Sweet Impact Mama

I've had decent results with Costco's vanilla, but my favorite for the company is stuff that a friend brings back from Mexico when she travels there. Mind you, last year's horror show of a crop meant that the beans were terribly small and hard, compared to the ones she's bought me the year before. But their extract is worth every penny and she gets a decent deal by buying me big bottles that last forever. 😕 Not sure that will help you tho.

Hello again. Just wanted to give you a heads up about Chef Rubber's all natural line. I received an email from the guy that heads up that line for them. Apparently, they have a massive overhaul happening to it, and are just waiting on various test results to come back from the food safety labs. You might want to check with them on the timeline for that, before making any major investment in the current line.

Extraordinary!!

I second both of those ideas! I'm having trouble visualizing my "next" phase of business, and if there are any artisan scale sized shops to see "behind the scenes" that would be fantastic

WOW!!

Thanks for speaking up for us. ☺️ I've never been to one of these and am a mostly one-person operation, so my preferences for classes are probably not close to the "norm" for attendees. I would love a workshop on recipe development and/or chemistry of various ingredients, particularly when trying to avoid artificial ingredients. Or chemistry/recipe development for vegan confections? Other than that, I'm just looking forward to meeting other folks in the industry. As a lifetime introvert with major anxiety issues, networking is just not in my toolbox... it would be nice to have a structured event to work on that. 😏

They still have the design/transfer.

Key Lime in a dark chocolate shell, with pistachio paste in the center. (Now I have to resist eating them all!)

O.K., the picture we've got doesn't accurately represent the caps on the "bottles" now. They are solid and sit fully on top of it. And, they are all white or dark chocolate. Looks like they are delicately attached with a bit of chocolate.

So, just picked up the Moonstruck from my friend. Interesting note - if you eat them in their cafe, they cut the bottle top off before serving it to you. Hmmmm... More to follow. 😉

Brilliant! I have a friend that was just in Portland over the weekend. She's bringing some back for me to analyze. 😎

If this is the wrong sort of thread to start, and this should go in an existing one, please someone - feel free to move it to a proper placement. ☺️ I've got myself in a bit of a conundrum. Made this absolutely love Kaffir lime infused dark chocolate ganache and was pairing it with a lime pate d'fruit & coconut, for summer truffles. But since I made it late in the season, I have loads of the fruit jelly and dark chocolate ganache left, but we're going into Fall and Winter (think Holiday) flavors, so I want to use it to make something lovely, but not sure what to do with it. I adore the sort of smell and flavor that the Kaffir leaves brought to the ganache... but not sure if it would be appropriate to pair it with a key lime pie sort of white chocolate ganache, which would allow me to utilize some of the lime p.d.f.. Also wondering if that would be too summery for a winter holidays flavor. Looking for flavor pairing inspirations (and recipes if you feel like sharing), 'cause my creative brain is just grinding to a halt on this one. If it will help, here's my flavor line-up, so far, for the colder months: a two layered peppermint truffle Blood Orange Caramel & dark Chocolate layered Cranberry Walnut Pistachio Anise (maybe with a honey & Fig layer) Dark Amaretto & Tart Cherries (a menu constant) Midnight Caramel (liquid dark caramel inside 70% dark shell -also a standard flavor) Mayan Spiced Drinking Chocolate Truffle (standard menu) Chocolate Chai Gingered Pumpkin Pecan Espresso (standard menu - may add hazelnut for the holidays) Thanks for any brainstorming help you'd like to do with me!

I know, right?!? These are just exquisite. I want to know what gold they are using to get that really full, burnished look.

Being rather new to the airbrushing world, myself, I still get impatient and end up getting too close to the blasted mold and get that splattered coverage. I like the swirl effect you got on the far right one, middle row! Might try to come up with that sort of look for my peppermint ones, this winter. Your colors are really popping now!

I think that would work... but then do they cut out a custom transfer sheet, to lay in each cap, to get the logo of each beer?

Thanks for those links! I knew about getting individual squares, but not that style!

They may be using colors that already have some white mixed in, to get it to be more opaque, but I'd also assume a fine layer of white sprayed behind. I've been able to use a platinum dusting powder behind my more translucent colors, to get them to show up more "true".

I was wondering about that. It would seem to be terribly time consuming if you have to do it one at a time. Tho, since they aren't particularly thin, they might have a silicone mold that does it, with the blister transfers that PastryGirl mentioned above.

Alright, this may have been asked somewhere on this forum, but does anyone know what mold Moonstruck uses to make these chocolates? My guess is they use two different molds, but not sure. Living in Wisconsin, I'm surrounded by amazing local craft breweries and would LOVE to showcase some of them with something like this.

I LOVE THOSE!! The dark patterns made me thing of tiger stripes, which just isn't my thing.... but the white ones look like hoarfrost on branches - which is one of my favorite things in the world. These are beautiful!

Just saw your post on Instagram, Kerry! Fantastic looking!!

WOW, Kerry, you seem to have cracked it! I knew the pattern looked so familiar but couldn't figure out why. I have a weird memory of that sort of thing happening when cleaning glass panes in windows and putting them together before they were fully dry. Can't wait to see what your work looks like when done! btw - I think the top picture you shared looks like a little mushroom cap. 😄

Slobbering all over myself. That's one dangerous little video 😋