MikanPotatos

A couple weeks ago I was walking along a street and a strong scent of roasted tea was on the air. Turns out there was this couple roasting their own tea leaves. I always thought how nice it would be to get a smokey flavor into desserts and so I made the tea leaves into cookies. Hojicha chocolate chip cookies with walnuts and extra brown butter.

I think if I had access to a melanger I would also make a courerture for the shell of the ganache. To reduce the overpowering flavor of the white chocolate I had to caramelize the white chocolate. In the end it tastes good but its obscuring a bit of the corn flavor.

I've done a lot of research into chestnuts and I have determined its almost impossible to get chestnut flavor from premade pastes. The issue with chestnuts is they decompose rapidly so most manufacturers tend to load lots of sugar into them for shelf life. The best chestnut desserts I've had were made with pastes that were just 6hours to a 1 day old. The aromas sound like a good idea to bypass this limitation. As an aside, I have found that fresh roasted and pureed chestnuts, heavy cream, butter and sugar makes for a delicious filling. The shelf life is < 2 days but the taste is perfect.

In Japan, they are obsessed with cultivating citrus and I came across something called a Jabara. It has the sweetness of a pomelo and the floral-ness of Yuzu. I turned some fresh Jabara I got from a farmer into a tart with honey yoghurt whip cream and fresh yuzu zest.

Pistachio and raspberry has been a pretty popular combination over here in Japan. It was popularized by Pierre Hermes of French fame. I found cassis(blackcurrant) to be a more complex tasting raspberry so it naturally pairs well with pistachio as well. For the corn ganache, I sauted sweet corn with butter in a pan until they were all caramelized. The goal was to decrease water content and increase smokiness. Then soaked corn flakes in heavy cream similar to how Momofuku milk bar makes their cereal milk. The ganache is then assembled by melting white chocolate with the corn flake infused cream. Then I puree the corn flakes and caramalized corn until smooth as possible, and adding it to the ganache. Extra virgin olive oil, black pepper, salt are added to taste and the entire thing is immersion blended for at least a good 5 minutes. Then homemade caramel is blended in. I think I also added some powdered dehydrated corn.

Made some chocolates for the office. Stand out flavor from this batch was corn. Was not expecting it to be good but the olive oil and black pepper really compliment it.

Made some chocolates

I have a similar setup to you as well and use roxy rich. Its normal to have to use a heat gun to warm up the cocoa butter if you are working in a colder room. As for using high pressure, I think I had the same problem but after adjusting the needle by twisting the back of the brush. I was able to find a setting where I could adjust from 20psi - 90psi using my valve and spray cocoa butter.

You would probably use gold colored cocoa butter. As for the design, since its so clean its likely they have a stencil or a stamp that they use to brush or spray the cocoa butter through. If youre skilled enough this can also be etched in with the ball point tools that come with nail art kits.

Made some Passion fruit pudding and brownies. Dark Chocolate Brownie with Walnuts and Pecan bits. Passion Fruit Pudding with Cassis Caramel and Strawberry Cream Cheese.

Hey Kerry. Its the first time I've heard of fondant. Do you have a mother recipe you can share? I've only ever worked with ganaches and caramels for bonbons

Valentines Chocolate: Apple Tart - Apple Caramel, Apple filling, and crunchy chocolate Cup of Jasmine Tea - Jasmine Tea and Purple Potato Mikan Dream - Mikan caramel, Mikan cream Chuhai - "Chuhai" syrup, sake lees ganache and sparkling candy Valentines Special - Passion Fruit, Raspberry, and chocolate crunchies Singaporean Breakfast - Milo, coffee, and cookies. Japanese Inspired Ferrero Rocher - Kuri, Kurumi, Chocolate Nerikiri Wagashi - Shiroan, anko, chocolate, strawberry cream ganache Pineapple Cake - Pineapple Jam with warm spices, shortbread pastry

This is basically a lemon tart, without the careful whisking of the eggs as it heats to temp 180f. I would guess thats why the lemon curd isnt smooth. Lemon curd typically is done by carefully whisking the mixture until 180F and then adding in the butter and using a immersion blender to make it extra smooth. Then you would blind bake your tart for 20-25 mins and then add the curd and bake for 5.

Not familiar with chess pie. My only experience is lemon curd. I would guess that either you should add butter at the end or carefully temper the eggs when making the filling. Because of how scrambled the filling looks in your version

Hey Jim, I haven't used Valrhona before but I'll give it a shot. Funny that you mention custard powder, I had some on hand and mixed that with cream, condensed milk, vanilla, salt, carmalized white chocolate, white chocolate to make something that fit the creamy custard taste I was going for.

what do you use for the vanilla ganache? White chocolate, cream, butter, vanilla? Asking because im trying to emulate the taste of pastry cream without the need for white chocolate as it imparts a certain taste.

Is it not enough to add instant expresso powder to melted chocolate?

Finally got to around using this setup. Flavors (left to right): Strawberry Shortcake Lemon Tart Matcha Yuzu Jasmine Raspberry Sesame, Miso Caramel, Peppercorn Toffee Vietnamese Coffee Passion Fruit And Mango Banana Bread

Made some chocolates to sell over the weekend Flavors (left to right): Strawberry Shortcake Lemon Tart Matcha Yuzu Jasmine Raspberry Sesame, Miso Caramel, Peppercorn Toffee Vietnamese Coffee Passion Fruit And Mango Banana Bread

Do you have a recipe for the nori and soy sauce caramel? Sounds great. Ive been enjoying miso caramel, curious on how soy sauce nori caramel tastes

Try using Titanium Dioxide as that will make your colors more opaque.

@Jonathan What is the general method for getting a cookie into the chocolate like you did for the short bread? I had some ideas for a smores chocolate but wasnt sure how to incorporate. the graham cracker.

Thanks Jim for the help with the part names I was able to find a dealer than ships internationally. California Air Tools 1HP 8Gal https://www.sekaimon.com/itemdetail/174774107557?country=US&title=Ultra+Quiet+Oil-Free+Electric+Air+Compressor+8.0+Gal.+Portable+Tank+Twin+Wheels Grex TG-5 https://www.sekaimon.com/itemdetail/265114389559?country=US&title=Grex+Tritium.TG5+Double+Action+Pistol+Style+%280.5+mm+nozzle%29 Grex TK-7 https://www.sekaimon.com/itemdetail/265040260070?country=US&title=Grex+0.7mm+Nozzle+Kit+(TK-7)+for+Tritium+and+Genesis+Airbrushes+by+SprayGunner AD12 https://www.sekaimon.com/itemdetail/184756196617?country=US&title=Grex+-+Adaptor%2C+1%2F8"M+to+1%2F4"F+-+AD12+-+GRX-AD12 GMAC https://www.sekaimon.com/itemdetail/373513407316?country=US&title=Grex+G-MAC+MAC+Valve+with+Quick+Connect+Coupler+and+Plug My only trouble is finding a 1/4" NPT quick connector, Ill have to visit a hardware store for this as there quite a bit of connectors listed below and Im not sure which one to pick. https://www.sekaimon.com/s/1[s]4" NPT/-/all Its safe to say if Ill have a monopoly in colored chocolates once im done procuring equipment in Japan.

Hi Jim, yes I did read through some pages so Im familiar with some of the equipment mentioned but since there has been 34 pages worth of content its a little daunting as a beginner. Also Since I live in Japan procuring some of the suggest equipment has been a struggle. Overall budget is $1000 so if I could find the suggested CAL compressor and GREX spray at a store in JP I would buy them.

@pastrygirl@Jim D.Yes the goal is to keep the original fruit flavor as much as possible. I did not enjoy some of the fillings I made when I had to dilute it with cream/white chocolate. Ill explore the pate de fruit and pdf guide that has recipes for fruit fillings, thank you.