Muscadelle

I was away for quite a while and I can't believe I've almost missed this. Thank you so much for sharing all your experiments! This issue had been puzzling me for so long. You are the real MVP

There seems to be a great fear of working with eggs for bonbon fillings and I have to ask why. As long as the eggs are cooked over 80C to kill any possible salmonella and the AW is adequate, why would it be anymore problematic than dairy? Am I missing something?

@EvgenyPI still get them from time to time but I drastically reduced those by not tapping the mold to remove air bubbles when capping. I realized that many of those air bubbles that would come up to the top where created by the air between the shell and mold that was escaping and that’s why I had chocolate slipping in between leaving big streaks. Sometimes when you look at finished bonbons of Melissa Coppel you can see some small chocolate ring at the bottom too. They don’t have to be all perfect all the time, remember that maaaany photos are edited and that some bonbons that you see on Instagram and such are just pictures of the shell and not the finished product. 😊

Reading that, I thought some people might like to know that cellulose acetate can be 100% compostable. That’s what I use. In bulk, they are 0.20$USD per sheet. So that’s an additional cost of approx 1 cent per bonbon. They give a nice sleek look and I can fill my bonbon generously 😊 I don’t know if it’s because of the material but even if it gives a perfectly flat bottom, the surface, although not dull looking, never gets as shiny as it would with a plastic sheet.

Can’t you just tap your bowl/pan full of tempered chocolate for a minute or two to get rid of most air bubbles? I get those a lot in my milk chocolate but not so much in my dark chocolate. It’s a little better when I use cocoa butter to temper, I guess that’s because it increases the fluidity just a notch.

I tried infusing toasted oats in Half cream/ half milk overnight and it resulted in a solid dry and mushy mess. Impossible to extract anything even after warming it up. I don’t know how different cereals could react though...

Thanks Jonathan! Those are only the shells so I know for sure the problem is not caused by fillings. I double polish as well! haha glad to see that i'm not so over-zealous after all I'm wondering if maybe I'm keeping my cocoa butter at a too low temperature. maybe I should keep it more around 30C? I'm using my notes from my Melissa Coppel workshop, but maybe there's something i forgot to write down? Anybody know enough about Crystals and tempering curve of cocoa butter? I'm wondering if the flecks looks like the result of over tempered CB or maybe CB that went out of temper?

I’m really puzzled by some dull or white flecks that appears on some of my chocolates on almost every batch I make. By the look of it, do you think it’s because my cocoa butter gets somehow out of temper when I paint, even though I have a high accuracy thermometer in my cocoa butter the whole time. I keep it around 28.5C. My molds are always between 18 and 19. I have to say it happens the most often with that technique. (Drop of cocoa butter dispersed by the airstream of an airbrush). Does it happen to any of you? What would you bet the issue is? It’s getting very annoying and I’m not sure what to do because most of them are perfectly fine. Also, I wash and polish my molds with 94% alcohol at every use.

I wish I could try those 😭 I love pu-erh tea and they are so pretty!!

I love the first ones! They give a Van Gogh vibe! Thats what I use for some of my metallic effects: I'm in love with the copper, it gives such a pretty result! But the one used for the quenelle chocolate (ombre) is the bronze highlighter.

Hi guys wanted to share those, really proud of that shine! Fun fact: I accidentally heated this black cocoa butter for 1:50 in the microwave instead of 0:15. It went all the way up to 110C! I was horrified. Turns out, cocoa butter isn't as fragile as chocolate. 😶

Staying on the same topic (invert sugar) Has anyone of you ever tried using the syrup from your candied fruits (citrus peel, cherries etc) in a ganache to replace invert sugar? I'm really trying to do something with all my syrups, it seems like such a waste otherwise. Do you think that the resulting syrup of candying fruits is in fact invert sugar? If not, is it possible to make it an invert sugar? (by adding acidity and boiling it to 114 maybe?

Thank you Jim! Maybe we could pour the ganache in the little cup when it's still warm so it can flatten out and cover the bottom perfectly and then wait the next day to place it into the meter to get a reading?

Interesting! Thank you

I have a question for those who own a water activity meter. Do you let your ganache crystallize before putting it into the meter? It would makes sense to me... but i'm not sure