Avachocolate

I ordered the Ooni Fyra 12. I've read a lot of reviews about it, and all of them were great. Hope it will do a good job. I paid 310$ for it, using the code PROFYRABUNDLE. It offered 75$ off. Found it on this site. There might be other discounts for other stores that will help you to save some cash.

+1 for Amedei over Domori 😊

You can also infuse the cocoa butter with herbs 🙂

Thank you... You are correct, no gelatine, ...just cooked, strained, poured into a form and chilled...sets up beautifully

Just a basic Italian meringue...piped directly on, not baked

Thank you so much !

@Cahoot....the Pierre Herme recipe sets up beautifully...I use it all the time in our Lemon Tart, don't even use a baked shell for it.

"Tempered cocoa butter"...most likely just a translation issue as you suspected

For chocolate I use an IR gun....much faster and more convenient as you don't have to wipe of the probe everytime. But it since it definitely does not give me the accurate temperature inside the tank I have learned to compensate for it in my head automatically...for instance if my IR thermometer gives me a reading of 32 C then I know the actual temperature inside the melted chocolate is more or less around 33.5...so I just use it that way (your temperature differences may vary quite a bit depending on your tank size/ chocolate amount and brand of thermometer). Never had a problem with my temperatures that way...as a side note I would not use this method with something like a pate de fruit/ special caramels where the actual temperature is much more critical...there I use a high quality probe thermometer exclusively.

I have both...get the newer one, has more recipes :-) Both are great though, depending on where you buy it the first one may be cheaper, you would be fine with that also...has all the info you need for successful macaron making.

If you are making 6 flavors / 270 pralines then you are setting yourself up for failure no matter your workflow...it's no way to be efficient and make money. I understand that when you start out you want to have as many flavors as possible to be attractive to your customers but for 270 pieces you should have 2 flavors at the most... That amount in 2 flavors would take me about 4-4.5 hours....that's with my own optimized workflow (no access to a continuos tempering machine)....somebody else may be faster or slower. I would recommend the following things: 1. Buy an EZtemper or equivalent machine. 2. Buy more molds...only one style that is easy to clean and polish (eg. Hemispheres) 3. Don't go crazy with the designs on your shells...keep it simple....most of the fancy designs you see on Instagram are very labor intensive and made by people that sell "masterclasses" but don't sell chocolates 😉 4. Temper your ganache before filling, it will set a lot quicker and you can cap them sooner. Hope this helps 😊

I have pretty much a 100 % success rate with my molded bonbons at this point....but it took quite a lot of trial and error to adjust my workflow to my present environment...just takes time and patience, that's all

@MoonChild....colder is not automatically better...there is a point of diminishing returns which happens for me at about below 20 °C Your mold is colder and your chocolate cools down much quicker and gets harder to work with ...cold mold, cold cocoa butter layer and cooler chocolate means you have less time in the perfect temperature zone...your first couple of molds may come out fine but then as everything cools down you start to have problems. And any humidity above 50 % really screws with my results (not sure the scientific reason though). I have a dehumidifier in my chocolate room running 24/7 and pull 2-3 liters of water out of it every day...then again I live in the tropics.

@MoonChild....17-18 is a bit cold for the room....personally I never get good results at those temperatures....try having the room at 20-22 °C and the humidity below 50 % Always works well for me but your mileage may vary...

If you have access to a sous vide machine you can do it that way....much easier and more foolproof than in an oven...vacuumpack the white chocolate in small bags (around 300 grams per bag or so) and sous vide them for 6 hours at 90 degrees Celsius.....may have to play with the time/ temperature a bit depending on your specific couverture but those numbers work fine for me