Pastrypastmidnight

Greweling has a PB soft nougat. I bet you could use any kind of nut butter. I’ve only made it with commercial PB so far. Because that’s what he recommended.

I’ve had the best success at 20C, but I’m usually at 21. Colder than 20C, I feel like some things crystallize super quickly and I need to work really fast. But that’s probably my awkwardness and inefficiency showing . I hate being cold. Why did I choose chocolate?!?

These look great! How cold did your space need to be?

I take my phone to the pool everyday in the summer in a ziplock sandwich bag—it works perfectly .

And it’s the coconut oil and the nut paste that makes things soft and the cocoa butter/chocolate that makes it set up, right? So if you upped the praline paste that should soften it and you would use less oil not more? Forgive my ignorance—I haven’t made meltaways, but I’ve noticed that with praline.

Maybe try a deodorized cocoa butter.

I don’t have all the answers for you, but my guess is it’s easier to control the amount of caramelization of the sugar (how dark/bitter) with caramelized the sugar (either wet or dry) and then adding the fats. I haven’t made many of the “kitchen sink” style, but I have made caramels of all consistencies (sauce, soft, teeth breakingly chewy, fruit flavored) by cooking the sugar first.

I take my piped caramels to 107C/225F. It’s able to pipe and it self levels at room temp and it keeps just as long as any of my ganaches. I also process my set/slabbed pâte de fruit with a little glucose to pipe it. Cut it into chunks and do very short pulses until it starts to loosen up so you don’t burn out your food processor .

Thanks for the feedback!

These are beautiful! I have wondered about pear pdf. Pear is such a sweet and mild fruit that it seems like all the pear-ness of it would get lost in the sweetness of the pdf so I haven’t tried it yet. But I love pear! Does much of the pear flavor come through or is it more of a neutral fruitiness that just goes well with the caramel?

I haven’t tried Callebaut Gold, but the CB Zéphyr Caramel is fantastic. I found Valrhona Dulcey smoother but with a less pronounced buttery caramel flavor. The Zéphyr Caramel explodes on your mouth but the texture was just slightly gritty to me. I have only caramelized white chocolate once, it was Callebaut W2, but I much prefer both commercial versions to what I was able to make in my own.

Greweling says the melting point of IV crystals is 29C, so maybe as long as you stay at that temp the IV crystals stay melted out? The reheating to 30C could be extra insurance? I don’t know. I tried it with the molds I painted, sprayed and shelled last night and so far so good. I’ll report back once I fill, cap and crack them out. I have a history of everything looking perfect at this stage and then the shells readhering to the mold .

Kriss Harvey has also advocated a much cooler temperature than I usually see recommended. He melts the cocoa butter, then tosses it back and forth between two cups until it reaches 29C, then sprays. I haven’t tried that method yet. For those taking the class, let us know what you think of it. I wish I could take it with you—alas, life right now. But I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences after you complete the course.

A little cliché but my 3-year old loved it . Chocolate cake with raspberry coulis and swiss meringue buttercream. It was my first real time doing anything with fondant (ears and horn).

It won’t let me react with a “like,” a “ha-ha”, AND a “sad” reaction. But that’s my reaction. Lots of tears. Some from laughing. Some from crying .

Thank you for the tips! I’m sorry it happens to you, but I’m glad I am not completely alone .

This is the pro: Chocolates and Confections: Formula, Theory, and Technique for the Artisan Confectioner and the home baking version: Chocolates and Confections at Home with The Culinary Institute of America Enjoy the new book!

By Peter Greweling? I do have that one—actually two (the pro and the amateur versions)

I feel like I’ve read a few places to chill the shells for a few minutes in the fridge once they start to crystallize. I’ll have to look around and see. But that’s what I’ve always done and I’ve never had so much trouble .

So I totally just looked at Christopher Elbow’s flavors online (he’s local to me and our family’s favorite chocolatier) and he totally does all of his ganaches as slabbed pieces and his molded pieces are all caramels. Because he’s a genius. As I suspected . The lemon has a white ganache at the bottom, but those level much more easily. @pastrygirl, I suspect you are on to something (you must be a genius too!).

Hey, for some reason I didn’t get a notification for this response and I just barely noticed it now. Thank you so much for typing all that out. I don’t have any books or anything by Notter, so I appreciate it very much .

I don’t actually know. It just looked dark to me. I know she does a 72% Venezuelan and it’s beautiful and the shell is a perfect uniform thickness and there are no air bubbles. I agree, I’ve not done a gianduja but my praline paste/chocolate fillings self level beautifully. That may be part of the problem. It just seems that most chocolatiers fill molded bonbons with dark ganaches and if they’re too stiff it is very difficult to cap them nicely. It seems like there must be something more I can do. But I am glad to know that it’s not just that I’m missing something obvious.

Ganaches, caramels and pralines. They all had some sticking. The caramels, I know, weren’t piped until they were at 27C or so. The ganaches were more like 30C. The praline was room temp praline paste with tempered milk chocolate at 30C, so 28-29C when it was piped. It seems like the fillings shouldn’t be able to pull the shells out of temper, right? Unless maybe the shells weren’t properly tempered, but it really seemed like they were. I tested the chocolate repeatedly for temper and it set up with no streaking within 3-4 minutes. Room temp was 20-21C.

I’m hoping someone can help me troubleshoot. I recently made a whole bunch of molded bonbons—using an airbrush, a melter, and using the EZTemper to temper both the chocolate and the cocoa butter for close to the first time. These were all new pieces of equipment for me. When I shelled the painted molds with dark chocolate, I waited until they had become dull and then put them in a cool fridge until they contracted and pulled away from the mold. They looked great. I stored them in a cool room until filling. I made sure none of my fillings were over 30C. Still, I noticed patches resticking to the molds. I have never had such trouble getting my finished pieces to release from the molds. Most came out eventually after much banging and short stints in the freezer, but there were dull spots and places where the cocoa butter didn’t release. I’m not really sure which factor is the most likely candidate for causing the shells to appear to go out of temper. Any thoughts? Thanks!

I posted something very similar earlier, but this question is slightly different. I am wondering if I’m chasing a unicorn or if a self-leveling dark chocolate ganache is an actual achievable thing. Does anybody have tips on how to get a dark chocolate ganache that will self-level—like Susanna Yoon in the link below? https://instagram.com/p/BdV8inwHgiP/ When I use the Valrhona emulsion method, more often than not I get something akin to actual chocolate mayonnaise in viscosity. If I do hot cream on chocolate pieces, it’s much more fluid but by the time it’s down to the proper piping temperature for molded bonbons it at least leaves a mound or a peak. I have fairly decent piping skills (I’ve been piping macarons for 4 or 5 years) and I’m using a 1:1 chocolate to cream ratio—using medium fluid couverture chocolate (not craft chocolate without extra cocoa butter)—with 6-8% invert sugar and about 12% butter. I’m nervous to add more liquid because of reduced shelf life. What am I doing wrong? If you’ve achieved this, can you share details? What chocolate? Temperatures? Method? I’d really appreciate it. Thanks! (I copied and pasted this from the Ecole Chocolat grad forum—I didn’t get a response—and it did something weird to the font.)