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I usually use a copper egg white mixing bowl for melting chocolate. Its conductivity helps the chocolate cool down quickly. But it just crossed my mind that chocolate is somewhat acidic. Does anyone know if it's so acidic as to disolve enough copper ions to interfere with flavor (or good health)?

I had the chance to see it at the Salon du Chocolat in Paris and it seemed good. I'm thinking about ordering it now but am reconsidering it because of the hefty price tag. Has anyone else seen it? What do you think? Here's the link for information about it on chips books: http://chipsbooks.com/chocramn.htm

I have been asked to make Serendipity's frozen hot chocolate for a party. The recipe calls for "3 Godiva Flowers", both black and white. What are these, and about how much does each one weigh? I want to be as close to the original recipe as possible. Thanks!

"Simply Delicious". Great menu. Weekend breakfast a little too noisy and chatty for this locals taste to enjoy.

Well, I thought this would be a fun/experimental topic. I walked into a nice looking chocolate shop the other day, and tried a nice, expensive bar of chocolate. I noticed something compared with typical Hershey's bars: They all taste the same! Given that taste is 70% from your nose and 30% from your tongue, I noticed that you can hardly "smell" a bar of chocolate. When I initially ate the chocolate, it felt like plastic. I couldn't get any taste into my mouth until the chocolate started melting on my tongue. Now given that your only using 30% of your perceptual abilities, I really don't think you can really differentiate between chocolate bars and say "Hey this chocolate bar tastes great and is so much better than that 50 cent Nestle bar". Of course, this only pertains to straight-up, hard chocolate bars. I know some bars will have some nice hazelnut or almond essences mixed and what-not that will make expensive bars much more palatable then the typical Hershey's. Texture would also play an important role, as some expensive chocolates will melt on your tongue immediately on contact. I'm also sure you'll find differences in desserts that actually give out volatile aromas like cakes and soufflés. Of course, this is just my inexperienced opinion. I don't work with chocolate or anything, but I do trust my tongue. Maybe an experience pastry chef will know the difference (though I doubt it :-P).

Don't see a dedicated thread to this book. Does anyone have Jean-Pierre Wybauw's book on the art of making chocolate decorations? If so, how do you like it and how does it compare to similar texts on the subject? TIA

well, i scored major points i got some chocolates from monde chocolat on burrard and 8th. it was the valentine's box assortment. here's the top layer: bottom layer: and the "map": it was a little pricey ($24) but definitely worth it. my fave was the passion fruit caramel. the wife liked them all except for the milk ganache (too milky for her -- she's really getting into dark chocolate now, so she doesn't like anything that tastes too much like milk chocolate). the owners are latin american, so it was interesting for us to see a bit of their heritage in chocolate-making coming through in their flavours. we really hate purdy's cuz it's way too sweet and not enough real chocolate flavour. we love bernard callebaut...the first time we had them, it was a revelation. intense chocolate taste without all the sweetness getting in the way! the monde chocolat chocolates are the same idea. also, it's just a block away from work! no more driving to richmond for bernard callebaut. in fact, i think we might like these more than bernard callebaut because of the interesting twists monde chocolat puts in their chocolates.

I am looking to incorporate banana into several of my molded chocolates. Do most of you use a banana puree? I tried using a few fresh bananas and some confectionary sugar to make a puree, then mixing that into my ganache. I found the shelf life to be very short though..only about two weeks. Any help or tips?

I have been contacted by a friend who is going to school and has been given a project of developing a dessert. She asked me for advice on chocolate dipping waffles. Personally, this sounds beyond sweet for my tastes so I was wondering if anyone has had such a thing and was it something you would eat again? I have had chocolate syrup on a waffle but not a chocolate dipped. Perhaps I will have to get into the kitchen and do some experimenting. Beth

Getting into the chocolate business is something that I would like to do at some point. I am not at that point yet, as feel I am still too novice to produce a competitive product. But, I am curious about a couple things. Reading other threads about starting a chocolate business I see that people on here range from small direct sales to selling via the internet to wholesaling to owning a boutique. A lot of focus in other threads has been in starting a wholesale business or opening a boutique. I’m curious about the direct sales or internet sales side of the business. What rules are involved? Do you need to work out of a commercial kitchen? Are there labeling requirements? Etc… I guess I’m looking for the minimum requirements to be able to sell chocolates. Obviously I know nothing about this stuff. And as I said before, I am not ready to start being a chocolatier yet, but I’d like to know what it entails when I am ready. Thanks.

I have been very busy preparing for my first chocolate festivals-one on Thurs and Friday of next week and one of 3 days at the end of the month. It has been very difficult making such huge quantities- I am quite new at all this. I have had too many failures. I forgot to rewipe the molds after emptying out the chocolate and then set them upside down on my caramel bars to drip a bit out-just in case, so horrible thickish rims appeared and well, you can figure the rest out. Another disaster was making caramel yesterday, using what I thought was a silicone spatula. The caramel had kind of crystalized on it as I was pouring it into some peanut butter. Everything became crackly and strange looking. So I decided to taste what appeared to be a new creation - crackly peanut butter. It tasted weird. I knew I couldn't use it so I tossed it and began washing up, only to discover half a spatula! So yes, I ate my spatula. I didn't know whether to cry or laugh, but then burst out laughing. Chocolate is taking over my life!

Not sure if posts like this are okay...but here goes. I'm trying to locate a recipe for a rich chocolate cake. The recipe is weird, batter and icing are made at the same time, and part of the icing is mixed into the batter. This is an old, (40-50 yrs old) recipe, originally printed in Progressive Farmer (now Southern Living) magazine. Does this ring any bells with anyone??

I don't have much experience with brownies, I've only made a single batch of brownies made with cocoa and 2 batches of brownies made with melted dark chocolate. A lot of recipes seem to be split between these two key chocolatey ingredients. I found that I liked the melted chocolate batch better, they had a better texture in my opinion but it could've just been a difference in recipe strengths. I wanted to know what everyone else likes better, brownies made with cocoa or with melted chocolate. Another side question is about chocolate brands. What brands are good for baking? Thanks in advance.

hi, does anyone have an idea how to produce a caramel chocolate. the small round palets by j.p.hevin have a very intense caramel flavour but other than that they looked like a normal milkchocolate (maybe a little light in color). i could cook an intense butter caramel and add it to the chocolate, but i guess all will get will be a broken mess, or be untemperable. another idea iss to dry caramelize the sugar and deglaze with cream cook off all water, and throw in cocoa butter :-) does that sound weird... ?? any other ideas or recipes ?? please help.. cheers torsten s.

There have been several threads recently about making chocolate confections, and a few in the recent past about making chocolate from the bean. Strangely, there doesn't seem to be a lot of overlap between the two. From what I can tell, the people making bonbons don't seem to be the same people experimenting with melangeurs. In English, we don't even have good terms to describe the difference, and some manufacturers gain advantage from this. Sometimes this is deceit, sometimes a convenient omission, and sometimes just an oversight. I recently bought a pricey sampler of 'single origin' chocolate bars from a high end shop based on the clerk's statements that they were made in house from the bean. Internet research showed this to be most likely false. I think this was just a poorly informed employee who was making the logical conclusion that a chocolate shop would make its own chocolate, but the manufacturer's own website certainly made no effort to clear up this confusion. What do people think about this? What would be comparisons be to other products? Is a chocolatier that uses commercial couverture like a bakery that buys pre-made flour instead of grinding its own wheat, or is it like a bakery that buys all its products frozen and par-baked and while claiming that everything is 'baked fresh daily'. My feeling is that it depends greatly on the way it is presented. Talking about 'our chocolate made from our beans' is wrong if one is simply melting down a commercially available product, but using chocolate as a basic ingredient is fine so long as this is done without deceit: I don't expect a bakery to grind its own flour, but I do expect it to make its own dough. But having recently made my own chocolate from the bean, and being surprised by the quality of the finished product, I'm surprised more people aren't interested in going this extra distance. ps. Alan McClure, the owner of Patric Chocolate, has a more coherent post on this topic up on his blog: http://www.patric-chocolate.com/store/2007...-chocolate.html

Inspired by this thread on things learned in 2007 I have been thinking about what I want to achieve in 2008 on the chocolate front: Learn how to temper on a tabletop Get better packaging for my chocolates Take some kind of chocolate skills class to imropve my technique and repertoire And exercise more so I can eat more chocolate and more cakes Anyone else? (putting things in writing and public is a great incentive to get them done....)

Anybody ever hear of a chocolate shop (yes, production will be on site) having to put in a grease trap? I have never heard about a chocolate shop having to put in one. If you know of a chocolate shop having to do this, please let me know where they're located and who they are. Thanks

Help! I offered to make the chocolates for my lovely stepdaughter's wedding-shower-brunch, and was asked for Tiffany-blue chocolates. Since I have no experience coloring chocolates and (frankly) would rather not, I'm looking for other ideas to propose. A Tiffany box cake and diamond ring cookies are being made by others. I have the geodesic dome mold that looks like a cut gem, am thinking that could be part of it. Any thoughts, anyone? Am also doing the fruit salad, so any ideas on 'Tiffany-ing' that would be great, too! Thanks so much Jennifer

I've recently made my own vanilla extract as detailed in the thread around here somewhere, using Smirnoff 45%. A friend has recently been over to the states, so I got him to bring me back some 95% Everclear, as I fancy some more extract making. My thoughts at the moment are: Chocolate. I'm guessing cocoa powder would work... but how about actual chocolate? I've got some 100% Pralus that's tempting me right now. Imagine the extract of something really dark & fruity like Amedei's Chuao! Herbs. To be able to add the delicate fragrance of herbs to a dish would be great, especially as it's difficult for me to get hold of fresh (or even grow) herbs Truffles (more hypothetical this one, as I'm not sure I can afford truffles, never mind afford buying them for experimentation purposes). Has anyone tried any of these? Might they work? Any other ideas for things that could be extracted?

Does anyone know of a tempering machine or enrobers that are Nsf or UL approved? I know that Hilliards Little Dipper is and so is Chocovision's. I can never imagine myself using either one of those, but those are the only two I can find that are NSF. I bought a Selmi Plus, but it's not NSF or UL approved and my health department tells me that I can't use it. Has anyone else have this problem? Do you know of any other commercial size temperers or enrobers that are NSF or UL approved. Thanks.

Is Willie Harcourt-Cooze’s Venezualan Black 100% chocolate available on the market yet? A piece here from the Guardian. He says that he's targeting the most interesting chefs in the country, but from the tv programme it looks like a cookbook is in the works. Although the recipes don’t look too inspiring so far. Obsessive man married to a Tania with made for TV children makes chocolate spread at 5am in the morning before heading out to the airport, cooks gazpacho with chocolate with side show Ricky his Venezuelan employee, beans and chocolate with Ricky’s wife, hot chocolate and rum to finish off a hard day’s work in the sun and a chocolate marinated pig in an amazing wood burning oven for a cool party. It all feels weirdly colonial, a bit short on real content but I’m interested to see the factory end of things and dying to try the chocolate.

Hello! I can't find the thread that Gfron had on Sushi... I want to make some for a family occasion and have been experimenting. I thought to make the nori from chocolate dough made of 340g dark choc and 4 tablespoons of corn syrup. My problem is that the dough hardens fast and I keep having to zap it with a hairdryer in order to roll it. Also I make strips of about 6 cm and the sushi is a bit small perhaps. ai filled it with a white chocolate ganache mixed with wasabi and sushi rice, cut up dried mango and valrhona pearls. It is nice but not perfect and the major issue is the hardening of the "dough" Does anyone have some badly needed advice? Thank you!!!

Hi all, Some time ago I ran across a huge and very expensive book by a chef at Valrhona that included only savory chocolate recipes. Since then I can't manage to find the reference again. Does anyone know what that book is called? I know that Amazon.com did stock it. Best, Alan

The recipe for Sam Mason's version with carrageenan and locust bean gum is readily available but has anybody managed to work out the Alex Stupak version with agar and gelatin sheets?

I'm heading out tomorrow evening for Belgium to take a course on making chocolate showpieces at the Belcolade factory in Aalst, Belgium. Puratos - the supplier of Belcolade in Canada has arranged the course and was kind enough to invite me along. So in preparation for this trip I've been following a jet lag program that I have used with success in the past. It involves dietary manipulation and caffeine restriction, with reintroduction of caffeine at the appropriate times to 'reset' the body clock. So starting on Wednesday I have done alternating days of 'feasting' and 'fasting' eating mainly protein for breakfast and lunch, and carbohydrates at dinner. No after dinner snacking allowed. Caffeine is allowed only between 3 and 4:30 in the afternoon. Apparently studies have shown that depleting glycogen stores makes you more sensitive to the effects of the caffeine. Tomorrow - the day I fly - is a 'fasting' day - about 800 calories - and at 6 in the evening I drink several cups of black coffee. In combination with resting at the appropriate time, waking 1/2 hour before breakfast Belgium time, doing a bit of physical exercise and brain exercise, then starting another 'feasting day' - I should be good to go for the start of the course on Monday morning. I've used this program a couple of times before when traveling to europe and it has made a world of difference to the jet lag I feel. The down side I suppose is the headache from caffeine withdrawal on Wednesday and the boring diet for these few days. This morning - a 'feasting' day I had a 3 egg omelet with onion, mushroom and cheese for breakfast, a steak for lunch and I felt rather yucky all day. It was all I could do to eat the high carbohydrate dinner - I don't think I achieved the kind of calories the program requires for a feast day. Can't wait to get back on a regular varied diet - some protein, some carbohydrate at the same meal. Moule frites I hope will be one of my first proper meals in Belgium. This will be a pretty much all chocolate and food trip, so I'd love to take you along with me. The plan is to attend the course Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday - with any luck we will hit a mold factory on Thursday - then Friday I'm taking the train to Germany. I'll have a quick stopover in Cologne where I hope to get some pictures of Schneich's chocolate lab - then off to visit friends who collect old metal chocolate molds and produce very large equipment for chocolate factories. I'm the proud owner of a new Asus eee computer - a tiny little thing (less than 1 kg) with full WiFi capabilities that should allow me to keep in touch as long as I can find wireless. Picture transfer is a bit of a challenge, so I'll probably post a bunch when I get back, but I'll try to download some while I'm away. I'd love any suggestions about foods I should try - if anyone knows of restaurants in Aalst that are worth checking out I'd love to hear about them. I found lots of threads on Brussels, Bruges and Antwerp, but nothing about Aalst. Also anxious to hear suggestions for any particular chocolate I should try in Brussels.