Search the Community

At risk of asking a silly question, I have someone who is looking for "high quality nonpareil chocolates." I thought that had something to do with the Kosher process, but when I looked up the definition of the word, her request became redundant since technically nonpareil means unparalleled quality. So what does this term mean in this context? And if its a legitimate term, does anyone have recommendations for such a thing? Thanks.

Does anyone have any tips on how to cut the sweetness of fondant? When I add maple syrup to flavor it, it becomes really sweet. and since this is going inside chocolates, i feel it is overall to sweet. id like to havea strong maple flavor, but less sweetness. any suggestions?

Okay, I’ve made some ganaches and most have turned out. I have now had a few that haven’t. I’ve saved some by adding corn syrup as described in Making Artisan Chocolates and I’ve read a few threads that give plenty of other options too. But, I also had one that wouldn’t come together. I’ve arrived at the conclusion that I do not have all the equipment that I need to make chocolates (or at least to save them). Any recommendations on the essential tools that I need and what the best brands (that are also economical in price) would be? Thanks, Mike.

Hello, I went to the previous class of Andrew Schotts and want to hear about the one that just took place at Notter. I hope a fellow egullet member went and is willing to share!!!

After Kerry's marvelous explanation of the making of molasses honeycomb chips, I was moved to wreck my cookbook budget for the next few months and pick up "Choice Confections" by Walter Richmond. (Well, okay, I also picked up Morimoto's cookbook.) Although I've only had a few hours to glance through it, it brought up a couple of questions I have for experienced candymakers...regarding English Toffee. First, he talks about adding "Baker's Special Sugar" to the mix to start the graining. Now, I'm confused about this ingredient. Some sites refer to it as basically superfine sugar (so I'm thinking Domino's superfine will do the trick). Others seem to list Baker's Special Sugar as being a coarser grade than superfine, so I'm wondering if superfine will work. I would think so, but I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with this. Second, he talks about aging the toffee for a week before selling it. I'm wondering if this will accomplish what's been my "holy grail" of English Toffee since I started making it: creating a toffee that doesn't stick to your teeth when you chew it. It seems to me that much commercial toffee doesn't stick to your teeth; it somehow seems a little "drier" when it's chewed. My homemade toffee, which always gets eaten in a few days, tends to stick when chewed. I'm pretty sure I've got the temperature right, so I've been thinking it's a matter of ingredients...but Choice Confections has me wondering if it's a matter of age instead. --Josh

Hi, I was wondering if anyone out there has experience in vacuum sealing their chocolates before they are frozen, as mentioned in the Peter Greweling book. Any info, would be greatly appreciated. Luis

After thumbing through some old threads, I ran across the name of Raindrop Chocolates, regarding placse to get Gelato in Houston. After dinner last night, we decided to stop in and check it out. They have wonderful gelato. My wife got the blood orange/chocolate, and I got the lemon custard. The intensely nuanced flavors of each, plus the fact that we were having something made from blood oranges in September, led me to ask the owner where he got his citrus. He said he orders them from Sicily. Everything is fresh and wonderful. We will definitely make this place a regular after-dinner stop.

I recently saw on the ICE culinary CAPS course list that both Andrew Shotts and Jean Pierre Wybauw (JPW) are teaching clases. I know that many people have taken JPW's class. Any comments on how that might compare to Andrew Shotts class? Here is the link to the course descriptions. http://www.iceculinary.com/professional/caps.shtml Jeff

Hi everyone, I was wondering if anyone has eaten any of the chocolates of Franck Kestener or have visited his shop in Sarreguemines? Any comments? Thanks!

My sister-in-law is having a major birthday, and my husband forgot that it is tomorrow. I'm hoping to find her some very nice chocolates that I can buy online and send overnight to California. Any ideas?

I have been up in Manitoulin Island for the last few weeks working and I always like to bring along a new project to work on that I can't find time for at home. You might recall that last year it was making a silicone mold for chocolate (that would be the groundhog that everyone found quite amusing). This year, prompted by Lloydchoc's suggestions in this thread I purchased a copy of American Cake Decorator magazine of May/June 2003 to help me get started and worked my way from there. So follow along and see what we have accomplished so far. I started by obtaining the emulsion. This is the stuff that is applied to the screen. The American Cake Decorating magazine said to get Ulano TZ/CL (CL for clear) as it is food grade. In speaking with Ulano directly, they told me that while this is the one everyone uses for chocolate transfers, they have never gone to the expense of having it declared so by the FDA. Essentially it is a mixture of poly vinyl alcohol (PVA) and diazo dye. Diazo dye is light sensitive and causes the PVA to harden when it is exposed to light. The first problem I ran into was that no one in Canada carried that particular emulsion so they would have to order it from the US. By the time all was said and done I was forced to purchase 4 - 4 litre containers of the stuff. Once you have mixed it up you need to use it within several months, so I poured off 1 litre, weighed out 1/4 of the diazo dye and mixed that. I couldn't help but notice that the base - the PVA - smelled and looked just like white glue. A little research online has convinced me that it really is just white glue, so right now experiments are underway to test this hypothesis. These are pictures of my screen. It is an 80 mesh which means it has big holes compared to the usual silk screen. It means that your print won't be quite as crisp, but lots of coloured cocoa butter should get through. The two sides of my 80 mesh 'silk' screen. Polyester actually. I purchased the screen at Screentek, the same place I got the emulsion. Andria there gave me a quick lesson. Originally I had planned to expose the screen using a 150 watt light bulb as shown in the cake decorating magazine, but Andria convinced me that she had a great customer who lived on Manitoulin Island and she had already told her what I wanted to do, so I should go and visit her to expose my screens in the most professional way. I stopped in at Bebamikawe Studios the first day I worked at the clinic in Wikwemikong. There I met Georgina, the proprietor. She is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and runs a very sucessful business making signs, screen printing on fabric and other items, and embroidering traditional native designs on clothing, moccasins and various other items. She was rather intrigued with this whole chocolate idea, but was rather unclear about what a chocolate transfer was. The following pictures are to illustrate applying the emulsion to the screen, this is Georgina at work. Note the even, smooth strokes. Nothing like my application. But like she said, she does have over 20 years experience doing it. This is actuallly the experimental emulsion that I made with white glue on one of her reclaimed screens. The emulsion is poured into the applicator. The emulsion is applied to the screen with the applicator in a thin layer. You do the flat side of the screen first then the raised side. In this way you end up with a thicker layer of emulsion on the side that will be down when you are printing. The emulsion then needs to dry overnight protected from light. A couple of days before I went down to Wiki, Beth (Beth Wilson on eG) from the Manitoulin Chocolate Works and I spent the afternoon in her brother in law's print shop getting our images prepared. It is important that the image be crisp and clear and that the lines are thick enough to show up when printed. For example a flowing script that has a loop in a letter may not actually end up with a loop when you are done. I had Keith take the script from my label and rearrange it in a way that should print well. Beth had him take an image of Manitoulin Island and add the initials MCW for the chocolate works under the island. Two transparency copies are made of the desired image and taped together to make the image as black as possible. The image is placed on a table that contains some extremely strong lights. The frame is placed on top of the image. The screen is placed over the image. Care must be taken in determining which way is up, you want to end up with a backward transfer so that when you apply it to your chocolate it is the right way around. A vacuum is applied to the frame with it's attached transparency. This holds everything in place and minimizes extraneous light. After about 8 minutes under the strong lights, the emulsion has hardened and you are ready to wash the screen. After exposure to the light a strong steam of water washes away the areas masked from the light by the black printing. Now we were ready to try to learn to print our transfers. Beth and I taped a piece of overhead projector acetate to the counter and prepared the coloured cocoa butter. I mixed some melted cocoa butter with powdered PCB dye on a piece of marble. I worked it until it was starting to firm up but wasn't so stiff if wouldn't flow. I used the heat gun to warm it again if it got too stiff. The coloured cocoa butter pool. Note the tongue depressors taped to the frame. This holds the screen an 1/8th of an inch or so above the transparency so that it springs back after the squeegie is applied. Getting ready to flood the screen with the coloured cocoa butter. The initial squeegie to push the cocoa butter into the screen. Note that I am holding up the end of the screen that is towards me in order not to print on the acetate yet. The final squeegie to push the cocoa butter onto the transfer. Beth's transfers in blue. Very early on the learning curve as you can see. Beth's transfer in dark chocolate. My first attempt in blue. The chocolates with the transfers still in place. After peeling off the transfers. My trials with gold coloured cocoa butter. After showing the dark chocolate and blue transfers to Georgina she showed me how she floods her screen for printing T-shirts. So on this attempt I dragged the squeegie over once to fill the script, then went back over it a couple of times to make sure there was lots of cocoa butter over the lettering. When I pushed down for my final squeegie application I got a reasonably good application. Of course you have to work quickly before the cocoa butter starts to firm up or your screen will glue itself down to the acetate. There is a bit of a problem I have yet to sort out, the edges have more intensity of colour than the middles. When I get back home I'll take my screen and cocoa butter etc and head back to screentek and get Andria to watch my technique and give me suggestions. This is what happens to transfers after the dog hauls them out of the box and licks each one to get the chocolate off. Not a single transfer escaped his tongue. Total cost - $74 Cdn for 4 litre pail of emulsion, $22 for applicator, $17 for squeegies, $20 per screen. Cost for Georgina to copy our images on to the transparencies and expose them $55 for both screens. We could have saved $30 by printing our images to the transparencies ourselves.

Let see if I can keep this short. My brain is on overload. I've finally put myself out there, meaning bringing my chocolates to an upscale chocolate shop (they don't make their own, only sell) to see if they'd be interesting in selling mine. I've been selling to friends, friends of friends, and at small vendor fairs, so this would be a big step for me. I've been doing this for some time (and learning loads from this site as well as books and classes) so I'm stressed...OK this is already too long. Another aside - I'm out of town and don't have access to my Schotts book, Wybauw book, etc. so I appreciate any help. Now to the questions: 1.How long do you tell a shop to keep chocolates on their shelf. I'm using basic gananches, some with trimoline, but most without. If you sell a number of different fillings, do you go with the one with the shortest shelf life for all? (I assume one with a fruit puree would be the shortest?) 2. How much do I need to worry about how their storage is? The day I was in there, it wasn't as cool as I would have hoped, but it's a small space and the door keeps opening... 3. How do I decide on pricing? I know how much the ingredients cost me, and I know how much I sell them for (mostly based how much the market around here will bear) but what's a reasonable price for me to sell to them. Do you reduce prices for really large volumes? 4. Any other tips? Well this certainly wasn't short, but I hope you'll be patient. More questions will probably pop into my head as I restlessly try to sleep tonight. It's all good!

So is the Wybauw chocolate class worth $800 + expenses? For those who took his class, did you think you learned enough to justify spending that kind of $? If you had the chance to do it again, would you? Why? What did he teach in class? Did he just go over chocolates or did he also talk about other aspects of confections? I know there's threads, but I would really know if it was worth the $. Thanks in advance.

Has anyone ever used a Mol D'Art 50kg tempering machine or a Prefamac 30kg or 60kg (AKA Bakon in the US) machine? I have always used Mol D'Art melters, but never a machine with a wheel. I'm in the market for one of these machines and was wondering if someone can voice their opinions about these machines, if they have used them. One of the questions I have is about how long the chocolate stays in proper temper without having to do any adjustments. One thing that I don't like about the melters, is that the chocolate seems to overcrystalize quickly when you're working with them and then you have to toy around to get it back to a good fluidity. So if you have worked on the big machines with a wheel, please give me your results and problems you experienced. Thanks for you time in advance, it's very appreciated.

I had an email in early April on my website asking if I would be willing to teach confectionery to someone who is interested in becoming an artisanal candy maker. I assumed it was someone living close by who would come by a time or two to learn what they could, however it turned out that Pamela lives in Los Angeles and was so excited about the opportunity to learn that she was willing to come all the way up to Southern Ontario and spend a 3 day weekend of solid candymaking. Apparently someone had pointed her to the confectionery course here on eG and while she read through it, having had no experience cooking, she wasn't comfortable trying things on her own. Pamela has been very successful in her current business but loving candy as she does, sees high end confectionery in her future. One wonderful thing about Pamela is that she doesn't feel constrained by the rules, never having cooked before, anything goes. She's a quick study, and she has these wonderful ideas of things she wants to try. I can't wait to see what she creates, I suspect when she turns her hand to it we might just see her do things that are new and groundbreaking in confectionery. I haven't been as good at taking pictures as I should, but I'll try to give a little overview of what we have covered so far and I'll try to take more tomorrow. So Pamela showed up on Friday morning at 9 am, just after I got the rug rat off to school. Our first project was jelly beans, something she was most interested in learning. We needed to start with them because they are really a two day project, the first to build up the soft panned coat and the second to polish and seal them. The coating pan in the middle of a rather disorganized kitchen. The jelly beans after coating, set out to dry over night. Soft panning involves coating jelly bean centers with alternating layers of sugar syrup and sugar. The movement in the pan compacts the sugar crystals together to allow them to form a sugar crust around the center. Colour and flavour are added in the sugar syrup and you use finer sugar in the outer layers, ending finally with confectioners sugar. Pamela chose honeydew flavour for the jelly beans, and they are absolutely amazing to taste. Today we polished the jelly beans, after rehydrating the surface with a 60% sugar syrup, a bit of wax is added to the pan and it is run until the beans start to shine. Shellac is applied, the pan runs to distribute it, then air is applied to flash off the solvent. As you can see we didn't end up with a uniform finish on the jelly beans, there is some mottling of the colour. We split the batch in two for polishing and to the other half we added a bit more rehydrating syrup, but we had more issues with mottling and never did get them to shine. E-mails are out to see if we can figure out exactly what needs improvement. I need a resource on the finer points of polishing soft panned goods. Our next project was to start some orange rinds candying. Pamela wants to learn to candy whole fruits, however 3 days really only allows us time to do some rinds. The original recipe actually calls for candying over 8 days, but I've discovered that if I reboil when I think of it (usually first thing in the morning, after I get home from work and just before I go to bed) that I can get them done in 3 or 4 days. Sponge toffee was our next item. I don't have pictures of batch number one - we could have posted that on the regrettable food thread - I always say to just barely mix in the baking soda, however we discovered that you can actually undermix it. Looked like something the cat chucked up. Here is Pamela measuring out almonds for the nougat we made, finished pictures aren't so great. We added some candied orange rind to the almonds and pistachios at the last minute, it was a little moist which made for a nougat that was a bit soft, but darn tasty. A batch of caramel today was divided to make some chewy caramels, coating for marshmallows and dipping some pretzels before rolling in pecans. We had some issues in our attempts to make pulled hard candy today. The recipe gave a large range for the hard crack stage and the first boiling was a bit soft. We reboiled, but the lemon juice added at the end of the boil caused too much inversion and we had quite the sticky mess on our hands. Tomorrow pulled candy again, until we get it right. Our last project today was starch molded gummies, orange colour and flavour. Not quite enough flavour - we used the recipe from Greweling's Chocolates and Confections - which just said to add flavour 'as required'. Trouble is at 120 C you don't really want to be tasting the jelly. Last night I dragged Pamela with me to Scarborough where I was doing a chocolate class for a bridal shower. Seventeen girls, a very warm house, a very late night. Pamela is not interested in chocolate, doesn't actually like it very much, but I felt it wouldn't hurt to learn for her to learn a bit about chocolate tempering.

I'm playing around with this recipe and wondering what the purpose of the baking soda is. Thoughts?

Does anybody have a source (U.S.) for reasonably priced plastic confectionery frames. I bought a very large one in France for ~12 Euro; here I cannot seem to find them for less than forty bucks or as parts of expensive sets that I do not need. It seems bizarre that something so cheap to produce would cost so much.

One of the dishes at Alinea this weekend was a shot that included green apple juice or cider inside of a cocoa butter orb dusted with horseradish set in celery juice. The orb was crisp and thin. I've never worked with pure cocoa butter...can you temper it by itself? I didn't taste the sweetness of white chocolate, nor was it billed as white chocolate.

I just got email from www.notterschool.com announcing their new 24 week pastry course. It's in Florida and is just under $18,000. Taught by Notter, Anil Rohira and celebrity guests. I met Chef Rohira in Maryland last year and really liked him. He is an easy personality and wants to share information and help his students succeed.

I'm looking into going to Melbourne, Australia to study. I found a lead for William Angliss, which offers a confectionery program. Anyone know of this school or program? Would you recommend it? Also, if anyone know of other similar programs in or around Melbourne Australia, please let me know!

Hard to believe there isn't a topic on this one yet! I try to go to Lady M (at 78th and Madison) at least once every couple of months to sample the Mille Crêpes and an individual pot of the Lady M Grey tea. I've found the service to be...um...not so much lacking as it is ditzy. Everyone is sweet as pie, but it can be a nightmare getting seated or asking for the check. Today it was the former. I met my brother around 4:45, and we went in. There was a small line for tables, and we put our name down. A couple came in behind us and put their name down as well, then ran out to check out a store. They came back in, stepped in front of us, and were seated ahead of us. Not usually a problem (and not the couple's fault at all), but my brother was in a time crunch, and I was peeeeved. We ended up being seated quickly after that, and all was fine. Jeremy had a sort of banana cream pie type thing (sorry, they don't allow pics, and this one isn't on their site) - it was fabulous. Crisp, super-flaky pastry. Mountains of cream. And bananas galore. It was perfect with his hot chocolate. I made myself deviate from the usual Mille Crêpes and instead went for the Choux fromage (labeled Gateau au Citron on the website). It was delightful - cheesecake filling (though light as air and lemony) sandwiched between layers of pate à choux. Our check came uncharacteristically quickly.

Over the past few years I've managed to build up my chocolate book library but I'm interested to hear what other people have read and their thoughts on the books. To start things off, some of my better books are: Fine Chocolates Great Experience: Jean-Pierre Wybaux I don't think this one needs any further description. THE book for many chocolatiers although it does assume some previous knowledge. Belgian Chocolates: Roger Geerts Another chocolate book I love. Lots of recipes, lots of photos on finishing techniques. Can be a little hard to follow in places as it has some assumed knowledge. As an aside, Geerts has now done a DVD to accompany this book. The Chocolate Bible: Christian Teubner This was a great find for me. I picked it up fairly cheaply at a bookstore and it has a wealth of information. Once again, lots of pictures of finished products. On the downside, the book is not dedicated to chocolate alone - there are also cakes and biscuits etc. Candymaking: Kendrick & Atkinson This was my introductory book to candy and chocolate making and still serves as a great reference for me - I still use the Creamy Fondant and Soft Caramel recipes. A little cheaper than some of the books above if you are looking for an introduction to the topic. Truffles, Candies & Confections: Carole Bloom Not many pictures, but choc full of recipes and tips. Covers a wide variety of chocolate and confectionary recipes. The Complete Home Confectioner: Hilary Walden A great introductory book more for confectionary than chocolate. Simple recipes but on a wide range of recipes and recipes different to those covered in the books above. Otherwise I'm waiting for Making Artisan Chocolates (Shotts) and Chocolates and Confections (Greweling) which seem to have been well received by the eG community judging by the posts. So what does everyone else read/use . . . ? (edited for typos)

With apologies to those folks who feel that the Pastry and Baking forums are being taken over by candymakers I think it's time we started a thread on cooking from 'Chocolates and Confections'. I know at least two of us have the book now. I'm still just reading it through from cover to cover and the only thing I've tried so far is aerating some tempered milk chocolate in my cream siphon. Of course I didn't read the directions thoroughly and I only used one charge so I didn't get a lot of real bubbles in the chocolate. It did however lighten up the chocolate to a nice soft texture. I used some milk chocolate I had left over from dipping some cookies, I had added some orange oil to it. I used some easter egg plates that make about 6 large eggs. I poured a shell with milk chocolate then used the cream siphon to discharge the aerated chocolate into the molds. So I ended up with these nice big eggs, apparently solid chocolate, but the texture was light enough to bite into them without breaking your teeth. I'll try it next time with 2 or 3 charges and see if I can make aero bars. The one theory I need to test out is weather if I don't line the mold with chocolate and just discharge to contents of the siphon into a mold whether there will be bubbles on the surface of the mold or will it sort of form a smooth 'skin' like an aero bar has.

Talk to me about vibrating tables. I don't have one - I'm banging around my molds by hand, and ending up with more holes and bubbles than I want. Could be I just need more practice and to tweak my technique. But what do I need to know about vibrating tables? Who has one? What do you and don't you like about it? How is it used? Where's the best buy for a chocolatier on a budget?

In heart of Valentine's day, I was just wondering where does one get good quality "house-made" chocolates? I'd imagine there might be a few places in Boulder? Anyone know?