Rajala

It's a pretty simple filling in the end, but it involves a melanger where I run desiccated coconut, whole milk powder, sugar, vanilla, cocoa butter, and coconut oil for a very long time. I mix that mass with some salt, crushed flaked almonds, and some pailleté feuilletine. I dip the chocolate in some tempered chocolate and put it in some coconut and let it crystallize.

My take on the "Raffaello". I call it the Matsafello.

Sunflower seed and lemon (not too exciting just as a picture)

I made what we in Sweden call "smuldeg" (crumb dough). It's essentially just some flour, butter and some sugar (quite low amount of sugar actually). You use that to make a pie very quick. Called "smuldegspaj" or "crumble dough pie". I did just that, but for me I blended the baked dough too much, as the pieces kind of turned into something resembling caster sugar crystals in size. I would've liked to have it a bit bigger. My first idea was to use some kind of apple PDF as well. But then I thought: well, when you make an apple pie you do get some caramelization and such - so I ended up with the apple caramel instead. I think it worked out pretty well. But in hindsight, I probably would've baked the apples before using them in the caramel to get out even more flavor.

Apple Pie Bonbon. Apple caramel. Vanilla ganache. Crumb layer (mixed the crumbs a bit too much 😅, but you get the taste)

https://www.chocolatemelangeur.com/santha-40-chocolate-melangeur-with-speed-controller Looks exactly like this.

My neighbor already comes knocking at my door asking what the hell I'm doing when I'm vacuuming. I'm sure it would take around 40 seconds for him to show up if I start this little beauty up. You can also only tilt it, not remove the drum, so it's not really for household use when it comes to cleaning it haha.

I do have a melanger that can manage 10 kgs or so, standing in my apartment. Haven't used it but bought it super cheap - for future use or something. Haha.

I feel like that one is out of reach for my home experimentation.

Is there a machine that can give you something perfectly smooth except a melanger? Never seen a mixer that can do that. Even a robot coupe can't from what I remember. But yeah, new test tomorrow - I'll make sure to not run the thermomix for too long this time. 😆

I was inspired by a recent visit to a restaurant and tried to make a sunflower seed praliné just now. And I learned the hard way that too much heat will cause problem. I ran it for too long in my thermomix (which got up to 70°C by just friction), and the sugar completely changed structure and got all thready. I just recently realized that you save quite a lot of time by make your praline/nut paste in a mixer before adding it to your melanger.

You're welcome! Happy to be able to inspire a bit! (I'm thinking about going to a rhubarb festival in England next year, very strange but interesting haha)

Yeah, you get quite a large bonbon. It's like a third of a snickers bar.

Apricot, almond, and browned butter

Sorry, missed your question. I really did like it. I didn't go crazy on the matcha though.

No chocolate during summer? It's very quite here. Made a lemon / salty licorice bonbon this week. Finally some weather suited for chocolate

It's not too accurate based on my tests. While it doesn't matter if you measure something that's low (I tried an almond duja the other day), it could potentially be bad if it's something that's close to 0,85 and it's not accurate. But I mean, Christian hasn't said that you can trust it with 100% either. Just have to remember that. As ML evolve, I'm sure we'll eventually will be able to get an AW reading that is almost spot on. But, we also have to remember: AW isn't something that's digital. You can measure a sample 10 times and you won't hit the exact same value each time.

This is great, in general there's quite a lot of room for improvement in UX/UI. It took me a minute to figure out how to add an ingredient just now. Could be me, who knows. (and I'm sure you're aware of the missing translations, so won't list them)

I hope you can get your hands on some! I use that mold quite often and have no issues with it at least.

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.