Haley

Such a great workshop! The highlights for me were *sponge toffee technique (I’ve tried and failed in the past and now I’m excited to try again with a better understanding of the temperatures and timing thanks to Bernie) *playing with the melanger and getting tips and advice from Rodney for where to start with my experiments now that I have my own *talking to everyone and hearing about each other’s businesses and triumphs and struggles. Thanks to this amazing group for all the support and willingness to share!

@Britneyand I signed up for the open house and plan to stop in.

I don’t have a melanger yet, but I definitely want one! I’ll for sure want a small bowl for whatever I get. I’ll look into them and let you know @Kerry Beal. I have never used one so I have tons of questions!

I feel like the costs overall for the conference are still very reasonable and don't mind paying a bit more if needed.

I use the felchlin mascarponosa that I see a little tub of in one of the samples pictures! I usually like to make as many fillings from scratch as I can, but I make an exception for a 3 layer cheesecake bonbon (pate de fruit, mascarponosa, cookie crust layer)

I was using my wine fridge until it broke 😫. I don’t recall the brand and I don’t think it had any specific humidity controls. It was left with the house when we bought it from the previous owners so I didn’t specifically choose it. But until it stopped working, it did a great job for chocolate storage and since I’ve been without it, I have been missing it, especially with the humid spring weather. I didn’t end up replacing it because I’m getting my commercial kitchen built with a cool room built in (an AC split and a dehumidifier).

I would love to learn a bit about the business side of things if anyone is willing to share. From small home businesses to full on chocolate shops, I would love to hear everyone’s best practices, see each other’s packaging/labels, hear what people have learned along the way. Maybe in a class setting, or panel of people sharing, or even a discussion over lunch/dinner one day.

I plan to be there, and I’ll bring my sisters, @Britney and @Kelsey

I am in Alabama and currently work out of my home so I feel your pain on the humidity. On really damp days I don’t even attempt some things. It is also usually much more humid in the mornings so I don’t start early. I have found that the EZ temper silk helps with humidity issues when I temper by hand. I haven’t tried it with machine tempered chocolate. I also store my chocolates in a wine fridge for humidity control. When heating the kitchen I don’t like to go above 64/65 degrees and when cooling I like it at 68/69 degrees. But it does make it hard on days like we’ve had recently where neither my AC nor my heat kick on to dry out the air because the house is sitting right in between those temps. As others have said, sometimes the bloom doesn’t show through and the chocolates come out of the molds fine. Good luck!

I have had grainy texture with a couple different brands of cocoa butter. I get the best results if I melt and temper the cocoa butter myself then pour it out flat on parchment to set. Then I break it up and put it in the ez temper and it comes out perfectly silky. It’s an annoying extra step, but well worth the results.

The way they explained it to me was that they have to have proof that you are charging sales tax on your final end product.

I just pour the whole batch onto the molds and then use a scraper to spread it evenly into the cavities. I usually get a couple cavities that don’t fill completely or a few drips over the edge of the mold, but I have to have something to taste for quality control, right? 😉

I use these molds from chef rubber for my caramels and I absolutely love them. No cutting, just pop them out. https://shop.chefrubber.com/item/606015/Candy-Mould-Square/

It was a while ago when I made it, so I can’t remember exactly. I know I tried to follow the recipe exactly as written the first time and it never set up at all. I’ve made them a couple times and never had them firm enough to cut so I’ve always piped them into shells. Could have been user error though.

Thanks! I did these with drops of colored cocoa butter (one petal at a time) and hit them strategically with straight air from my airbrush, blowing them in the direction I wanted them to go. For the purple/blue flower I just put 2 drops in at the same time and the air blended them together. There was a lot of trial and error at first but I ended up loving (for the most part) the non uniformity and random splatters that came with this technique.