Avachocolate
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Posts posted by Avachocolate
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+1 for Amedei over Domori 😊
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2 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:
I think we have all had this same thought - those of us who have tried it have learned it doesn’t work.
Any flavor added to cocoa butter has to be in an oil form in order to not cause the cocoa butter to seize.
You can also infuse the cocoa butter with herbs 🙂
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58 minutes ago, AAQuesada said:
wow so beautiful!! I've done this recipe and added gelatin to it but I take it that's not what you did? Did you just cook the curd, blend it then pour into the form with a liner and chill or cook it again? great work
Thank you...
You are correct, no gelatine, ...just cooked, strained, poured into a form and chilled...sets up beautifully
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10 hours ago, Kim Shook said:
I somehow missed this post. I will be trying that method. I like that it uses whole eggs. I hate using just whites or yolks - I always save them vowing to use them and usually end up tossing them.
@Avachocolate - that is incredibly beautiful! What kind of meringue?
Just a basic Italian meringue...piped directly on, not baked
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Thank you so much !
6 hours ago, HeatherM said:@Avachocolate that is beautiful. I think I need to make a lemon tart soon.
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@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.
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4 hours ago, BottleRocket said:
I'm going through some of the recipes in Wybauw's book, and I realize that some mental creativity has to be employed to reconcile some of the translations, but I've never encountered the phrase 'slightly crystalized cocoa butter' before. Can someone educate me on what exactly that is? How do you slightly crystallize something? It is to be added to chopped white chocolate after heated coconut milk and sweeteners and coconut are blended in. It's the Coconut Truffle recipe on page 192 of the Fine Chocolates Gold book.
"Tempered cocoa butter"...most likely just a translation issue as you suspected
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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.
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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.
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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 😊
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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
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@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.
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@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...
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9 hours ago, sbain said:
Hi folks. asking on this old thread because you seem to be masters of caramelized white chocolate. I tried it today and wound up with dried out powder! Weird.
I am using good couverture chocolate (Eitienne Guittard 31% Creme Francais). I baked it on a sheet at 250 F for about 30 minutes, it came out as a wonderful amber brown color, but when I tried to stir it it was dry and crumbly. I let it cool and now it is a sand/pebble consistency. I tried to melt it again and it wont melt, it gets hot (120F+) but stays solid. And the worst part is...it tastes amazing!
Help! What am I doing wrong? Do I need to add cocoa butter? if so how much and when?
Thank you!
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
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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)
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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
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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.
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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....
3 hours ago, understandingcocoa said:I'm trying to create some Wyabauw recipes but when trying to find the ingredients I'm coming up short. Based in the UK, any potential suppliers would be hugely appreciated as mine haven't got a clue what i'm talking about.
Sucrose - is this a liquid ingredient? I'm assuming you can't just use sugar?
Sorbitol - I've found liquid, does anyone know if Wyabauw recipes are expecting powder form instead?
Dextrose - does this have another name in the UK?
Glucose - I've noted the distinction in the book between glucose syrup and glucose, does anyone use pure glucose?
Thanks in advance to anyone who can shed some light!
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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...
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16 minutes ago, akonsu said:
Thank you very much, as I understand, I will need to heat the cream, pour it in to the chocolate, mix it, as usual, and then add dry galangal and mix again? @Kerry Beal, is that what you mean when you say "add it after the cream"? Or can I add juice at this point? Sorry, I am a beginner, I need things to be spelled out explicitly... I suppose I can just try and see what works, although galangal is expensive, I do not want to waste it...
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 😊
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22 hours ago, akonsu said:
@pastrygirlthank you very much, I missed that information. It says that on the eztemper web site as well. Not that I am arguing, I am only trying to understand: is this essential to keep the silk soft? Why not make a powder from it when it solidifies, like Mycryo?
@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.
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Awesome book, I highly recommend it for anybody interested in chocolate and desserts on a professional level...go grab it !
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6 hours ago, minas6907 said:
Hi all,
About a year ago I had gotten a roll of acetate from a restaurant supply because I knew that one day I wanted to make transfer sheets. That day was yesterday. I just wanted some opinions, though I'm pretty sure I just made the cocoa butter layer too thick. I really layered it on there, it was two colors, probably like 5 or six thin layers with a pastry brush. When it came time to cut down the strip, I had to be very delicate with it, otherwise the cocoa butter would peel right off the acetate. Anywho, I had previously made a mango caramel, so the transfer sheet was going to be orange and yellow. The first image is most of the bonbons with their beautiful jagged edges. Really, on most of the bonbons, all the cocoa butter came off the acetate in a giant square, so i had to break the edges down to fit the top of the bonbon. The second picture is a close of another pattern I did, I just spattered cocoa butter with a toothbrush. That transfer seemed to work as intended, the peeled right off, nothing weird. I know the color could be more intense, but that's something I can fix. As for the other bonbons, is it a case of just too thick of a cocoa butter layer? I suppose I could intensify the color and go thinner, perhaps with an airbrush, but for now I'd like to just do some simple transfers. Any comments are appreciated!
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 😁
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18 hours ago, Jim D. said:
I would fear that using a whisk to dissolve Mycryo (or for any other purpose in chocolate work) would introduce air bubbles into the shell or ganache, which, in the case of shells, can later pop into tiny holes and, in the case of ganache, can shorten shelf life. If I were still using Mycryo, I think I would use an immersion blender, keeping the blender beneath the surface of the chocolate/ganache. When employing such blenders, instructors like Kirsten Tibballs, Andrey Dubovik, and Melissa Coppel use tall, narrow containers for the purpose of diminishing the number of air bubbles.
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
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Posted · Edited by Avachocolate (log)
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.