WayUpNorth

Tastes great! Yeah, I guess I'll have to start over, this batch has just been so much work it's hard to lay it down. I've seen people use an immersion blender, is that meant to be after reaching temperature and taking it off the heat?

So I've made a fair amount of caramels before, and never had separation issues. This time, though, I cannot get it to work. I've boiled this batch 6 times, adding water each time to "reset" it. I've checked my thermometer in plain water, raised the temperature, used a stick blender as it cooks, used a whisk as it cooks, left it alone while it cooks, cooled it quickly, cooled it slowly... I thought I had it this time, but as you can see, I did not. I cooked it to 248F the first time, and this most recent time, in the pictures, cooked it to 275, just trying to get a chewy caramel firm enough for dipping! Approx. recipe: 4 C granulated sugar 1 C corn syrup 1/4 C lemon juice 8 oz butter Any tips?

I'm planning to meet the group at Tomric, but not the dinner. My mother is now doing the workshop as well, and will be there too!

Alright, put me down for the dinner, too!

I'll go in for both classes as well, if there's still space. Might as well!

Ok Kerry, if there's still room I'd like to come!

I know, maybe we should do a far-NW meetup sometime! I'm definitely a novice, but I feel like I've read a lot of recipes and theory, and I've been lurking here for a long time, too.

Beautiful! Are the flavors all ganache?

Thanks so much! My estimate of cost was way off for some reason. I'll do some research on flights and keep you posted!

I did another batch, taking more care to fill a tad less and heat the chocolate a bit more after reaching temper, and I think it worked well! No big issues with bottoming and only a few leaks later on. They got some scuffs in transit over the holidays, but my family had no complaints, and I'm always a big fan of the shine they get from the molds. This batch was half caramels and half nougat. Kerry, I've been considering the workshop, and even have family nearby. Is there an estimate of price? I'm in Alaska, so it'd be a longshot, but I'm definitely interested.

I'm going to try another batch today, so I'll take some more pictures and see if I can properly apply your pointers! I think heat may be a problem for me - I've been tempering in a bowl with a microwave just fine, with lots of testing and without a thermometer, so I may be running my chocolate too cool. Is there a good way to make sure I don't lose my temper while heating if I don't have a thermometer? It seems like the filling should have allowed room for a good bottom, as long as the bottom didn't get pulled up into a dimple by my scraping. I let them set well, and even manually popped caramel bubbles and took a little out of the ones I thought were too full, then waited until it (slowly) returned to level.

I'm having some issues with my chocolate. I'm a novice, so it might be something obvious, but I cannot seem to get a clean and easy set of molds done. When I scrape the tops it seems to drag the bottoms off of the chocolates! Is there an easy way to prevent that? Am I just overfilling, or my chocolate to cool? The surplus chocolate on the molds in the pictures was an attempt to fix the problems.