Jonathan

Oh I don’t bother with transfers so much, more so for when I’m using inclusions in the base to make sure they sit flat too haha. I’ve been looking into paper corflute as a substitute for bubble wrap when shipping but it’s hard to find here in Aus

I did consider the waste when crunching numbers, at the end of the day a single guitar sheet runs me about a dollar and caps off 4-5 trays and I’m lazy so I find it worthwhile personally, not everyone may feel the same

I generally temper the chocolate for the base and then up the temp by about a degree (e.g. I temper my white choc to about 28 normally but will bring it up to 29 before capping) to increase the fluidity, then just a little bit and use a bench scraper across the guitar sheet, I find acetate is too stiff normally and the guitar sheet makes scraping much easier

The trick is not to use too much and scrape it over, then I just make sure it doesn’t overflow to the bottom, some excess is fine, usually just cleanly breaks off when I demould. The “chef’s cut” if you will

I’ve been using cut up guitar sheets, gives a really flat smoothness to the base

I’d say about 25cm diameter and about 10cm deep off the top of my head, I tend to use a daquoise or hard base

Hi guys, I've made a few entremets now and while they initially look great, the mousse tends to sag as it comes up to fridge temperature (about 4 degrees celcius) which results in the glaze sagging or cracking if it's a flocked velvet effect. Just wondering if anyone has any idea how to prevent this? I'm assuming increasing the gelatine content but following several recipes to a T this still seems to come up (and I'd prefer not to create a really bouncy mousse). Does anyone have a recipe or formula for a stable mousse? Thanks in advance!

And finally done with Mother’s Day, Baklava bonbons inspired by Chefchaouen with a pistachio, walnut and feuilletine gianduja and the classic Apple Pie with an apple compote, cinnamon ganache and dulcey and shortbreae base:

It's odd... that mould seems so innocuous but it's an absolute nightmare sometimes to actually get things out cleanly

On the vibrating table note, you could try a vibrating platform used for dental stone, you can get cheap-ish ones for about $30 and just mount a flat platform on top of that? I've been meaning to try it actually since it's a similar principle

It feels good to be back to simpler designs for production, Kintsugi Tres Leches and Mango Kulfi bonbons for the next leg of the mother’s day boxes

They were an absolute nightmare, thankfully only got 2 trays to try. I want to use them so as not to waste them but it’s almost not worth the effort. The result is fine enough but still, spending 10 minutes with a cotton pad on a Q-tip to polish wasn’t fun

I’m going to preface this with a strongly worded statement: I HATE THESE MOULDS. Polishing them, painting them and demoulding them was an absolute nightmare. Still, the outcome wasn’t half bad, I was a little worried I wouldn’t be able to demould them. These first of my Mother’s Day Line, “Places you know and places you’ll go”, 6 flavours from around the world starting with something close to home, blueberry lamington. Blueberry pate de fruit and coconut ganache in dark chocolate

Would vegetable shortening work?

This one was a doozy... It was hard to get the streaky effect since cocoa butter is so fluid it just blends but probably the piece I’m most proud of overall, Valrhona Tainori studded with hazelnuts