Jonathan

I think it may have been the onion that triggered the response I had when tasting it. It made the ganache taste like one of those pre-made french onion dips you see at parties but sweet as well. I may cut the sage and just rely on the rosemary caramel and cranberry jelly to evoke "turkey" and then go with a relatively neutral ganache for texture?

Mainly the textural component of the ganache, I could probably just go with something more mild? I'll admit the whole thing did taste like roast turkey so it fit the brief in that aspect. Maybe just go with a sage ganache instead

So the roast turkey bonbons were absolutely ungodly. I don't think I've ever made something that tasted quite this... well see it wasn't even BAD but it was just so disconcerting. There were some elements that worked really well and tasted quite good on their own. The rosemary caramel, the cranberry jelly and even the crispy chicken skin in the base were all quite pleasant but the sage and onion ganache. Just something about it was SO offputting. I'm back at the drawing board, anyone got any ideas?

I actually made a "breakfast" bonbon (maple french toast with bacon). I made a custard for the ganache the traditional way and they tasted good but they had to be consumed super quickly so not great for storage and I'm after 3-4 weeks ideally

That may work then, I might make a "cookie" butter out of toast and brown butter. Thanks!

Perhaps? If I made some toast and dehydrated it would it adversely affect shelf life all that much? I've done a "croissant" flavour before where I baked some croissants, infused them in the cream for the ganache and then added some brown butter but the ganache just tasted a bit like salted butter caramel in the end. Perhaps some barley malt would give it more of a "bready" note?

I'm currently in the middle of designing a box set of 6 chocolates based on the 6 flavours of the "Drink Me" potion from Alice in Wonderland (cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast according to the books). There are 3 flavours I'm still puzzling out and any input from you guys would be great! - Hot buttered toast, I've tried infusing toast in cream before for a ganache but the resultant flavour still got lost relatively easily with everything else. Is there any way to increase the "bread/toast" flavour of a ganache (while still maintaining reasonable shelf life?) - Custard, mainly getting that "egg" flavour, adding straight pasteurized egg yolk to the ganache (basically adding chocolate to a custard) is going to seriously hit shelf life, any way to incorporate that slight "eggy" flavour to distinguish it from just being a vanilla bonbon? I wonder if I could add a little commercial custard powder but no idea what that's going to do to shelf life and I suspect would probably negatively impact texture - Roast Turkey, this one I actually have some ideas on. I considered breaking down the individual elements in a "meal of roast turkey" into a bonbon, so a thyme and rosemary (not sure about the rosemary) caramel for the "gravy", a cranberry jelly for the cranberry sauce, a roasted onion and sage (not sure if the sage or onion pushes it too far) ganache for the "stuffing" and an in-set of crisped chicken skin dehydrated and mixed in with chocolate to form a disc for texture. This is something I suspect I'm going to have to play around with because as much as I find the concept fascinating it still has to taste good. I'm doing a trial batch this weekend but if anyone has any ideas on what direction I could take this one it would be much appreciated!

You can get reasonably string colour with straight lustre powder but it won’t be as strong as cocoa butter, for example:

I use both, the fine to achieve gradients and the regular spray gun for solid colours. It IS a pricier set up but options in Australia are limited (0.3mm for detail work/gradients and 1mm for spray work)

I can say I’ve had good experience with Americolour red gel colouring (used it in high temperature applications too). If you don’t have a panning machine at home or access to one I do remember Heston jerry-rigging one out of an empty coffee tin and a hair dryer

Took a bit of a break as my day job got busy but doing some prep work for my Niece’s second birthday based on some of her favourite foods. Dulcey coconut rough, pistachio and an abomination I’ve resurrected from one of my first attempts a year ago, french fry vanilla shake. I know that last one sounds weird but it kinda works, french fry infused vanilla ganache with a touch of salt and a potato crisp and opalys insert for texture

Actually I put a dab of each in and swirled together to get a more marbled effect. If you’re after a similar effect to that heart I think a few dabs/swirls and then bursts with an airbrush (no cocoa butter, just air) should give similar

Try using a gloved finger to paint in some pastel colors (mixing in some white cocoa butter to your standard colours will do) and swirl your finger around. This isn’t the same colour scheme but you do get more of a swirled effect to it. It also looks to me like she may have used an airbrush to thin out some areas after application before backing it with white

I used to use Callebaut 2815 which has an increased fluidity compared to the 811, have since switched to Valrhona at present but I found the 2815 great for bonbons in terms of workability

I was a little worried about shelf life just using a standard sable biscuit, also the risk of it going soggy with time. I ended up baking a batch, grinding it into a crumb and mixing it with tempered dulcey chocolate. I spread that out and let it set before punching out little discs that I just popped in before capping. Maintained the texture well but meant I didn’t have to worry as much about spoilage

@Jim D.Pink was because I used a rose paste to emulate the rosewater, a touch of that. I toned down the sweetness as much as possible by adding more cocoa butter and less white chocolate (used Valrhona Opalys) for the ganache but just accepted it would be somewhat sweet regardless.

Haven’t had much time with how busy work has been but managed to put together this for a friend, cocoa butter on valrhona manjari dark with raspberry and feuilletine inclusions

I use the power jet pro but I’m fairly sure the lite will do fine, I don’t go to huge PSI. For airbrushing that looks fine but the needle size is a bit fine to make full coverage easy, consider one of the cheaper spray gun options too if that’s what you’re after

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!