understandingcocoa
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Hi all,
I very occasionally have the following problem, and I can’t for the life of me work out why.
The two photos are from the exact same batch just split into two separate identical pans.
It seems to happen randomly and doesn’t happen with a particular flavour/ any certain toppings etc.
First pan in the oven - perfect shine, second pan in the oven - almost grainy appearance? Still taste the same.
TIA
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2 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:
So sucrose is simply table sugar.
Sorbitol liquid is 70% solids - so increase the amount by 100/70. Wybauw seems to use the powdered I recall.
Dextrose - look for powdered glucose - same thing (as different from atomized glucose). Used a lot in Europe - I find it in my local European deli store here in Canada.
Glucose - refers to glucose syrup in his book.
Kerry you're a dream thank you, I felt like I was back at school failing at chemistry.
So for sucrose you literally use a granulated sugar, with the idea that it will dissolve in the heat?
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I'm trying to create some Wyabauw recipes but when trying to find the ingredients I'm coming up short. Based in the UK, any potential suppliers would be hugely appreciated as mine haven't got a clue what i'm talking about.
Sucrose - is this a liquid ingredient? I'm assuming you can't just use sugar?
Sorbitol - I've found liquid, does anyone know if Wyabauw recipes are expecting powder form instead?
Dextrose - does this have another name in the UK?
Glucose - I've noted the distinction in the book between glucose syrup and glucose, does anyone use pure glucose?
Thanks in advance to anyone who can shed some light!
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On 7/13/2019 at 1:56 AM, Pastrypastmidnight said:
If your caramel is not fluid enough for you and you are not cooking it at all after adding the cream (i.e. caramelizing the sugar to desired color/temp, deglazing with cream/butter/etc. off the heat, and then using it), you don’t have enough liquid in your caramel. Putting it back on the heat will only make it stiffer as you will be cooking out more water.
Are you starting out with a recipe for a chewy caramel candy or are you starting with a recipe designed to be a sauce or bonbon filling?
I think this is definitely the issue, it's a recipe for a bonbon filling, and it is pipeable so it's not the recipes fault, I just want to be able to create a more liquid version.
Would you recommend making a wet caramel & starting off with more water in the sugar, or just adding more cream?
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On 7/12/2019 at 12:57 AM, Jim D. said:
This is a bit off-topic but follows on your technique: As I am currently embarked on a campaign to fix my caramel issues (namely, that often the fat separates from the caramel, sometimes immediately on adding the butter, sometimes after the caramel has sat a while, even occasionally after it has been piped), I immediately noticed that you use a stick blender to blend in the butter. Many recipes call for waiting a while (longer than the "slightly" you mention), so by that point using a stick blender is practically impossible. Do you ever have the separation issue I mention? If not, do you think blending in the butter this way makes a difference? I have only recently come to the conclusion that what one is doing when adding the butter is making an emulsion--blending what is mostly fat into what is mostly liquid (though each element contains the other as well). If that is in fact true, then forcing the emulsion--rather than just stirring in the butter--makes sense. I am incredibly frustrated when the problem occurs because sometimes--using exactly the same recipe--all goes well. Checking online reveals dozens of pseudo-explanations (caramel cooked too fast, too slow, too much butter added, etc.).
Jim i've had this exact same issue, using the same recipe and sometimes getting little blobs of fat.
I realised it was from adding the butter all in one go, now I add chunks at a time, stir that in, then the next etc, and it hasn't separated since.
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On 7/11/2019 at 8:10 PM, Bentley said:
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.
Thanks Bentley, from my experiments I think it must be that I need more liquid in my recipe, I tried the heating after adding cream method, however as soon as I added the cream it was already at 225F! So no way to cook to a cooler temp. I will keep you updated on my liquid addition experiments
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9 hours ago, Jim D. said:
The customary method is to get the sugar to the color you want (remembering that it will lighten when the cream is added), then add warmed cream and continue cooking to the desired temp, which will be determined by the consistency you want the caramel to have when it has cooled. I think it is absolutely essential to check its temperature as you are cooking it and also check when it is finished by dropping a bit into cold water (this will tell you whether it is at "soft-ball" stage or further along). I strongly suggest you read through Kerry Beal's lesson (which has instructions as well as photos) on how to make caramel. Since you want something more fluid, you simply stop the cooking at a lower temperature than she gives (since she is making "stand-up" caramels). It helps to know that if you accidentally exceed the temperature and consistency you are aiming at, you can simply add some water and cook the caramel again. For pipeable caramel, I cook mine to approximately 236F/113C and aim for a little beyond soft-ball stage. Too fluid and the caramel may leak from the bonbon, too firm and you will have difficulty piping it. For some other approaches to fluid caramels, I recommend Peter Greweling's Chocolates and Confections (he has a photo of caramel oozing out of a cut chocolate that is irresistible).
This is a huge help, thanks so much. I'm going to read Kerry's lesson & have a good experiment.
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On 7/3/2019 at 9:22 PM, Bentley said:
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.
Thanks Bentley, just to confirm, 104 Celsius not F correct? do you find it reaches an amber colour at this temp?
and so you also put it back on the heat after adding cream?
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On 7/3/2019 at 6:14 PM, Chocoguyin Pemby said:
I use the same recipe as pastrygirl and 2 thermometers - a glass candy one and a digital probe one - after adding the cream salt and vanilla I cook it to 230F for a softer sauce thickness - if that is thicker than you want try 225F - I find the final temp is the most important factor. I make a lot of caramels for dipping that I take up to 245 and then pour into silicone molds to set. Get a good thermometer and make sure it is calibrated properly - boil some water and see what the thermometer reads - it should be 212F - if not note the temperature and increase or decrease your final temp as needed.
ps one of my favorite bonbons I have made is a caramel and peanut butter one.
I love anything with peanut butter so that sounds heavenly - do you layer it or mix them together?
This method is new to me - do you mean you carry on cooking the caramel after the cream has been added? and does this create a consistency that pools out of the bonbon when cut open?
I usually heat the sugar, glucose & a little water, then as soon as that reaches colour I immediately take off the heat and add in warmed cream & butter, then leave to cool.
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On 7/2/2019 at 10:54 PM, Jim D. said:
To what temperature and consistency do you cook the caramel? That is another factor in how fluid it is when finished. You should always test it by dropping a little in water. If you are at the soft-ball stage, the caramel should turn out fluid when it's cool. If it is too stiff when you go to pipe it into shells, you can heat it up, add some water, and cook it again--but not so much as the first time.
Thanks Jim, I don't cook to a particular temp, I've always just done it by eye to an amber colour.
I usually add the cream and take the sugar off the heat as soon as it reaches colour so I'm unsure how I could cook it to a lower temp... sounds like it's experiment time
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24 minutes ago, pastrygirl said:
Do you caramelize the sugar separately then add the cream and butter, or are you cooking it all together until the mixture colors?
I suggest the former method, and keep going with upping the cream. Or add liquid in the form of liquor - rum, cointreau, bourbon, etc..
I caramelise the sugar alone with a little water, then once to colour adding the cream & butter. Thank you i'll try another batch now and up the cream - do you use a recipe where it's more cream than sugar?
P.s Thanks Pastry Girl, I always see your name popping up on the threads helping others
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Hi guys, as the title suggests, I'm trying to make a more liquid caramel filling for bonbons.
I make a salted caramel which as soon as it starts to cool gets too difficult to pipe very quickly, I've tried upping the cream & reducing the butter but still seem to have the same issue.
Ideally I'd like a really runny caramel, the sort that pools out when you bite into a bonbon, can anyone provide any tips?
Current recipe - 200g sugar, 180g cream, 40g butter - tastes beautiful but sets too hard! (Cooked until sugar turns amber)
thanks in advance!
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On 5/2/2019 at 5:32 PM, SweetandSnappyJen said:
Hi folks: my question is unrelated to the previous poster, however it does fall into the category of 'Molded Chocolates Workflow' so I figured I'd pose it here. I've been tempering/molding chocolates for ages, but for some reason, the past several months have been giving me a fairly consistent issue. I fill the cavities with tempered chocolate, tap to let the excess chocolate drips out, scrape and then lay the mold upside down, for about 5 minutes or so or when the chocolate starts to set. When I scrape again to get the excess chocolate off the top after the mold has been upside down, the side of the cavity caves in. I've tried waiting until the molds are fully set and scraping then, but i either get the whole shell coming out, or also a side cave-in. Has this happened to any of you?
Thanks!
Late to the party but hi!
If I'm understanding correctly i've had the same issue.
If you want to keep placing face down, scrape way before it's set, just firming up enough that no more is dripping down. That way the excess you're scraping away isn't as cemented to the side that you're then pulling away with it - does that make sense?
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On 2/9/2019 at 7:37 AM, eglies said:
Hi there,
i am moving into our lab next week so excited!!!! I have one million questions but the ones popping up in my head are
1) If I have 6 moulded bonbon recipes to airbrush, fill and cover and 6 bars recipes to make for our production,how do you organise production? Can someone give me an example of their weekly plan am and pm plan just to get an idea? I have a Selmi 😀.
2) how many bonbons and bars should I produce just before we launch? I have my budgets and projections but you know those first weeks God knows how you will do! Should I be freezing from the beginning? And what is the ideal packaging way to freeze bonbons?
Thank you so appreciate it!
Congrats, so exciting!
Can you tell us a little more about your shop? What size is it? Do you have a huge counter/ lots of shelves to fill?
What have you been doing up until this point chocolate wise - markets etc? Do you have any best sellers?
Our little shop opened 4 months ago and the opening weekend was absolutely manic & I sold out of pretty much everything. My advice would be to make masses of your long life products i.e bars then you can just focus on truffles if you end up selling more than you think. When it comes to a schedule, to be honest as yet there isn't one, especially as everything sells at such different rates from week to week I just go with the flow.
If you're worried about having bonbon wastage, you always have the option of running a competition to win free bonbons etc, bit of promo and gets rid of excess stock.
Best of luck!
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7 hours ago, Sue PEI said:
This is a wonderful topic. Thanks for this discussion. I am also hoping to open small shop and am wrestling with all the same issues. I'm in a tiny province and I'm in the country, so the suggestions about how to generate interest are terrific. We have 8 weeks that are really really busy, then the summer people start to disappear and things slow down - a lot. But it is the locals that will keep us in business. We have worked very hard to have loyal happy customers at the market, but that is only one day a week. A shop is a completely different level of commitment. Do any of you plan on selling online as well? It gets a little tricky with all the regulations.(actually, it's kind of overwhelming)
It is overwhelming isn't it! Do you have any community groups (facebook etc.)? I've been posting on there about the launch and had a huge response, people seem to really like getting behind a local business, so if you can, involve them as much as poss and let them get invested in you. Do other businesses in the same area do well?
Yes I do online, but to be honest it needs far more marketing. I think if you can find something low risk enough (you can afford and not tied into a lengthy contract) it's worth a chance, chocolate is at least an easy thing to get people excited about!
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On 8/18/2018 at 1:16 AM, JeanneCake said:
Don't fall for the sales, discounts, coupons, what-have-you methodology .... do not train your customers to wait for a sale, or the end of the day or week (if you will close for multiple days in a row I mean) before you close for bargains. Don't let people try to tell you they want a discount because they are buying so much - your work multiplies with volume sales and that does not mean a discounted price. well, they will try, but don't go for it.
And try to have something inexpensive that people on a fixed income CAN purchase. We use our cake scraps to make cake truffles - we make hundreds at a time in less than two hours but they last quite a long time in the freezer so we have them all the time. They are cheap to make (most of the cost is labor but we make them quickly and efficiently) and they are the least expensive thing we have in the case. Your product offerings are very different from mine, but perhaps you can make chocolate bark or something that can be priced so that you are not out of reach of the majority of your demographic if they are pensioners.
Good advice thank you. I do a range of chocolate lollies that are great as "add ons" so hopefully this will cover that market!
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@gfron1 Were these left to set in the fridge? I've had this on exposed chocolate i.e. bars when i've left them in too long, or truffles have sometimes developed a sticky sheen after tap out due to being left too long in the cold (I have the memory of goldfish)
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22 hours ago, pastrygirl said:
oooh, cool stone walls sounds nice
and extra dungeon-esque 😂
Funny you should say this, it's an old security shop so it currently has bolted on bars across the whole front of the shop too
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1 minute ago, Kerry Beal said:
You've just had a heat wave there haven't you? But by fall I'm sure that will be gone!
I'd recommend the wine fridge at ∼13-17º C - you want them about 10º C lower than room temperature.
Haha yes, it won't last for long! And as the buildings are stone round here they stay pretty cool luckily.
Wine fridge it is, thank you
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Another question - what does everyone do in terms of truffle storage?
My counter won't be refrigerated, I'm wondering whether to store the truffles in a wine fridge or some such when the shops closed, or at least boxed away to keep fresh as the counter won't have a back.
P.s. the shop will be cool, it's the North after all
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On 8/4/2018 at 12:42 PM, gfron1 said:
Who knows how many sales I lose by not giving more options, but I barely keep up as is, and I factor in my time to package and staff. I strongly believe that if you have a great product options are not important. But you have to get to the point where people know that your quality is that good.
. Free samples, but not free. A free sample will lead to a purchase. Possibly live music, free drinks, champagne toast/ribbon cutting...
I'm thinking guest amenity gift baskets, but it depends on the hotel. Make a really nice basket and then ask for a meeting with the GM or the Event Manager and just see if they have any interest and what they would need.
Good point, it was such a good feeling to turn down a wholesaler trying to batter me down on prices because I've started to recognise when things aren't worth my time - took a long time not to just grab every opportunity with both hands.
Haha I'd love to have something that fancy, however I think a max of about 8 people could fit in the shop at once 😂
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On 8/4/2018 at 1:07 PM, Kerry Beal said:
Don't underprice for sure! When someone comes in and tells you how many Hershey (I guess I should make that Cadbury given your location) bars they can get for the same price - smile, bite your tongue and give them a little sample so they'll remember what they are missing when they buy that next bar.
I know you're right, I've just got to build up that confidence!
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3 hours ago, pastrygirl said:
This is a conundrum indeed. Of course you want a cute little shop, inviting and high-end with beautiful displays. The planning and dreaming is half the fun. You want to paint and make it your own and have nice things. But will these nice things actually make you money and if they don't, is there a re-sale market? For years, working in restaurants I wondered why chefs always seemed so tight with a dollar. Then I quit my day job and realized that a dollar is harder to make and to keep than it seems.
I mean, you might want to spring for another melter and some new molds but you probably don't need a $20k Selmi at this point. Unless you're independently wealthy ... I think it's not that small businesses fail exactly, but that people get tired of just breaking even. We do it because we love it and try to make it work, but how many of us will be able to retire on all the money we made?
Another chocolatier in town opened a cute little retail shop, then because that didn't really support itself they did a kickstarter campaign and opened a second with a super fancy espresso machine to drive business. And they have a 3rd rent to pay on kitchen space ... that's a lot of rent to pay plus the cost of the build-out. Will they end up like the eclair lady who shut down after 2 years and is trying to sell her high end toys like a pasteurizer and a depositor? They spared no expense outfitting the production kitchen plus had a cute little storefront downtown, could have done high volume but I think it just never really happened. People didn't understand, or didn't want to pay $6 for an eclair. That's why you start out with DIY and used equipment
Chocolate is an easier sell but yes, you'll still have people who would be just as happy with Cadbury.
But, hopefully you'll be open in time for the holidays and you'll be busy all winter and loving it.
Oh yeah I'm totally with you here. Something that held me back was the fear of investing everything I have and losing it all - and the huge amount of extra pressure that comes with knowing you've spent so much!
This shop is sort of the perfect stepping stone, lower rent & lack of various other normal fees means it's the least risk I could have taken. Fingers crossed kitting out the premises is actually going to be fairly reasonable from current projections, I'll be building as much as possible myself, I think the main cost will be the custom counter, and the only thing I won't be able to take away with me is the paint on the walls and the flooring!
Haha yeah I'll give the 20k selmi a miss for now, hoping just to carry on with my current equipment for as long as poss with a few extra basics.
Yes that's the plan, really hoping to be up and running by October and start off with a bang for Christmas.... I'll keep you posted 😅
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10 hours ago, Bentley said:
I'm going through the same process.....so much to work through. Equipment, suppliers, packaging, website, point of sale systems. You have to become an expert in so many areas to make sure you are getting the best for your business.
It's not for the weak. One tip i will give is to peruse fiverr.com for creative needs - logos, flyers, basic websites, etc. Some great designers there at very reasonable costs.
You're right, I think i've accepted that it's going to be a bit of trial and error. Does anyone else use izettle? I use them for markets so think I will continue on for the shop, perhaps link it up to an ipad to use as the till screen.
Just had a browse on fiverr, thanks for the tip!
Brownie troubleshooting - what could be going wrong?
in Pastry & Baking
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Thanks Teo, I'll try to track whether it's always the pans that go in the oven later.
Kitchen temp approx 19C, no idea on humidity but I'd say pretty low (UK based)