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

I agree with Teo.....I like her work but her classes are way too expensive.....the glazing looks nice on your Instagram feed and it is fun to do but for a real life shop the applications are limited...lots of extra work and also the glaze ingredients are not cheap per cake (something nobody ever mentions....). Nowadays you can find plenty of useful information about this glazing technique with just a little bit of research....internet, sogood magazine, dulcypas magazine (Spanish, but even has a glazing article by Penkina), and the above mentioned Savour classes (much better value)

Kerry is right...that is a custom made box...look for a company that does "thermoforming" or "vacuumforming". You need to make a positive mold first (usually CNC milled from plastic, wood or aluminum)....that's the largest upfront cost. After that you need to make rather large quantities ....then the price is not too bad though...probably at least several thousand pieces to make it worth it

Try Ultratex 3 or Ultratex 8....basically modified starches...different vendors have them, I use the ones from Modernist Pantry and am quite happy with them for thickening fruit purees without cooking...ratios will depend on the kind of final texture you are looking for, some experimenting required. I would start with 3-5 grams starch / 100 grams of fruit purees and adjust from there.

In the UK try www.homechocolatefactory.com They have dextrose and glucose (powder and syrup). Sosa brand so usually more expensive than other brands though....

Slightly off topic....no matter what ice cream / gelato recipe or stabilizer you use it will never be the same as in a gelato shop if you use a compressor machine built for home use. Just does not get cold enough fast enough. Decent gelato machines for small quantities (around 2.5 kg) start around 2000-3000 USD. Funny enough though, the super cheap ones (around 30-40 usd) with the bowls that need to be frozen actually make superior ice cream to a Breville /Cuisineart compressor style machine...put the bowl in deep freeze overnight and it will make great ice cream (provided you have a good recipe to begin with) in about 10 minutes (keeps the formation of ice crystals down due to the short time). Of course it is inconvenient and only makes a small quantity but better quality than the mid-range home machines. I own a small dessert shop and switched to a small professional gelato machine after trying all other options....quite happy with it, but it was about 10x as much as my Cuisinart....so you get what you pay for...

I would recommend infusing the galangal into your cream or using the juice by itself...I make Ginger flavored ganache all the time with the infusion method and it works fine ...it will make some creams curdle, but the cream I am currently using does not have that problem with ginger, not sure why (but I am not complaining...)....alternatively you can slice the ginger, then blanch it for a bit before infusing it into the cream...that will also prevent curdling. Have not used galangal yet, but I would not recommend adding any dry powder into a ganache after emulsifying as you most likely will end up with a grainy ganache...add the dry powder to the cream first to infuse the flavor, then finely strain the cream before emulsifying. Hope this helps 😊

@akonsu....yes, you can make silk with a sousvide circulator, I have done it successfully...either keep it soft (somewhat inconvenient due to the floppy nature of the sousvide bags) or shave it with a microplane (which basically ends up being Mycryo anyway....so just buy the Mycryo) Having said that it is definitely much easier to use the EZtemper, and I agree with Kerry about the electrostatic issues with the shaved "silk". I use Mycryo in my everyday tempering for chocolate production...it can have some melting or clumping issues but with enough practice you can get around that...I make molded bonbons all the time and don't have any problems with them at all. But for convenience sake I will most likely switch to the EZtemper sometimes this year as I have used it before and like it a lot.

Awesome book, I highly recommend it for anybody interested in chocolate and desserts on a professional level...go grab it !

Yeah, you want to do the cocoa butter quite thin...several layers with a brush will usually be way too thick...a nice thin layer with an airbrush works great. See if you can get a hold of some professionally printed transfer sheets and see how thin they are for reference. Also you mentioned acetate...if it is anything like the kind of stiff foils they also sell for overhead projectors at office supply stores then I would stay away from those (even if you got yours from a restaurant supply, sometimes they sell the wrong kind also)...you want to get the thin, soft, flexible plastique sheets...kind of opaque...often referred to as guitar sheets. Also there does not seem to be an industry standard for the sheet names...especially between european and american supply stores....one shops guitar sheet is another persons acetate 😁

I hear what you are saying...although I never have problems with air bubbles in my shells....which probably also has to do with the fact that I only use semisphere molds which generally dont have bubble issues anyway due to the shape 😊 For my ganache I use my bamix anyway, agreed...best way to get an emulsion