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Are there any eGullet members who have ordered chocolate boxes from Chinese packaging companies? I have used boxes from Chocolat Chocolat in the past, but need customized boxes now in much larger quantities in order to take my business to the next level. I'm looking for Chinese companies who make sturdy customized boxes and offer debossing or embossing. Quality is of course key but communication and responsiveness are important too. I'm interested in purchasing 1000 to 2000 pieces at a time. Unfortunately, there seems to be no American company that can do what I need for a reasonable price. The companies I contacted either tell me they cannot do what I need, or their prices are way too high to make it work for my business. I also know that many providers of chocolate boxes here in the US get their boxes from China, so ordering directly from China makes a lot of sense to me. This being said, I checked out quite a few companies featured on the Chinese site Alibaba.com. There are so many companies that it is really hard to know which companies offer great quality and service. All seem to offer samples, which is good. Thanks in advance for any helpful replies.

Hi! I've never been interested in cooking. But, then I ate some really good food, and became curious. I bought the Modernist Cuisine, and the last few weeks I have made food that is on another level than anything I have ever cooked before. This is truly amazing, and I have found a new hobby. I like the precision, and I do not fear the equipment. I just wasn't aware that food could be cooked this way. I have always loved chocolate pralines, for as long as I can remember. There are a few small local producers where I live, and I have found my favorites among their creations. I sometimes buy a couple of pralines, especially from one of the producers, and each one of the pralines taste so good that eating another is impossible for at least 15-20 minutes - it takes time to process the experience of the last one! (Compare this to what you buy at the supermarket, the only flavor found there is the one of excess amounts of glucose syrup, I think.) My recent experiences with Modernist Cuisine tells me that it is possible for me to create excellent tasting food in my own kitchen. That makes me wonder - would it be possible for me to make professional grade chocolate pralines in my own home? I truly want to try. I have skimmed through this forum and found advices on which books to buy. I will most likely order one and start from there, and currently I am thinking about going for a Greweling, but, I thought I would ask you first. My wishes, in order of importance: 1. Modernist Cuisine has totally changed the way I approach food. I would like to find a source of information on chocolate, that is as precise and detailed. Preferably, I would like it to teach techniques, which I can later use when following recipes. 2. I am looking for excellent taste! Is it possible to create chocolate pralines at home, by carefully following laid out recipes, that can provide me with similar episodes of 15-20 minutes of introspection that my local small scale producers are able to do? In my mouth, the less sweet praline is often preferred over more sweet ones. 3. In those truly mind blowing experiences, texture plays an important role. I think I need to understand how to control the final texture of the different parts of my future creations. Experiments that result in experience is most likely needed. 4. Appearance. I love simple and clean appearances. Initially, I do not want other colors added than those of the chocolate itself. Visually, I think I would prefer a style that is somewhat conservative? Imagine three different pralines, all looking roughly the same, quite anonymous, served with coffee after dinner, where each one turns out to be something very, very special. My question, which is the reason for starting this thread, is this one: Should I even try this? If my expectations are higher than what is achievable, I want to do something else instead. If I were to start with only one book, which book would that be? Thanks in advance!

It's time to start planning the next Chocolate and Confectionery Workshop. The 2015 Workshop is planned (again) for the Northern Virginia (Washington DC suburb) area. I'm working with a friend to help me out this year. We are working on obtaining the Stratford Culinary School again for the conference and hope to have the location approved and locked down in the near future. I have a guest instructor lined up that everyone will truly enjoy, but until we have contracts in place, I'm not letting that cat out of the bag. We also have tentatively lined up a Sugar demo for Sunday morning for those that would be interested in that aspect. This is just to announce that there will be a 2015 conference, so please start letting me know if you plan on coming (and/or are interested in joining us). Further details and information (costs/dates/etc) will be announced as we finalize them. When you indicate your interest would you also please let us know if you would be interested in a "Masters" class, similar to what was arranged for the 2014 Conference? If we obtain enough interest in such a class we need to assure we can get the kitchen space for an additional day - please don't forget that would also incur an extra added expense for those attending the Masters Class. Watch this space for exciting breaking news as it develops

Has anyone successfully made this at home before? The recipe from their cookbook isn't descriptive enough and I've had moderate success with it but the sabayon texture just looks much more aerated in the ambroisie version

Years ago I bought a chocolate, probably bitter sweet, and I believe it came out of Canada. This product was darker than unsweetened chocolate and made a gorgeous black ganache with a wonderful sheen. It was probably a 25 lb box and was in disc form. Does anyone know what it is?

I live in a household of beer snobs - craft beer snobs to be precise. So there's been some pressure here for me to create beer chocolates. I completed experiment #1 yesterday and want to share for feedback and / or thoughts. I based my ganache recipe off how you'd do a fruit puree-based ganache. However, instead of adding a fruit puree, I created a "liquid" beer gel from a liquid port gel recipe I found on a molecular cooking site. Simply, this combined beer and agar agar. The gel was cooled and then pureed with an immersion blender. I had to add about twice as much beer as the recipe called for because upon pureeing, the gel broke into teensy tiny little balls of gelified beer. Not good. I had to heat/reheat and keep blending and adding beer until I got a more or less pudding like beer gel. Not terribly scientific, but the beer retained most of its flavor (I used a Founders barrel aged ale - so very strong and flavorul beer to start with). I added the beer gel to a ganache that had cream and butter and a 38% milk chocolate base. The ganache recipe I was working from also calle for glucose and invert sugar, which I'd rather leave out if using milk chocolate because the gananche turned out too sweet IMO. However, it has a nice beer flavor and is smooth. I think the beer flavor should be stronger. Next version I'll either omit or reduce the sugar and/or use a 58%ish chocolate base. Maybe also add more of the beer gel (then add more butter?). I have another experiment I'll be working on as well this weekend, and it will involve actually infusing the cream with the ingredients we'd normally use to brew a stout (chocolate malt, roasted barley, hops, etc.). It may end up tasting like a delicious bread truffle, since I can't ferment the ganache! :-) Would love to hear others' experiences or ideas. Cheers!

Hi, I'm making a friend's wedding cake and am getting a bit stuck with fillings: The cake itself is a rich chocolate cake and I originally planned to use a coconut filling along with a raspberry filling (alternating layers) however they now don't want coconut, so i'm reverting to just raspberry as the flavour profile. Tonight, in some experimenting, I mixed up some white chocolate raspberry ganache (using white chocolate and raspberries) as well as a batch of raspberry filling from this fantastic post. I love the taste of the second filling, the ganache not so much (though i'm going to try whipping it tomorrow and see if light-and-fluffy suits it). However I don't like the idea of just using the raspberry filling - it will require a LOT of raspberries and is quite strong tasting. I wonder if anyone has a dark chocolate ganache recipe using raspberries or something like this filling mixed with chocolate. My ideal filling would be smooth and not too sharp tasting, but still with a fresh burst of raspberry. And of course, needs to be stable for multi-tiered construction. Alternatively, I'm wondering about spreading a little ganache and then a bit of the raspberry filling on top, so two mini-fillings between layers. Any ideas?! I have found a number of raspberry ganache recipes online but would rather not just try a whole bunch aimlessly if someone here has a good one... and most of those online seem to use jam, which in my head wouldn't be so tasty, but who knows... Thanks so much!

I am using a recipe from Jean-Pierre Wybauw for beer ganache that calls for sorbitol. I have been searching for information online and with my local shop about whether this is considered a preservative (since I tell everyone I don't use preservatives!). Does anyone know? I'm at a loss! Thanks.

I am attempting a recipe from Peter Greweling's book "Chocolates & Confections." It's the Salt & Pepper Bars. In the recipe you first lay down a layer of salted caramel in your frame, then spray with cocoa butter before laying down the second layer. I don't have an airbrush or any equipment really. Can anyone shed light onto how this is done - I've searched the book and online, but haven't found any sources to help. I get that it's supposed to help with moisture retention, but am not sure how to "spray with cocoa butter." Thanks for any tips!

I'm making peppermint bark to start and plan to do a few others. Wanting an easy way to get a consistent size/weight so was thinking some nice polycarbonate moulds would be perfect but haven't found one that I like. If you look at Godiva barks they have a rectangular shape with break apart lines molded in. Ideally I'd love molds like this. Anyone seen a mold like this?

I made and dipped some sponge candy in dark chocolate the other day. It was probably my second or third time ever tempering chocolate (seeding method), so while I roughly understand the process, I'm far from experienced. I didn't have much chocolate on hand, so I had to split the dipping into two batches on separate days. The first batch set perfectly. The second batch of chocolate appeared to be in temper - when I tested it with a cold knife, it developed the appropriate shine within a few minutes. I proceeded to use all of the chocolate and then move the pieces to a slightly cooler area, but after I cleaned up, I returned to find that every single one had bloomed badly. To my surprise, however, when I ate one of the bloomed pieces after letting them set for 24 hours, I found that it had the hardness and snap I would expect from properly tempered chocolate - certainly not the mushy, almost frosting-like texture that I've seen before in completely untempered chocolate. The chocolate I was using was not particularly fluid, if that matters (Guittard's 70% "baking bars"). I understand that bloom can have a million different causes, but since I used the exact same chocolate and technique both times with dramatically different results, I was hoping to narrow down the possibilities before I risk another attempt. In particular, I was wondering if a warm kitchen could cause this type of problem. I keep a combination thermometer-hygrometer in the kitchen, and on the second day, it was around 77 degrees Farenheit while I was working (far from ideal, but it's what I had to work with). Regardless, I didn't move my finished pieces to the fridge, since it is my understanding that rushing the setting process will interfere with proper crystallization (Greweling mentions this in the context of ganache, but also says the same is true for chocolate). I guess I sort of naively believed that as long as the temperature of the chocolate in the bowl was controlled properly, and the room wasn't warm enough to heat up and literally re-melt the setting pieces, I would be fine. I don't recall the exact kitchen temperature on the first day, but I believe it was around 72-74 degrees Farenheit, definitely cooler than the second day. I found some posts while browsing eG that reference the "latent heat of crystallization" and describe this type of loss-of-temper, but always in the context of molded chocolates, rather than dipped chocolates. I presume the reduced ventilation that chocolate in a mold receives makes the issue more common?

Hi! I am making molded chocolates at home and just started airspraying cocoa butter into the molds. I only have R & R cocoa butter. I haven't been able to find any discussions here about using it. I know I am tempering the cocoa butter and I have a Grex Tritium (side feed) with a .7 needle. I have a California Air Tools compresser 1 HP, with an 8 gallon tank. The cocoa butter seems to clog in the airbrush, and I have to heat it with my blowdryer every few (2-3) minutes to keep it running. It seems I have to use high pressures to get any spray from the gun. I wish I hadn't gotten the side feed, but I didn't know better. Could the brand of cocoa butter be part of the cause? It splatters a lot as well. II am loving the airbrush but I know I have much more to learn yet! I would appreciate any help to help improve my spraying!

Recently I watched a visit to an Entemann's bakery where they ran all the doughnuts under a UV light to kill mold spores before packaging. A few days later I was at Staples, where they had 'room sanitizing' UV lights on clearance and I'm thinking it couldn't hurt to get one and shine it on my bonbons before I cap them. Also to sanitize the kitchen in general, especially the walk-in fridge. Does anyone have experience with UV lights in a food production setting? Will the cheap one from the office supply store help me at all? thanks!

I recently purchased a vintage metal chocolate mold. I was fascinated by its pattern, and it was relatively cheap. Now I'm trying to figure out how to use it. I have begun to suspect that it may have been designed for making some particular type of chocolate, and before I start acting on my various speculations, wanted to put a couple of images of it before this group to see if anyone might recognize what it was made for, or, alternatively, what I could use it to make. It's very heavy, and the cavities are in pretty good condition.

Hi guys hope your doing well, so i just want to ask you about some tips, recipes or informations about making chocolate bonbons am already know how to tamper and make my shells and i want to learn more about this, thank you so much 🎀

Hello friends, We recently got our selmi plus ex and have had a handful of successful runs. So far mostly with our enrobing line. Theres been 2 occasions now that I have noticed when tempering the machine is cooling past the target temp. When it does this it goes down into the 28c range and the screw pump has to shut off due to the temp and viscosity. I also noticed the manual is pretty light on operational procedures. The 2 things I can think of that might be causing this other then an equipment error is the chocolate used is to thick or there is a build up of chocolate around the temperature probe near the faucet. Wondering if anyone else has had this issue before.

A quite unusual take on the favorite American chocolate bar: click

I couldn't think of a better way to word that! I'm experimenting with adding a very small amount of cocoa butter decoration onto bars I'm making and am not sure whether I should heat the moulds up with a hair dryer as I would for completely bare moulds or just abandoning this step. I would avoid blowing directly onto where the cocoa butter is as much as possible. Thoughts?

Full story here.

I'm relatively new to chocolate making but now that I've finally got the hang of tempering (by hand using the seeding method) I'd like to work on incorporating less air during the process. I mainly make bars at the moment so I can tap out air bubbles after filling but I want to start making dipped biscuits and that's not going to work! I've watched oh so many videos of people stirring their chocolate while tempering and can't pick up any nuances that make their process different to mine, though they clearly have significantly less air in their mixture. Any ideas how I could fix this problem or should I consider incorporating air bubbles into my biscuit design?

Hi! I started tempering chocolate in December despite saying I would never temper chocolate because it looks so complicated. Now I'm whipping up chocolates for every holiday and birthday gift. I'm not the best for sure, but I've been practicing a lot and I'm feeling good about the results (usually)! I'm trying to make a bark that is mainly white with some red feathering. I used titanium dioxide for the first time to try to get the white chocolate whiter, and everything seemed to be going well, but after a half hour, the red chocolate (dark) has set but the white is very tacky. I can't find any information on if titanium dioxide affects the tempering process. Did I blow it?

Hi! I have a SMALL chocolate shop/cafe in Canada and I've just received a grant that I need to apply to my business and am trying to decide where best to put it. I have a chocovision rev delta and it serves us well, but I am planning to upgrade to a 3Z, as that is a higher capacity and will be within my price range. That will leave me with approx $3500 cad to spend on other items. We so far do most things small batch/small scale/by hand. Considering a panning machine or kitchenaid attachment? a vibrating table? an airbrush setup? Guitar cutter? Any other thoughts or suggestions??

Looks like you’re in the Washington Post this morning, Congratulations! 🎊 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/food/2021/01/31/chocolates-valentines-day/%3foutputType=amp

Hello eGForums, I'm curious if anyone has purchased these ganache and caramel ruler bars (https://www.tcfsales.com/products/658-ganache-and-caramel-ruler-bars-set-of-2-ea/) from TCF before or has experience with this company? Are they a reputable company? It costs $87.96 (not including shipping) to purchase 4 stainless steel square bars, measuring 1/2" x 1/2" x 15" L, which seems like a reasonable price relative to other companies. Correct me if I'm wrong. Does anyone suggest other companies to purchase bars from? On a related topic, I know that a possibly more affordable alternative would be to visit a local metal fabricator and purchase metal bars from them. My concern is purchasing bars that are made from an alloy and finish that is 'food-safe'. Does anyone know what grade/alloy and finish of stainless steel is 'food-safe'? Does anyone know what grade/alloy and finish of aluminum is 'food-safe'?

I work at a small business with about 25 employees where we make chocolates, popcorn and caramels. In capacity as head chocolatier I have to work with our facilities supervisor to develop a food safety testing plan for the facility. Right now we are developing a plan to do the following: swab with ATP detectors to see if bacterial activity is present, test for Aerobic Plate Count bacteria (APC), and swabbing for the presence of nut proteins to verify our cleaning protocols are sufficient to eliminate nut allergens and test the floor drains for the presence of listeria. Does anyone have any experience with food safety testing in chocolate plants?? If so, is there anything else that you think we need to be testing for?