Rajala
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Posts posted by Rajala
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Made a blind test with two colleagues just now.
1. They liked the most expensive brand the best (Felchlin), 2nd place for Michel Cluizel and 3rd place for Casa Luker (one of the Casa Luker chocolates scored high though).
2. The variations that I liked the most were the ones that they disliked the most.
3. Takeaway = Sweetness wins over taste with this test with two people.
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I love nuts, so I've made lots of nut pastes and pralinés with mine. Walnut praliné is amazing with a touch of salt.
I also made a pecan praliné, but that felt like a bit of waste of good nuts, doesn't really do it. Can't remember if I did it 50/50 or 60/40, but would mos def go with 60/40 if I tried again.
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How small is this small drum? 🤔
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Yeah, we see it differently. I'm thinking more vitamin than drugs. The chocolate cigarettes I had as a kid are long gone. I'm also driving things off topic at the moment. You're staff, tell us to stop.
I have that mold, (if it's the Pavoni one by Bachour) and thought about that the taping of it must be quite tricky.
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Sorry to jump into this discussion. I see where you guys are coming from, but wouldn't most people see a pill as something that's good for you? That's exactly how I see it. Pills = good. Is it something with two colors that immediately makes you think of some pill full with flunitrazepam or is it just pills over all that triggers something for you?
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On 7/6/2018 at 9:07 PM, understandingcocoa said:
Casa Luker was a big no on taste for me, I taste tasted it on a group of friends (after getting free samples of at least 10 varieties) and it was negative feedback all round. It all seemed to have a very smokey/whisky like taste too.
Interested to see what you think of them!
So, I've tried around 10 different variations from Casa Luker, and you're right. Almost all of them have some alcohol taste to them, one of my colleagues think so as well. I did find one of their chocolates that I liked. Tumaco 65%, it have nice biscuity taste to it. I think I might use that for cheap things, since the price for 10 KG is good.
One colleague thought all the samples were good. This was Casa Luker, Michel Cluizel and Felchlin. So I guess that it is like some of you wrote, people don't really notice a difference. And we can add to that, that the bonbons will be filled with something as well.
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Thanks for explaining @chromedome
So I got seven Felchlin samples today. I tried them all, to much remorse. They're all bloody fantastic. But on a brighter note, they pushed Valrhona off their high horse for me.
For anyone who's interested and doesn't know; Original Beans seems to be associated or maybe even owned by Felchlin, the "callets" from Original Beans carry the same logo as the ones from Felchlin.
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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!
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3 hours ago, jmacnaughtan said:
Looks great!
So, why did you need to spray the glaze?
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.
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I haven't even tried the standard varieties from Valrhona, maybe I should.
Will get some Felchlin samples tomorrow!
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This is the final result! It went really well.
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1 hour ago, Avachocolate said:
Well, I just know that whenever I reach for any Valrhona product that it will cost me an arm and a leg...lol.
But some of their chocolates are worth it for me...
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.
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The thing with Opalys is that it’s crazy expensive for being a white chocolate.
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6 hours ago, pastrygirl said:
For white, I like Callebaut Zephyr. Again, it has soy, but is moderately priced and not achingly sweet.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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1 minute ago, Tri2Cook said:
What's good is what you like. What's bad is what you don't like. In case you think I'm being flippant, I'm not. Watch the replies and see how many different chocolates are listed as good or bad and how many of the same chocolates are listed as good by one person and bad by another. Taste and use what you like. Don't worry about what someone else thinks about it unless they're giving you their money for it.
That is true. But it's always interesting to hear opinions and have discussions.
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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.
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2 minutes ago, understandingcocoa said:
Casa Luker was a big no on taste for me, I taste tasted it on a group of friends (after getting free samples of at least 10 varieties) and it was negative feedback all round. It all seemed to have a very smokey/whisky like taste too.
Interested to see what you think of them!
I'll let you know. I'm going to have a taste session at work to see what my colleagues think.
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43 minutes ago, pastrygirl said:
Felchlin has a few formulations without soy, the Arriba 72% is one that I use. Price-wise, they have a range; I believe the ones without soy are also the ones with a very long conch time and tend to be more expensive, closer to Valrhona pricing.
I get the soy question occasionally, somewhere between the number of people looking for sugar free and the number looking for vegan. I don't think the soy lecithin in chocolate is enough to trigger an allergy, people may be more concerned about GMO soy or something else that may or may not be pseudoscience woo. So it's one concern, but personally not high on my list. You can't please everyone all the time!
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.
22 minutes ago, teonzo said: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.
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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.
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5 minutes ago, Tri2Cook said:
Is there any other way?Probably not.
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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.
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White Chocolate: Favorites, Sourcing, Using
in Pastry & Baking
Posted
I recently bought a bag of Opalys and unfortunately it's the best white chocolate I've tried. I've bought some white chocolate at the taxfree shops while travelling that tastes like it, but no idea if those are "couvertures".
However, I think Michel Cluizel's Ivoire is good enough.