Rajala

Oh! Must've misunderstood what they said to me. Haha, thanks for correcting me. Makes more sense One layer is almond mousse, the other is a pistachio mousse and the center is vanilla mousse with pistachio praliné and raspberry in its center. There's also a hazelnut sponge and a crispy hazelnut layer at the bottom. Lots of nuts!

Thank you! I was told that you always need to glaze a mousse in order to prevent it from absorb moisture. Eh, I think that I misunderstood the intent of the question. One of the mousse layer is really thin and I didn't really want to pour over it, and from experience - pouring neutral glaze over a frozen mousse often give you a way too thick glaze on the petit gateaux/entremet. This is what this thing looks like when a piece of it is removed, as you can see from its structure, I wouldn't be able to dip it either.

I haven't even tried the standard varieties from Valrhona, maybe I should. Will get some Felchlin samples tomorrow!

This is the final result! It went really well.

Haha, I’m not saying it’s not. White chocolate usually is cheaper than real chocolate from all other brands. I guess Valrhona is going to Valrhona.

The thing with Opalys is that it’s crazy expensive for being a white chocolate.

Just got a bag of that. I really enjoy white chocolate, but I'm not sure which of the ones I've tried I like the most. The white one from Michel Cluizel I have might be a favourite, I think it's called Ivoire.

Felchlin is at Valrhona levels here as well. Even the variations you mention, as the cheaper ones, are expensive. I do like that they offer dairy free milk and white chocolate.

Thanks for all the good advice. There won't be large volumes, at least in the beginning. There are lots of things to do except creating the selection of bonbons, like designing packages, do some coding for the webshop and designing that as well. Based on all the input, I think I'll go with Cocoa Barry in the beginning and see if people asks for products without soy and use Michel Cluizel when needed. I tried some products from a local shop, which I know are using Callebaut, and the texture in that chocolate compared to the mid tier priced products from Cocoa Barry was really noticeable. And it's not like I'm any kind of expert.

Great suggestions and tips. I have no issues with buying different brands, that will only be a problem when I'm famous and have some partnership with a brand. 😂 At the moment, I do favor Cocoa Barry because I love their Madirofolo chocolate. But I also tried some amazing variants from Michel Cluizel. But I don't really know if the average Jane would notice if you use the standard stuff from Callebaut or Michel Cluizel. At the moment I'm just playing around with different brands, trying to come up with some good recipes, so I can have a selection of maybe 15-20 different bonbons. Maybe an idea would be to offer a selection of some which are soy free - and see if anyone actually is interested in that.

That is true. But it's always interesting to hear opinions and have discussions.

What I've heard this is how he treats the cocoa butter; He heats the cocoa butter to 50 degrees, cool it down with movements to 26-27 degrees and then heat ut up to 30 degrees with a heat gun. Then spray the molds.

I'll let you know. I'm going to have a taste session at work to see what my colleagues think.

Yeah, I don't think it will happen all the time. He mentioned something about soy being dangerous because they use gasoline to get the lecithin out or something, haven't fact checked that yet though. It comes and goes as well, I guess - what people have concerns about. I'll see if I can test Felchlin, not sure if I have a local supplier of that. Thanks for the suggestions. I've seen Belcolade mentioned in works by Stéphane Leroux, but I've never seen it for sale anywhere. Weiss is a new one for me.

I'm considering opening up a little webshop to sell some chocolate and some other stuff, and one important thing is to source the products you work with. Chocolate is one of these. So I'm trying to look at various brands and see what's good and what's bad, I'm also thinking about brands that I don't know off, and I'd rather buy from a smaller company doing their own thing than from publicly traded giants such as Savencia Fromage and Dairy or Barry Callebaut. But in the end, price is of course always important. If money wasn't an issue, Original Beans is the one to pick. But it always is, unfortunately. You may wonder why I have soy lecithin listed under cons; it's simply because I've spoken with chocolatiers who have told me that customers who comes in to their stores ask about chocolate without soy lecithin. I was at an event where one guy pushed a Barry Callebaut rep really hard about this, so it actually seems to be a real concern where we live (I hadn't heard about it prior to this event.) I'm not saying that I'll not work with chocolate who have this, because so far I've only found a two brands which doesn't use it. This is my "research" so far, please let me know of brands that I've excluded due to lack of knowledge. I don't have plans at the moment to only work with a single brand, but it's easier to get good quotes if you buy in higher volume and it is of course good if the customer can expect the product to taste fairly the same, if they come back for more! Callebaut Pros - Affordable - Taste is good enough Cons - Soy lecithin - Haven't tried all their variants, but most of what I've tried have a weird texture, like there's sugar you can feel on your tongue Cacao Barry Pros - Great taste and texture at a mid segment price - Single plantation chocolate available which is bio certified (and tastes good) Cons - Soy lecithin Valrhona Pros - Good product range - Great taste and texture Cons - High price - Soy lecithin Michel Cluizel Pros - Great taste and texture - Rapeseed lecithin - Mini "callets". Will melt fast. Cons - Price. More expensive than Cocoa Barry, but not as expensive as Valrhona. Although close. Original Beans Pros - Great company with products from very good causes such as Femmes de Virunga - Every product is bio certified - Great taste and texture - No lecithin Cons - Price. Some variants more expensive than Valrhona. Casa Luker Pros - Great quote on price - Taste? (just got samples delivered today, haven't had the time to taste them yet. Delivered too chilled, need to wait a bit for it to reach normal temperatures) Cons - Soy lecithin - Very big "callets". Almost needs to be chopped up before melting to save time.

Probably not.

This is really cool. I'm glad that I'm not in a situation where this would be plausible. I know I would get too nerdy about it.

That wouldn't fit in my freezer, too many things in there. Space is an issue for everything when you live in a one room apartment. Someone did tell me that you can make ice cream with the help of dry ice, but that would also be like time consuming ordering it etc. Something like that would work. I shouldn't just focus on "one thing". It's always good to learn more (I can probably make cookies, but to make them perfect!) With my "luck", summer is probably past me soon anyway. The summer in this country is usually short, unfortunately.

Success! Glaze was at around 70° when I sprayed the mousse. It's a bit hard to see if you glazed it enough, when you don't color the glaze though. No clogging until I stopped spraying (I did leave the gun in the oven at 50°, to warm it up a bit, which might've helped with that.) I'll post a picture when I've made the real attempt. This was just "faux" mousse to see if it would work. Don't want to waste expensive ingredients in the try outs. Edit: for future reference; I used a 1,5mm nozzle.

I was thinking about that, but that would mean new gadgets. I love'em, but I don't have any space for a big machine at the moment.

I'm just going to spray one little petit gateaux this time, so I don't think I need to worry that much about clogging. It's a test to see if it works with the mousse from the molds I've made. One part is just 1 cm thick, I'm thinking that it might melt a bit if it's too hot. But we'll see. Just cooked up a batch of neutral glaze and got the new hvlp gun with the mail today. Test starts tomorrow.

Truth be told, I plan to buy a new gun anyway. That way I can have one for cb and one for things with water in it. It's only ~30 CAD. That's a good suggestion, but it won't work with this little piece. You'll know why, if you see it when I'm done. I'll post a picture in some thread at least. Thanks Teo! Do you know how hot it needs to be? I've heard 60°, but maybe you can go lower after you've heated it.

Haha. That is true. But let's wait and see if anyone have some experience with this.

I've earlier sprayed cocoa butter mixed with white chocolate and some color, to get that velvety appearance on a frozen mouse petit gateaux. However, what I'm working on now needs to be sprayed with a "neutral glaze", since it wouldn't work with pouring the glaze over it - like it would with a regular cake or something. Have anyone done this earlier? I'm not sure which kind of tools to use. I have my compressor and and a HVLP gun, but that's only 0.5mm. Not sure if that would be enough or if I should aim for something with a bit wider nozzle. I know that it would work to spray this with one of those Bosch paint sprayers etc, but I'd rather not buy more big things. Any suggestions?

Looking good! I remember seeing some picture from him, where it looks like a weed leaf.