Rajala

Strawberries and matcha. Accidentally made the world's thinnest bottom on the one pictured.

I guess I could try that, if I get a sous vide. Maybe next thing to invest in. Maybe one can test it with a Thermomix? That's quite powerful.

I don't know when to stop. Haha. It's basically just for fun and show how one can make it. The hardware (one of those magnetic stirrers) I have is really not made for fluids with high viscosity so I can only have like 5% starch in the mixture. I'm using alpha-amylase and glucoamylase. I think glucose syrup is one of those things that you're better off buying from a large scale manufacturer.

Thanks for your detailed reply! Super interesting. I always want to learn more about these things, but obviously haven't reached your level just yet. I'll input some more of my ganache recipes and tell you the difference I get. But now I'm going to try to make my own glucose syrup. Funny Sunday experiment!

Seems like quite some hours put down into this. What's the future plan? Have it free or put it behind a paywall like SaaS? How do you judge the consistency? Feels kind of subjective, but there must be something you base it on? Also the AW part, is that based on some of the formulas you can find out there? It's not really close to what I've measured on my own. No criticism here, just curiosity!

It's a really good book. But just to mention it: it's not mainly about ganaches and bonbons in general - but loads of other things as well.

Have you checked Chocolate by Ramon Morató? He's basically the source of the modern way to work and balance ganaches. The book contains a formula used by many many people. Wybauw obviously is a great source, but I don't remember him having developed a formula for this.

Update for anyone curious: pomegranate puree is basically juice. I went with 100% pomegranate for a PDF, cooked it to 107°C. While it got a bit of texture, it really wasn't a PDF. But since I'm piping it, whatever. If you want a PDF you should probably reduce it by 30-40% and use pear puree as well. To really get that flavor, like the pomegranate syrups you can buy, which got a kick to it.

Barry Callebaut's price increase is coming May 1st. It's a STEEP increase.

Interesting! I've never seen a mascarpone with more than 36% (I think the one I get is that). With that said, I haven't really searched for other variations - but good to know they exist.

Not sure if I should create a new thread or bump this, but you can see what I went with. I'm considering taking a class with Luis later this year. It's around $1500 (USD), so it's not an impulse thing. How was it to learn from Luis. I guess he's a pretty good teacher since he's working with it full time as I understand it?

Thanks Jim! Doesn't have to be perfect, I'm going to mix it anyway in ordet to be able to pipe it

Yeah, sounds like a good approach. I do have pear in the freezer, but not apricot. So it's easy to pick what to test here.

Did anyone ever make a PDF made out of pomegranate? I'm thinking if I should add some other fruit/berry to the mixture. It's not listed in the old PDF (the real PDF haha) from Boiron that's been shared over the years.

It's good, better than without I believe, and the vanilla fits very good. I feel like yolks helps to offset the taste of butter a bit as well. I think I might try to add some more yolks with the next attempt - should be room to add some more water with that AW. Just because why not?

AW measured at 0.7093. So we're good!

Thanks for the reply. I'll test it out and see how it tastes then.

There's a video on Chocolate Academy where they do it like that. Maybe she just learned it from them.

I'm currently experimenting with a crème brûlée inspired molded bonbon and I am really curious about the egg part. It seems like it's mainly about microorganisms that can come with it rather than anything else? I was thinking of adding some pasteurized egg yolks to a white chocolate butter ganache. But it's very little information about this when I search for it. I realize that I bump an extremely old thread here, but interesting if Wybauw said that it is about water activity in the end, no matter what. Maybe it is safe in the end. From my understanding, eggs are treated a lot differently in Europe compared to North America (at least the US), could be a reason why it's not a common thing as well. Anyone else currently reading the forum that have any more insights? What an experience to have met him by the way!

I'm only doing this as a hobby, so it doesn't matter too much. But I do scrape it off and save it!

I blast my molds with cocoa butter as well.

Did anyone try to "extract" nut oil from a nut paste with this?

You're welcome! I'm glad you like them.

Of course, you can find it here (but it's probably more a Swedish carrot cake more than anything haha): https://www.instagram.com/p/C3NDp6jMXv1/

Carrot cake!