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[Manager note: Follow this conversation from the begining at Chocolates with that showroom finish, 2004 - 2011] heard somewhere that the higher the % of cocoa in a chocolate then the thicker it is when in temper? is this true? it might explain things a little when im trying to temper the chocolate at work. Also, whats a good precise thermometer to use for tempering thanks

I want to smoke some chocolate to do a smores dessert. I've tried it once before and it smelled smoked but didn't really taste smoked. I don't have a cold smoker so I'm going to have to rig something. Any suggestions?

I'm looking for the best organic chocolate for industrial (restaurant, wholesale chocolates) use. I recently got some samples of TCHO chocolate, some of it organic, produced in San Francisco. I initially liked the flavors of the samples, then ordered 25# of the organic 66% and am not sure I'm liking it so much, in flavor or fluidity. It is thick and very cocoa-y. Another supplier carries an organic Callebaut 70% but won't break case and I'm reluctant to buy 55# without sampling. Has anyone used the Callebaut? Locally we have Theo, an organic, fair trade bean-to-bar manufacturer which is great eating chocolate, but they don't use the usual distributors (except I think you can get nibs) and I've heard negative comments about buying wholesale from them from a friend in the ice cream business. I suppose Felchlin Cru Sauvage should be organic by default, if it is harvested from wild trees in the Amazon. I bought a few bags and I'm pretty sure I like it better than the TCHO, but haven't tried tempering it yet. What other organic chocolates are available wholesale, and which do you prefer?

Does Chocolate Extract boost the flavor in chocolate baked goods? I usually add a little instant espresso to kick up the chocolate flavor, but was wondering if the extract works in a similar way.

After I was done eating some BBQ on Sunday, I swung by a little chocolate shop a block away called Dude, Sweet. Friendly place. Staff offering up samples of all sorts of things. One of the more interesting things was their toffee Fungus Amoungus. One of the things I bought was a box of chocolates called "Dude" So far, I have had the Puro and the Marakesh. There was a slight olive taste to the Puro, but I really didn't pick up on any distinct saltiness. But maybe that's the point? The salt is there to enhance the other flavors and not really to bring an actual saltiness to it. The Marakesh faired much better. Nice sweetness from the dates. I'm not really familiar with Raz (ras?) al Hanout, so it's hard for me to say if that flavor is present. But whatever it is, that piece was great. I'll save the rest for later. Don't want to eat it all at once. Box set me back $12. The other thing I bought was a chocolate bar called "Kampot" The label describes it "65% Columbian dark, Kampot pepper, and cocoa nib". I have not tried this yet, but I will report back when I do.

My girlfriend recently returned from a trip to Milan with a 1k (2.2lb) bar of chocolate for me to use in a cooking application. It's not marked, but it tastes like it is 60% cacao. While I know of a couple recipes that use a couple ounces of chocolate, I can't think of one that would use this much. Any ideas on something I could make that would use up a large portion of it?

Hi All, I was wondering if anyone has taken the Chocolate and Confections professional level continuing ed course at the CIA (or had heard anything about it)? I have been looking around but have not seen any reviews. I have been making chocolates (molded and dipped) for a couple of years now but have never had any formal training (I do have formal training as a chemist, which seems to transfer well), and I have finally decided it is time to pursue chocolate making more seriously. I have been looking into a range of courses (Ecole Chocolat's online course, 3-day classes at the FPS) and I keep changing my mind on where to go. Peter Greweling's Chocolate and Confections book is one of my favorite books in terms of its detail of instruction, which is why I thought the CIA class might be a good option. If anyone has any info on that course (or wants to recommend others), I'd appreciate it. What I'm specifically looking for is formal instruction on tempering, molding, and enrobing, and the opportunity to see professional level equipment. Thanks, Rae

Photographs for this can be found here. I'm having great difficult posting them inline. Ever since getting into chocolate I've been fascinated by show pieces and the people that compete in building them. After talking to a few people and finding little about the process of creating these works of art, I found myself in Chicago, in February (who goes to Chicago in February?) attending a class in show piece design/construction at the Callebaut Chocolate Academy. The class was attended by a total of 7 students, almost all of them full time professional pastry chefs and chef instructors. Only I, and one other student still had "day jobs". As class began, I began to get this deep sinking feeling in my stomach as Chef displays a drawing of what we will be building over the next 4 days. My immediate reaction was "No way in hell!" So here I am, a bit terrified as being caught out for the fraud I truly must be and facing what we have to do. Needless to say, the first day was a bit of a blur as we cast chocolate into silicon molds for beautiful curved pieces, and hand cut the legs and body of a crane (bird, not machine) out of a slab of poured and barely crystallized chocolate. At the end of the day I had completely blown nearly my whole days work when the legs I had so carefully cut snapped in more than one place. The next morning, Chef came over, looked at my broken body of a bird and said simply, "Start again". Fortunately, the 2nd time around didn't take as long. Once the body was assembled from 3 separate pieces, it was time to draw thin sheets of chocolate and hand cut shapes to give the body dimension from side to side, and basic wing shapes. Of course, by this time, I've also snapped off the head and most of the neck of my piece. LESSON ONE: Don't, don't, don't rush! It is better to be slow and do things correctly than to go do them again. Measure 2 (or better 3) times before doing anything that can't be undone. LESSON TWO: ALWAYS be hyper aware of where YOU are and where your pieces are. This way you won't put things under a table and snap off rather important bits. Chocolate is FRAGILE! After creating the legs, body, and wings, it was time to move onto building a base to hold this thing. Thus ended our second day. We had cast a number of very pretty curved shapes on Monday which were sitting on a tray under my station. They would need to be attached to a flat surface which in our case would look much like granite but be composed completely of chocolate. Chef demonstrated how we were going to attach these lovely bits again, using nothing but a hot pallet knife and a paper cornet full of tempered chocolate. Then the base took on a whole new level of interest as Chef nestled a sphere into the curved pieces he just attached to the base. This is what our bird would rest on. "Are you kidding me?", I thought. How are we going to attach a 24"+ tall bird made of what must be 7 - 10 POUNDS of chocolate on top of that little sphere? But there it was and I dutifully began assembling my own base. So here we are at the end of day 3! Chef wants EVERYONE to have their birds mounted on top of the base. I now realize that I've made another rather large blunder. The original picture we were working from has the "feet" of the bird pretty much on top of each other. In making my second set of legs and body, I had spread them much farther apart. Nearly 5 inches apart. The sphere resting on top of the base is only about 4 inches in diameter. It's not going to fit. So I think about this and come up with what I hope is a clever if somewhat uglier way of mounting the bird. Now everyone else was cutting a hole in the top of their spheres and carefully placing a thick rectangle of solid chocolate vertically through and setting it into a pool of tempered chocolate. This would transfer the weight of the bird and transfer it over a wider area across the bottom of the sphere and then to the vertical curved pieces holding the sphere. Everything in a nice straight line going down toward the base. I decided to cut a horizontal plank from the same rectangular pieces of chocolate, level it,and attach my bird to that. My original thought was to sink the plank farther down into the sphere, but the cut-outs, but again, I was rushing to finish what Chef asked us to do and didn't think to cut the vertical post properly. Either way, I had my mount and it was now time to place the bird on top. Of course, this is a rather terrifying prospect. As we started to say, the "sphincter factor" was rather high. Nonetheless, with the help of two of my class mates, one placing the tempered chocolate "glue" and another telling me if I was holding my bird perfectly straight and not leaning in any particular direction, we got it attached. After a couple of minutes to let the chocolate set, I carefully released the bird from my grasp while keeping my hands cupped around where I had been holding it. That way I might catch it as it started to go over. Fortunately, and to my utter amazement, it stayed upright. So now I have a roughly 4' tall show piece. Of course it doesn't have a complete neck or head. This led me to begin calling it "Ichabod, the Headless Crane of Sleepy Hollow". That night I had several good drinks and simply couldn't believe that I had built this thing. And that it was STANDING! The next morning, changed into my uniform, and immediately headed into the lab to see if my bird was still standing. Fortunately it still was and we needed to begin working on additional decorations. Breast and tail feathers, additional body feathers, and of course detail for the head. But I didn't have a head. A class mate suggested that I use the head and neck that I had cut on Monday. So again with a hot knife in hand, I cut off the neck where it broadened into the body. Using this a template, I placed it atop the complete head/neck, and matching the angles, cut the good part off the rest of the body. Then, using tempered chocolate, I attached it to the cut I had just made. This wouldn't be very strong on it's own, so I attached 2 chocolate disks on either side of the join to provide more strength. I could now move on to doing the additional bits of feather decoration, the breast and tail feathers, and cutting and attaching the head and beak. Of course that would be too easy. As I was attaching one of my small bits, the curves holding the sphere gave way, (fortunately) leaving me holding the bird. Another class mates piece had fallen over late on day 3 and shattered, so I was VERY lucky. So I had to figure out how to create a new mount. Again comes out the hot pallet knife and I cut way a level surface. There were several small pieces we had cast on Monday and one of them was just perfect for placing atop my broken base to be a new platform for the sphere and bird. Now, using a metal sphere mold which I heated, I created a curved "dimple" which matched the curve of my chocolate sphere. More tempered chocolate and again, Ichabod rides high. This time with a full neck. Now I could move on to making the rest of the head details. The last details to be added were a large flower and a few swirly long decorations made from modeling chocolate which I had a hard time getting the hang of. Chef demonstrated making the flower petals and mounting them on a sphere which was decorated with white chocolate and sanding sugar to look like the center of the bloom. So, this being our last day, I got busy and made my own flower and attached it to my piece. Ichabod is now essentially complete since we're running out of time. Chef spends the remainder of our last day demonstrating how to add color with an air brush. Needless to say, by the time he's done, his own piece is stunning. Having now made what I'm sure is a rather modest show piece, my esteem for people who do this with any skill at all has gone up immensely. Now I just need to find the space, buy a few tools and parts and begin thinking about my own artistic aesthetic. It was terrifying in the beginning, but as I moved through the week, my confidence built, and I realized that I can indeed do this. Perhaps not well yet, but I can do it. Anyone else have stories to share about learning to do this?

Opened the Washington Post and learned that Chef Roland Mesnier has died. I never met him but have enjoyed baking from and reading two of his cookbooks. RIP. https://www.whitehousehistory.org/roland-mesnier-in-memoriam-1944-2022 https://www.chefrolandmesnier.com/about/history-timeline/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/27/roland-mesnier-pastry-chef-white-house-dead/

I have a box of truffles that are good, but not great - my homemade ones are much better. So, I want to make something out of them. I don't want to use them to stick inside molten chocolate cakes or chocolate cupcakes, so I was wondering what would happen if I remelted them over a double boiler. I checked online, and couldn't find any information. Would they be totally ruined if I remelted them to make a sauce? If they can be remelted, should I add a little cream and/or butter?

My wife was jonesing, last night, for a better chocolate sauce than I usually concoct, and found one that sounded good on Cooks.com. The actual results were disappointing, and we'd like to understand what might've gone awry. The problem is that, while it tasted great in the pot, it hardened into an unpleasantly chewy, sticky, non-saucy solid when it hit the ice cream it was intended for. My wide thinks she may have added too much flour (she eyeballed it). I suggested that the butter may be the problem. Confectionery isn't either of our either of our strong suits, so we're hoping someone can offer some insights as to what the various ingredients and processes in this recipe might be intended to do. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOT FUDGE SAUCE 2 c. white sugar 1 c. brown sugar 1 c. cocoa (Hershey's) 4 tbsp. flour 1/4 c. butter 1 1/2 c. water 1/2 tsp. salt 1/2 tsp. vanilla (added later) In a saucepan - mix dry ingredients. Add butter and water. Bring to a boil, and continue boiling for 10 minutes, or slightly longer. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Serve over ice cream.

Several of Greweling's recipes call for the use of a round piping tip. I'm not familiar with what sizing system he's using. When he says to use a "no. [integer] round tip", what does the [integer] correspond to in millimeters or inches? For example, what is the diameter of a no. 3 round tip used by Greweling?

Hi to All, I have been reading the chocolate/confectionary related posts for a while now and have finally gotten around to upgrading so I can start asking some questions! Something I have been wondering is what makes the liquid centers in moulded chocolates? (eg., a lemon myrtle or violet cream where you bite into it and a "syruppy" centre runs out). Is it something I can make at home? Is it a fondant that has something added to make it form the liquid? Any help appreciated

Hello, I've been trying to make these liquid center pralines using starch and then covering with tempered chocolate for the las couple of days. I am having problems when I pour the syrup in the starch holes. I've managed to make it in a way that it doesn't penetrate the starch(sometimes), but when I have to cover the filled holes with more starch it just goes trough the liquid, it doesn't stay on top of it. Almost forgot, if anyone has thought in a way to put them in a painted mold (with the chocolate shell already of course) I would like to read your experiences before I start experimenting myself. Hope you could give me some advise. Greeting from Peru P.D.: I don't post much in the forum, but I do read it and appreciate a lot any help you can give me, much of the advise you gave me took me from failing with painting to this: (many thanks to Kerry and everyone that helped me)

Although Cacao Barry is the French Division of Callebaut, is there any noticeable difference in taste between the two cocoas? Has anyone compared them side by side?

What kind of boxes do people use to package non-standard molded bonbons? Specifically the longer ones like the cacao pod, teardrop or "slug". I bought molds that I love but they dont fit in the standard paper cups or trays and Im struggling to figure out how to package them. I'm just getting started with my chocolate business so I'm not at the point where I am ready to invest in custom packaging. I bought some boxes that I like from ClearBags and am planning to add a branded label but I dont think they're secure enough. My chocolates will shift all around if given the chance. Any advice would be great.

I know this question gets asked frequently, and I've done my research, but I can't believe that I can't find a less expensive option for packaging to hold 2 truffle-sized bonbons. The two options I liked (from Nashville Wraps and BoxandWrap) come to over $1.60 each when factoring in shipping. There is no way to price them at that cost. Am I missing some options out there?

Is there some simple way to enrobe lemon curd in chocolate? Perhaps by freezing the curd first? Could it easily be wrapped in a ganache? Maybe injected into balls of ganache? Thanks!

I really like the combination of lemon and chocolate, so have been thinking about making a lemon curd (or lemon butter) filled chocolate ... but the concept seems to have a couple of potential issues. One of which is that the curd is quite soft - and I've had issues before when putting the bottoms on moulds with a soft filling, that the filling mixes into the botton - creating holes that leak. I was thinking of making the lemon curd firmer - but not quite sure how to achieve this ... could I mix it with chocolate to create a sort of ganache? (would mixing the lemon curd with chocolate = lump of disaster?! ) or would ie be better to up the egg component? Given lemon curd is usually refridgerated - would I also need to keep the chocolates refridgerated (and therefore have problems with moisture?). Would be interested in any comments or experiences?! Thanks!

I was going through ideas for bonbons and was thinking a bon bon using a lemon curd as a filling layer. I am curious if this would present shelf life issues. The curd would be baked until set then piped. Does anyone have any experience with this or water activity tests they've done?

Hello everyone, I am brand new to eGullet. I started playing around with chocolates about two years ago. Mostly basic truffles, and bark and similar things. I'm excited to learn a lot from everyone here as I can tell just by a quick glance over some of the discussions that there is a lot of great information passed on by great people. Today I have a question related to my first experiment in making molded chocolates about a year ago. At the time, I just wanted to see what molding was like, so I made the shells (which turned out suprisingly well), but hadn't really planned a filling. On a whim, I filled them with a tasty strawberry jam. They turned out quite nicely. Since them, I have also made various flavor curds (sugar, egg yolks, butter, and juice) which I have used. They seem to taste pretty good and go down well at parties. As I'm learning more about chocolate making, I've noticed that these kinds of fillings don't seem to be used by anyone. Is this purely a shelf life issue? All my chocolates have been eaten within a week (often much less) of making, and I've never noticed any issues. Have I just been lucky? The people I've fed them to seem to enjoy them, especially a double layer one I made for a cinco de mayo party that was lime curd and chile ganache. Any other ideas why jam and curd type filling aren't used? Katie

I have no difficulty tempering chocolate, but I do have a hard time keeping it at optimal dipping temperature for long periods of time. Can I buy a temperature-controlled melter, into which I can pour my tempered chocolate, for significantly less than I can buy a home tempering machine? If so, what model should I look for? Thanks, Jonathan

Has anyone successfully replaced the power cord on a mol d' art melter? Is it easy or do I have to send it somewhere, and if so, where? Thought I'd check here for DIY info before contacting TCF. My 6kg melter has reached the point where the cord has to be in that just right position to conduct power, and just right can be elusive. I've had it for several years so it's seen some use, am hoping it's a simple repair, i.e. can be done with a screwdriver or passed off to one of my handier brothers in exchange for candy. thanks!

Help! I am an amateur and make chocolate truffles, bonbons, and caramels for friends and family. I made some soft caramel for filling molded bonbons. The flavor and consistency are fine, but the caramel is filled with bubbles. I don't know how to get the air bubbles out, and am concerned using it in my molded chocolates. I would like to know if it is okay to use. I have been making confections for about four years and this is the first time this has happened. I would really appreciate any help! I'm new to the forum and don't know anyone yet.

Hello! I'm fairly new to this site so I don't know if my search was weak. I'm trying to find a way to make Mandarin orange puree at home, but I couldn't find anything even similar in the forum. I am a home cook, but I have been making chocolate bonbons and other confections for over 4 years (intermitantly). It is too expensive for me to purchase this online- not because of the price of the puree, but the cost of shipping makes it prohibative. The recipes I've seen online are all differant and don't seem to be what I need. I would love any help with this! I look forward to hearing and learning from those who have much, much more experience than me. Thanks!