Bentley

yes, Celsius. I caramelize the sugar to the color I want (without looking at temp), then deglaze with glucose and cream., which lowers the temp of the sugar. Then I bring it all up to 106 for the consistency I am after. I let it cool slightly then add butter, blend with a stick blender and let cool completely. I believe sugar melts around 160C/320F and starts to caramelize around 170C/340F. So you're heating it pretty high, then lowering the temp with the cream, then bringing the mixture back up to the desired temp to cook off the desired amount of water from the cream. Then adding in a bit more water with the butter (which is usually around 18% water). So the temp you cook too in the second stage will depend slightly on how much butter you're adding, but I imagine somewhere in the 104 area will get you close to a runny caramel. Let us know how it goes.

I just looked at Norman Love's website and strawberry cheesecake was replaced with "New York Cheesecake" and the description is "rich, freshly baked New York Cheesecake is blended into a white chocolate ganache for a big city flavor" so maybe my friend gave me more than a little inside info. Looks like they really do just cut up cheesecake and blend it into a white chocolate ganache.They make a lot of cheesecake on the pastry side of the business, so it's certainly possible.

I would imagine its possible to make a workable cheesecake ganache from Susanna's recipe without using the fromage blanc and mascarpone. Most cheesecakes are made with just cream cheese after all. If you do like the taste and texture, it shoudl be possible to balance a recipe for a good shelf life. Water is water no matter what the source, and as long as you are binding the free water, it shouldn't matter if it is from cream, creme fraiche, fromage blanc or anything else. The problem is that accurately measuring Aw is an expensive proposition. The meters are quite spendy for a home chef. Also, Norman Love Confections just retired their strawberry cheesecake bonbon (along with 7 other flavors). Maybe Norman will be willing to share some info about his recipe. Next time I see him, I will ask. Jessica - your graham cracker crust looks denser than a regular crust. Does it have chocolate in it?

The consistency of caramel comes down to the cooking temp. The higher you go, the more water you are cooking out. When I want a consistency that I can pipe into bonbons but that won't run out, I dry caramelize sugar and glucose, then deglaze with cream (vanilla infused), cook to 106 and add butter. If you want a runny caramel, try cooking to 104. Keep lowering the temp to get the consistency you want.

I tried a couple of recipes based on my own formulations using cream cheese, vanilla, glucose and white chocolate. I didn't get anything that I loved. The one time that I created a cheesecake bonbon that I actually served, I used a tip from a friend at Norman Love Confections. She told me to just make a basic white chocolate ganache, cut up a slice of cheesecake and use a blender to mix it in. Voila: cheesecake ganache. It tasted great, but I don't know the shelf life.

Old thread...but I just saw @Pastrypastmidnight's Cheesecake BonBon on instagram, and it is glorious! I would love to know how to do this if Jessica wants to share some details....

My regular airbrush broke, so I took out a spare Badger 250 to spray some colored cocoa butter but I could not get it to spray anything. I tried adjusting the tip up and down, adjusting the air pressure, checking that the siphon tubes weren't clogged....but I couldn't get it to spray any cocoa butter. Anyone here use this brush? Care to share any secrets to getting it to work?

I can't think of any explanation either. There was no oil or other fat in the molds. They are kept well away from any possible contaminants like that. I also cleaned and polished them with alcohol immediately prior to use. I'm going to try again next weekend and see what happens. The only thing that I could think was different this time vs all the other times I've shelled is that I may have burnt the colored cocoa butter as I overheated it when I melted it, taking it to 70*C. I don't know if that could cause this issue, but I'm going to try next week using the same CCB and new CCB to see if it makes a difference.

Appeared to be so. Totally matte.

Had something strange happen today that hasn't happened to me before. I sprayed my molds with colored cocoa butter, then filled the cavities with white chocolate. Tap to remove air bubbles, then invert to let the chocolate run out. The problem was that ALL of the chocolate ran out. Barely any stuck to the mold to create the shell. Most of the cavities had a little chocolate in the bottom and bare sides, like the chocolate just slid right off the molds. I have no idea why this might have happened. I have been using this same kind of chocolate for a long time. It had a good temper. Has anyone run into something like this before?

Its probably more of an American thing. I see it mostly in ice cream, but occasionally in bonbons. Here is Susanna Yoon's (Stick With Me Sweets) interpretation: https://yorkavenueblog.com/sweet-treat-birthday-cake-bonbons/ And this is my version that I mentioned in the original post. It is white chocolate ganache with actual birthday cake mixed in (frosting and all) along with a layer of vanilla buttercream icing:

Yes, you can freeze them. I know a couple of large chocolatiers that do Christmas production during the slow summer months and freeze until needed. Taste, texture and color are all unaffected if done properly. The devil is in the details though. Proper packaging and proper thawing is essential.

What flavor is birthday cake?? When I hear "birthday cake bonbon", I think sweet and vanilla, but that doesn't seem to really convey the flavor of birthday cake. My last birthday cake bonbon came about because I had some leftover birthday cake. It was a vanilla cake and I actually mixed it into a white chocolate ganache and piped it into molds. But short of baking a cake and mixing it into a ganache, what are people doing for this flavor?

Kerry - how precise do we need to be with the 1% silk? Tenth of a gram? Nearest gram ? Does going a little over 1% cause any issues?

It was time to buy some more cocoa butter, so I bought a 3.5KG bucket of food grade, deodorized CB (about 50% of the cost of the callets). This is how I deal with it. I soften it to make it easy to scoop, then I take out what I think I will need in the near term (a couple of months). I melt it down (60C) then cool it to 33C and temper it with silk from the EZ Temper. Then I pipe it into chocolate molds and let it fully crystalize for 24 hours. Each tablet weighs about 6g. Then I put some of the tablets in a jar in the EZ Temper for gorgeous silk, while keeping some of the tablets for recipes. One great side effect is that the next batch of chocolates made in those molds have ridiculous shine. My previous cocoa butter required an EZ Temper setting of 33.8. This new cocoa butter needed 33.6 degrees. I guess each variety or batch is slightly different.

I'm doing white...so I will have to really up the cocoa butter. 33% sounds pretty high, but clearly my 20% was not high enough. I am tempering the ganache with 1% silk. (Also, in your post above, I think you meant "Milk 28%")

Update: I reformulated the recipe so that water was 23.43%, cocoa butter was 20.50% and milkfat was 21.9%. The ganache ending up being too soft and, although I could cut it, it did spread a little so that my little squares weren't perfect. I think I will remove some cream and add more chocolate to reduce the water and milkfat and increase the cocoa butter closer to 22%. Trial and error, I suppose.

Thanks. The recipe I want to convert uses Opalys white chocolate, which is 33% cocoa butter. Is it as easy as adding more chocolate or cocoa butter - I don't need to worry about rebalancing the sugar and water? Is there a difference between adding chocolate (which increases cocoa butter and sugar) and reducing cream (which increases percentage of cocoa butter, reduces water and reduces milkfats)?

I have a recipe for ganache that I use in molded bonbons but it is too soft to use in a framed ganache. The recipe for the ganache used in the molded bonbons has water content of 24.76%, sugar content of 31.94%, cocoa butter content of 16.3% and milkfat content of 18.3%. This makes a ganache that pipes in very fluid, self levels and crystalizes to a very soft creamy texture. Another recipe I did for a framed ganache had water content of 28.74%, sugar content of 22.72%, cocoa butter content of 19.05% and milkfat content of 17.81%. Higher water content but also higher cocoa butter content, so it would seem that the cocoa butter has the most impact on the firmness of the ganache. If I want to convert the first recipe to a framed ganache, what would be the best way to go about it?

I used the recipe from Stephan Leroux's book Le Praliné for framed hazelnut praliné and I had no trouble cutting it. It is a much higher percentage of praliné to chocolate than a traditional gianduja. Also, I think you might be confusing Valrhona Guanaja, which is the brand name of their 70% dark couverture chocolates, and Gianduja.

My favorite.....used mainly for pates de fruit and caramel. https://www.matferbourgeatusa.com/automatic-funnel-5

Your enrobage looks quite precise already. If you're not putting a top layer of chocolate on your slabs, I don't see how adding one would make your bonbons any more sharp and square. Dipping goals right here:

I was thinking about not using a chablon on the top. It doesn't seem completely necessary in most cases. I also like the idea of using a heat gun to warm it up if it sets too much. I haven't tried William Curley's method of using a CB.Chocolate mixture. I may give that a go just for fun Chablon, as I have heard it, also refers to the layer of chocolate on the bottom and top of the slab of ganache. At 1:32 in the video I posted above, the Valrhona chef says "Pour le chablon, nous allons utiliser une couverture temperé..." (For the chablon, we're going to use a tempered couverture..." And at 5:08 in the video, he says "Je vais realizer un deuxiéme chablon" (I am going to make a second chablon) as he spreads chocolate over the top of the ganache slab.

Yes - he even says you have to do the cutting quickly while the chocolate is still crystallizing. I will have another chance to practice tomorrow. The nieces are in town and all they want to do is make chocolates.

Here is a a video (english subtitles if your French is rusty) that shows what I tried to do. It looks like he achieved a much thinner chablon than I did on top, but I used the same technique. Will try again tomorrow.