cslas

Thanks Jim, I took your advice. So far so good!

So I'm finally getting around to actually making these. When you guys have used marshmallow in place of meringue (in like a meringue pie bon bon), how do you apply the marshmallow to the bon bon? Do you pipe the fresh marshmallow into little discs or the chocolate shell and let them setup? Or do you make the marshmallow in a pan and then cut pieces? I'm making Ewald Notter's Key Lime Pie Praline and want to add in a layer of marshmallow to make it meringue-like.

This is great. Thanks for the tip Jim. I just ordered a copy of his book which was on sale today on Amazon. Looking forward to trying this.

The hardcover version of Notter's book is on sale today (Thanksgiving Day 2021) for ~$23 USD on Amazon. I just ordered a copy.

Sorry for the late reply. It's been a couple of hectic weeks leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday. Thank you for this feedback. I think I'll probably try a variation of a marshmallow in lieu of the meringue. I'm still a very novice chocolatier, which makes reverse engineering some of these recipes trickier, but it doesn't stop be from trying Jim, when you've made you lemon pie bon bon, what are you using as the filling? A ganache, a curd, something else?

Know I'm a little late to this thread but I recently rediscovered the video where Susanna makes these bonbons and I also got stuck on the idea of a meringue inside of them. So naturally, I came here to see if anyone had discussed the idea More specifically, I'd like to try my hand at a meringue pie bonbon, so I'd welcome any thoughts anyone had on how to create a plain meringue that might hold up for a few days inside of a bonbon. Per one of the earlier comments, Susanna did mention that she uses two types of sugar, gelatin, and no eggs. I am open to other suggestions though, my aim is more just to get something that can survive for a reasonable period of time. Oh, and in case you haven't seen it, here's a pic of one of her meringue pie bonbons.

Excellent, thanks Kerry!

Hi guys, I just got lucky and landed a decent deal on a new Fuji Q4 Platinum Series Sprayer on eBay. Unfortunately, this particular model comes with the siphon-style gun. For those of you using Fujis, which guns and what size nozzles are you using?

Ah, thanks for the information and for the tip about past conversations Jim. I was dashing out the door and didn't think to look first. Including a link to a previous conversation here in case someone else ends up in a similar position.

Hi all, Just back from a trip and discovered I have some pineapple puree in my fridge that's shelf life is set to end this month. Was looking for a simple-ish recipe to use it and think I've found one in Wybauw's Fine Chocolates (p. 439). Of course, it's a little vague, so I thought I'd see if you guys have any advice. The recipe calls for: 200 g sucrose 150 g glucose 300 g cream 65 g butter 160 g pineapple The Method: 1. Caramelize the sugar and glucose 2. Quench the caramel with cream and add the butter 3. Add the pineapple puree and cook to 112 c / 234 f. Cool 4. Fill the mould, let stiffen, and cover So I'm thinking glucose syrup, not powder, right? Also, does anyone have any chocolate recommendations? I've got the following on hand: Cacao Barry Lactée Barry Équilibre 35.3% Milk Chocolate Callebaut 823-NV Milk Chocolate Callebaut 6040 (60-40-38NV) Thin Bittersweet Valrhona Ivoire White Chocolate Valrhona - Dulcey 32% Thanks!

@Kerry Beal so glad I know this before I do another set of molds tonight! Also, I scored a Mol d'art on Ebay yesterday so there might be an EZTemper in my future once I save up

Ok, so I started off with the intention of reading the entire thread looking for my answer, and pooped out somewhere around page 8. And that was before I noticed it was 25 pages long So apologies if this has been asked. But just to clarify. With Silk from the EZTemper, I can heat my chocolate until all of the crystals are melted, not stir it at all (or only minimally) while it cools to 33.5 c, toss in some Silk, stir, and I'm good to go? I've been seeding with tempered chocolate and stirring all the way to down to the "tempering" temperature and then bringing my chocolate back up to working temperature. It's like a 25 f degree temperature change. It takes days to cool down that far! (Though now I've just read in Grewling's book that "it's not necessary to cool much below 32 c / 90 f when using the seeding method" and seed that's in temper.... knowing that sooner would have saved me some serious time.)

Hi all, I'm thinking ahead to (U.S.) Thanksgiving and I was interested in trying to make this Apple Pie Bouchee bon bon by Melissa Coppel. Anyway, I had a couple of questions I was hoping you all could help me answer. 1. In the second part of the recipe, she lists "Sosa apple extract" as an ingredient. I've located a couple of Sosa apple products, but none of them explicitly say they're "extract". Do you know if I'm looking for a liquid? A powder? Also, are their any other brands besides Sosa that might be worth trying for an extract? (Just thinking most of the powder versions at least seem to be only sold in Europe and are kind of pricey when you only need 25 g). 2. So she calls for the extract, but for the life of me I can't figure out where I'd use it. I think she forgot to include it in the actual instructions. Any ideas? 3. Lastly, at the end she says that the recipe will only hold up for 2 days before the cookie starts to get soggy. Is there anything I can do to combat this (for this recipe or in general)? Would freezing them have an impact? I read a Peter Greweling paper on layering flavors and it seemed like he was suggesting you could put a layer of cocoa butter between layers with disparate Aw values to prevent moisture from migrating between them. Is this really a thing? Any help is appreciated.

@Kerry Beal That's what I thought. Thanks for confirming

Reviving and old post. Can you reseed chocolate that's suffered from sugar bloom?

Good to know. Maybe the Rev 5 would be a good in between tool?

Thanks for the clarification about the Rev 2 vs. 2B. It's nice to see the price come down on something for once. In terms of my plans, I guess I really don't know yet. I just started chocolate work a couple of months ago and am still learning. One thing I do know is that I'm having trouble holding temper over a period of time. I have a sort of homemade melter that consists of a casserole-style crockpot and a digital temperature controller that turns the crockpot on and off, so I'm able to generally keep it in the right temperature range, but there's still a lot of moving pieces between maintaining temper and doing whatever other parts of the process you're doing, so I'm interested in tools that might help me. I read this thread about people's most important tips and it got me thinking about the Chocovisions. I'm not in an immediate hurry to buy anything, still really just researching. @Jim D.Out of curiosity, what's the minimum amount of chocolate the Delta can temper? At this point, I haven't tempered more than 2 lbs at a time, and that's about the right amount for the moment, though that could obviously change. @curls I'm in Central New York, don't suppose you'll be passing through any time soon?

Hi all, I'm still exploring tools that might help me maintain my temper over time and I know some folks use the Chocovision devices. I was looking at their website and for the life of me I can't seem to figure out what the difference (besides price) between the Revolation 2 and 2B models are. I literally compared them side by side and all of the information (except maybe which baffles it came with) was identical. Does anyone know?

Well that I never would have guessed! Thanks

This is really helpful and does explain why cutting with the metal string is probably superior to a knife (besides the whole uniformity and efficiency thing). At this point, it's just a hobby, and a first attempt at that. So while I'm aiming for the best final product possible, I'm not expecting anything near professional quality. I was intrigued by @pastrygirl's silicone mold suggestion, but now I feel almost challenged to try the lyre just to see how it works Who knows, it could end up being the ultimate small-scale/cheap guitar cutter alternative.

Yeah that's what I was thinking.

This is good information, thank you. Well, this is my first time. So I'm more just trying it out than aiming for any kind of quantity yet. I was thinking I could set it up so my ganache was narrower than my cheese lyre and maybe it would be easier to cut cleanly than using a knife. A silicone mold might not be a bad starting point though.

So a question about guitar cutters. I can see why they're a superior method for cutting ganache in terms of uniformity and efficiency, but I was wondering if there's something about cutting with a metal string that's superior to cutting with a knife? Perhaps a ganache would stick to the string less than the knife? Where I'm headed with this is, as someone who's just starting out and not ready to invest in a guitar cutter, I'm wondering if using a cheese lyre to cut ganache might be better than using a knife?

No, sorry, I should have clarified. I haven't tried it yet. The only experience I have thus far airbrushing is applying the velvet effect to some entrements. I just upgraded to this airbrush and haven't actually used it yet, so it was more of a bonus when I saw your conversation suggesting it might be possible. I'm just getting into chocolate (taking the Ecole Chocolate course), so maybe I'll give it a go on my bonbons that are due in October. I will let you know if I'm able to pull it off.

I think I have that cap too. Would love to hear if you have any luck splattering with it.