening would defeat that I htink...plus I just don't like the taste/texture that much Finding a combination of veg oils that almost behave like butter has been a real mission!

Jim..thank you so much for this - I think I'll give these a go. Especially the butter ganache - I'm with you re the shelf life but given the very low water activity the air *may* not be such an issue. At least it may only reduce the shelf life to that of a cream ganache which isn't that big a deal. Hmmm...I see experiments on teh horizon...

Hi all - I thought I'd revive this thread rather than start my own as it's already answered some of my questions anyway - but two questions remains... A few people have talked about a recipe using fondant, butter and chocolate - which frankly sounds amazing - my questions are: How do you combine them? I'm assuming you warm the fondant, melt (and temper?) the chocolate and that the butter should be softened. I note Kerry's point about using a mixer to combine. Secondly - what's the texture like? I was pondering using a whipped ganache for a chocolate centre to give it a lighter fluffier feel...but I seem to remember reading this was a bad idea, mainly with regard to shelf life (Although I can't find where I read that..I think it ws Grewelling but I can't seem to find it)

As an experiment (an at the behest of my girlfriend) I tried just dipping cubes of manchego in very dark chocolate. Yeah......... If the cube was small enough it was a taste sensation (especially with a chilli chocolate). If the cube was a little bigger...the texture was a little weird to say the least!

Woah.......... that's kind of cool but I have to be honest - I'm not sure I'd want one! I guess if you have industrial levels of cake poduction then it may be useful - once it's paid for itself you'll be saving money on wages. But still....no. As for the moulding honeycomb issue - I may be having a rethink. The problem was pouring it in a way that got enough into each cavity without just having a ton of it left on top. I tried some scraping but it was quite tricky..but if I set up for that I think it might actually work! The pieces I got out weren't overly hard around teh edges. Definitely an interesting idea...25mm square crunchie bars. Hmmm. I'm slightly torn because I think the crushed up honeycomb mixed with tempered chocolate may look more interesting - but if I can make it work the perfect little cubes would be awesome I may come back to this

Ok so I said i'd report back on the idea of moulding honeycom/cinder toffee/whatever you call it.....in a chocoflex mould. Erm.....don't. Just don't. It did kind of work - I set it up so i could pour some into the last row or two of the chocoflex mould and then the rest straight into a prepped tin. Never having made it before i was unprepared for how gloopy it is when pouring and that's the real issue. Trying to get an even amount in to even a couple of mould cavities was like trying to put rubber gloves on an octopus. Mildy amusing ...but otherwise pointless..if you imagine how well all the gloves would fit after trying that you'll have a rough idea of how neat the cubes of honeycomb were. So I htink i'll stick with smashing it up into little pieces, mixing them with tempered chocolate and then piping that into the mould cavities to make little crunchy nuggets.

Yeah getting even squares may be a tad more tricky than it's worth...I hadn't considered the fact that the edges get hard - thank you (as ever) Kerry! I'll give it a go anyway, won't hurt to pour some into silico moulds and see what happens eh? However i think little honeycomb clusters may be a more interesting confection anyway. Thank you all - I shall report back!

I am continually humbled and amazed by the amount and quality of help I get here. There are some truly wonderful people who give a great deal to this site.......hopefully I'll be able to do the same when I have more experience

Hi all So I'm thinking about adding a chocolate covered honeycomb to my menu for the run up to Christmas; but I'm wondering whether my plan would work. Ideally I would like to have small squares, dipped in chocolate, that can go in the boxes alongside the other moulded/dipped chocs. My plan is to try decanting the honeycomb into a chocoflex mould and ...assuming I can get it out again...then dip in chocolate. So I have two questions - (never having made honeycomb before I'll add...) 1. Would this work? can foresee possible problems with either (a) getting actual cubes out rather than just digging out bits of honeycomb or (b) the bubbles dissapearing because the mould is so small. 2. If this doesn't work - how about smahing it into small pieces and mixing them with chocolate - and then pouring into the moulds (so you basically get a small chocolate with crunchy bits in it) Thoughts?

Ah.... I hadn't thought of that possibility. Sounds vile though... Adding rapeseed oil to chocolate... No.

I love this place Thank you so much for all the answers, very much appreciated! I did try the perfect serving idea but i's not what they're after really (tasted great though!) I'm basically planning to go with ChocoMom on this one and yes...I saw that video...urgh. I would love the time and resources to do something like that but in a very small kitchen with a lot of chocolates to make; it just isn't feasible sadly. One day..you know...when I'm a proper chocolatier with a decent sized production space..maybe a shop....*dream* Now I just need to find out why people add oil to aerated chocolate........and attempt casting honeycomb in a chocoflex mould.... Because you know - why make life easy eh..

Hi all, so I'm trying to work on some gin chocolates for a local restaurant I already supply with chocolates. They have a huge range of speciality gins and we want to do a gin chocolate board. I tried a ganache but gins are way too delicately flavoured to get the botanicals to shine through a ganache and discern individual gin flavours. So I'm going to try doing gin flavoured liqueur chocolates. So my questions are: I never see gin chocolates like this......which makes me think there's a reason for that! Any ideas? I can't see a reason it wouldn't work but I know very little about making alcohol syrups. Secondly - if I wanted to add a hint of fruit flavour with fresh fruit puree; is that going to cause problems? (I'm pondering whether the fruit acids would affect the syrup negatively) Finally - Grewelling and thers seem happy doing these (i'm going to use molded shells not starch molding...i'm a one man show working out of my own kitchen so a starch mold process is a non-starter). but I saw Eddy van Damme state that the sugar syrup will break down the chocolate, giving a short shelf life. I'm not convinced but any input there would be helpful! Cheers

I'm going to throw a curve ball in here...actually a couple... If you're using callets/pistoles/other tempered chocolate drops - you could try using the incomplete melting method to temper (see video). You *do8 have to be scrupulous about short bursts though. You don't say (or I completely missed) what you are doing this for - but i'm assuming this isn't a commercial venture and is more experimentation at this stage? If so - then maybe try using mycryo to seed - it's a pricey option for large scale work but for small batches it works very well (it's just a tempered cocoa butter powder...exactly the same process but you heat the chocolate to 45c, cool to around 34c and then add 1% by weight mycryo - stir stir sir - works for me every time) Finally - I cannot recommend a good thermometer enough. Personally I use a Thermapen - well worth the investment. IR thermos are fine once you have the hang of it all and you can check the temperature against a proper probe thermometer...but they are less useful in less than ideal conditions.

THank you for this - I have looked around that site but there doesn't seem to be any in Manchester. The one place that did do it has closed because there wasn't enough demand apparently. Hopefully I will have a space in Liverpool soon via the shared bakery space.

Haha!! Yeah....that would be extremely unfortunate! However we'll be working at different times and we're both pretty ocd abotu keeping things separate

I'm guessing nobody else has a recipe either.......... damn. If I find one i'll post it here!

Hi all - I was wondering if anyone had success with a dairy free (ie vegan) salted caramel recipe that they'd like to share? I'm just introducing a vegan chocolate range and I'm planning to offer basically the exact same chocolates I do in the non-vegan range....but i'm a bit stuck on the salted caramel I've found a bunch of recipes but they seem to be largely just pureed dates or combinations of ingredients that ....well ...just don't sit right. One criticism I have of existing vegan chocolates is that they're generally not very tasty (compared to non vegan versions)...there's too much "this is sort of like the non vegan thing so it will do". I've sourced a decent vegan milk chocolate and I make a dark chocolate that's fine so most confections I'm making turn out just fine (replacing cream and butter with rice milk and coconut oil) - in fact they have a cleaner taste than non vegan versions which I kinda like. But as you all know...a caramel (as used in confections) relies on the dairy fats for that rich flavour and I'm struggling to understand how the alternative fats I could use will work. I see things that suggest coconut oil or cocoa butter as alternatives but the melting points seem to be an issue as does the final texture. Mostly i'm concerned what will happen to them when sat on a shelf for a week or two in a shop. So - any pointers would be very gratefully received"!!

THat's an interesting idea Jeanne.... and Pastrygirl... the restaurant option is tricky here but worth looking into - and yes there would be issues with health permits - I would have to have the kitchen re-inspected with my stuff in it to show I have processes to avioid cross contamination etc. Hmm.

HI pastrygirl - sorry it's taken a whlie to reply...and thank you Sadly that shared kitchen space just doesn't seem to exist much over here. You can find it in London but other areas are lacking. There was a company running a shared kitchen space in Manchester and one in Liverpool...both companies ceased those operations due to lack of uptake. Small catering businesses..especially chocolate...are not well catered for (no pun intended) over here. So we're now looking at a range of options...all of which require capital we don't have right now but we're working on that too..... the search continues

Hi all - I was wondering if anyone here had any experiences that could be useful.... Myself and a friend (I'm a chocolatier, he's a baker) are looking to set up together. The dominant idea is to start our own cafe; which will also double as a production site for our respective businesses. (We have other people interested in joining in with this to make something more than just a cafe...however that may not happen for a bunch of tiresome logistical reasons). We have little capital to start with but neither of us needs much more equipment than we have right now (we're both home producers) - what we do need, is a suitable space to work in. Summer is NOT the time to be making chocolate or sourdough bread that requires long proving times. Our kitchen requirements are just abotu identical so it makes sense to join forces. What I'm struggling with is finding a suitable space - we're looking at existing cafe units, retail units we may be able to convert etc etc. However - we may have to shelve the cafe idea and just find somewhere to have a production space...........which is where this post is laboriously going... What I'd like to know is has anyone here either hired kitchen space (we're based in Manchester and Liverpool so up north-west ideally!) and if so what their experience was - or set up a production only kitchen somewhere; and if so how did you do it? I've seen the ready made kitchen pods from (I think) pkl but I was wondering what other options there are for renting commercial/industrial space and setting up a kitchen space. Anyone?

Although...now i have the issue of finding them in stock....but at least now I know what i'm looking for!

I love this forum....... THANK YOU!!!