Search the Community

I have been looking around for other chocolates company to get a better idea of the products out there, prices , packaging , services etc. Chocolates like Vosges ( sp ?) say their chocolates are made fresh bla bla and they last only 10 days , so to keep them refrigerated till you need to use them etc. Now I am trying to check out most of the fine chocolates maker around , expecially small company that have a production more similar to the one I am working on. What are your experiences on teh refrigeration and artisanal chocolates.? I personally dont like to put my chocolates in the fridge because I think chocolate stored in the fridge have a different taste etc. Do you usually suggest refrigeration for your products , since the most people I have seen here use fresh ingredients and no preservative. Just a thought for a new conversation . Thank you

After reading this quote from Truffle Guy, I thought that this topic deserved its own thread. Do you prefer the appearance of molded over enrobed chocolates? It is, of course, purely an aesthetic preference, but when I see a well made enrobed piece I feel like I am looking the skill of the chocolatier, and that level of genius that it takes to make something beautiful consistently under more difficult constraints (See Patrick Roger). On the other hand, molded chocolates always look kind of shiny and plasticy to me; they convey "piece of candy" more than "gastronomic experience" (not to suggest this is necessarily the case). What are your opinions?

Hi Everyone, Just by way of introduction, my name is Jaycel and I have been reading the threads of egullet for a couple of years with great interest. I graduated last year from the French Culinary Institute, interned at Ron Ben Israel Cakes, and have taken a few classes at the Notter School of Pastry Arts in Orlando. I am hoping to open my own chocolate/ice cream boutique where I live at the end of the year and hopefully I can put up a thread similar to Mel's Bakery, which I have to say was my favorite thread thus far. But, like the title says, I did attend the Andrew Shotts class at Notter a week ago and would like to share with everyone my personal thoughts (and if someone would please tell me how to post pictures) show pictures of the products that were made during the three days. I really would like to just list what was done, some interesting tidbits (not all, since I think people should take his class), and then my overall impressions. The class was made up of about 18 people, who were mostly professionals working in the industry, which I thought was really great. I have attended classes at Notter where sometimes there are alot of hobbyists or amateurs (I don't mean 'amateur' in a bad way, just people who work in other industries other than the food industry) and there gets to be an empathsis on the basics, which is great, but when you are in the room with a Shotts, Wybauw, or a Notter, you really want to skip to the good stuff! The products that were produced were: Bonbons: Raspberry Jelly and ganache (dual layered); Lime; Pistachio; Salted Caramel; tea; Pecan Cinnamon; Vanilla-Honey; French Roast; Sur de Lago; Three Brothers; Exotic Truffle; Peanut butter crunch; Belle-Orange Cognac; Praline; Passionate Hearts; and Kentucky (whiskey). Dry Chocolate Goods: Grignotine, Rocher Noisette, Nougat bar, chocolate bar, and caramel chocolate popcorn. The class was set up so that all the students would mis en place the ingredients and then Chef would demonstrate each recipe. Students actually didn't make the ganaches, chef made the ganaches while the students watched and took notes. Some people might not like this idea or way of doing things, but I was actually really pleased with it. I took the Wybauw class last year, and we broke up into teams and were given a recipe to do. But the problem with that was that you didn't get to see the techniques that were used in the recipes of the people across the room, so much. Here, you got to see the whole process and have Chef explain each step as he did them, which I really liked. I know how to make a ganache, but how do you incorporate things like extra cocoa butter or to make the dual layered bonbons that he is well known for, which we were shown, using a few examples. I won't explain how to do it here, but all you really have to do is think about it to figure it out, it's not the hardest thing in the world to execute actually, and it opens up a whole world of flavor combinations and textures. Very exciting! (I think you can get the technique from his book, anyhow.) The recipes that we were given were the actual recipes used in his shop, just reduced by volume, since I think he makes extremely large batches. He included lots of info on techniques, sources for equipment, packaging, ingredients, business advice, and words of wisdom. For instance, EVERYONE FREEZES! Chef stated flat out, if an artisan chocolatier says they don't freeze their finished product, then they are probably lying or don't know what they are doing. I plan on opening my own shop at the end of the year and this was a sensitive issue, since I want to do 'artisan' products and was concerned that I would be violating that spirit by freezing my products. The only person that I know of that, I think, doesn't freeze is Kee's Chocolates in NYC, but she does low volumes and pretty much sells out by the end of the day anyhow. One technique that I think some people here might find useful is the production flow/schedule that Chef uses: Day 1: Make Ganaches Day 2: Cut Ganaches Day 3: Enrobe Ganaches Day 4: Package When you cut the ganaches on Day 2, seperate them out, so that the moisture in the ganache evaporates all around, rather than just from the top. Plus letting them sit out overnight, allows you to keep really crisp and sharp edges when you enrobe, so the chocolate doesn't dull the edges. If your bonbons develop cracks in them after a few days, then it's from moisture, let it evaporate. Even with your molded products, pipe the centers and then let them sit overnight, before covering. I would really recommend his class to anyone that is interested in pursuing chocolates. He guy really knows his stuff and had alot to offer everyone. For me, I took away alot of things that I hope to make appliciable in my own store. The only downsides were the size of the class, perhaps a little smaller would have been nice. And in the notebook handed out with the recipes, to have had a written process of the dual layered bonbons procedure. It's commonsensical, but I think that was the only thing missing. Perhaps including some words on scaling up and scaling down recipes, which I am sure is covered in other places, but to have seen his own method. One last thing, even though I say that the class a bit a large, everyone in it was really nice and friendly and a great source of information and contacts. It felt like alot of us were trying to open our own stores and had been doing alot of research, and everyone was willing to share what they had found out during their quests, which was fantastic! Good Luck Everybody!

My uncle just got back from Venezuela with a bunch of El Ray chocolates for his wife...she's a great baker. Well, I freaked as a chocolatier and told him how sought after they are ( right? ). Anyway, he said he could easily be a distributor of them in Canada but hasn't a clue about what the market would be like? Well, just a question to all the Canadians out there, is there an El Ray distributor in Canada (T.O. specifically )? and if there isn't is there a market? Take care,

LMDC and Patrick Roger have both managed to create this sweet wrinkly effect: Furthest bonbon on plate. I've had zero success in trying to recreate it. Does anybody have any idea how to achieve this?

Here's the chocolates that Mireille Guiliano recommends, she the guru of fine food and of French Women... fame. Interesting, what do you think? She mentions Noka and Rechiutti ( sp? )is the best according to her!! http://www.mireilleguiliano.com/recommends.htm

I've just broken into the world of molded chocolates, and am having lots of fun with it. But I have some questions. How long do you recommend leaving the filled chocolates to setup before capping? Obviously this will vary based on the consistency of the filling, but is there any sort of general rule? On a related question - I know Kerry Beal recommends long room temperature setting times for rolled truffles. Do other people do the same thing, or do you find you can still get good results with other methods? And what are they? The reason I'm asking is that I'm trying to really make a go of having a side business making chocolates, and Michigan law requires that all food preparation must happen in a commercial kitchen. I think I've found a kitchen that I can use, and I'm meeting with them today to talk $$$. But since time equals money, I need to figure out ways to minimize my kitchen time, or else it will quickly eat into my profit margin to the point where there won't really be any point in my doing it. In my limited experience so far, it seems like molded chocolates are more time efficient (and also potentially more beautiful!) than truffles, and that would be even more true if I invested in more molds instead of having to reuse. Any other ideas or thoughts?

Well it arrived today, I've been eyeing it on Amazon since September and it was finally released. Lots of info inside, a good introduction to ingredients and flavour pairings. A bunch of recipes that I'm dying to try. Strawberry Balsamic Truffle anyone? Not much info on technique, or should I say new techniques for decorating chocolates. One bone to pick: Bacterial contamination does not equal mould! He says a couple of times that if you contaminate your ganache with bacteria, you'll get mould. 2 different things in my book. I forgot to give the thumbs up for including ounce and gram measures in the book. It makes things so much easier!

I was late in registering for his class in march at the french pastry school, so it's filled, and was wondering if anyone knows if he is giving any other classes after this one anywhere else.

I had a request on my website from someone who wanted to imitate See's bordeaux centres. I've never had them myself, but I did a little research online and think that the recipe is essentially a brown sugar fudge like penuche. I realized looking back at the fudge recipe I did for the confectionary course that if you made that fudge, without the nuts, it is probably essentially the same as the bordeaux centers. So could someone who has tasted those chocolates before make up a batch of the fudge, using half and half instead of heavy cream and leaving out the pecans, dip in dark and milk chocolate and taste them and see how they compare? Link here to fudge recipe. Scroll down to lesson 3 which is post #4.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...KX0DER&v=glance I was looking for some books to buy and I found this one ,isnt available yet , but you can preorder. Does anyone knows about this book? Worth to preorder it and buy it, it looks good . By the way it ships in March.

Man, be careful where you tread in Dallas if you plan on passing off mediocre chocolates at exorbitant prices: http://www.dallasfood.org/modules.php?name...=article&sid=78

I'm heading down to laguna hills/long beach area and was wondering if anyone knew of any good chocolatiers or good chocolate shops in the area. thanks

Does anyone know of places I can get boxes for chocolates/confections, without having them custom made? I'm not looking for your average box, maybe something with a little more creativity behind them. Thanks!

[Moderator note: This is part of an extended topic that became too large for our servers to handle efficiently, so we've divided it into shorter segments; the preceding part of this discussion is here: Homemade Marshmallows: Recipes & Tips (Part 1)] I just made the most beautiful marshmallows. I made peppermint marshmallows with peppermint oil. I swirled in red food coloring. After about 18 hours I cut the marshmallows into squares. Then I microwaved a bar of Lindt 70%. I stopped before it melted and stirred until smooth. I dipped the top into the chocolate. I sprinkled a little crushed peppermints on top. For the first time ever my chocolate stayed in temper. They are gorgeous, I wish I had a picture to post. They are also incredibly delicious. I made MS marshmallow recipe. It is smaller than the recipe here. So that 1/8 teaspoon oil was pretty strong. I stopped when it tasted great. Yum!

I found a great place to get my holiday supplies for making candies and truffles. Marque Foods 322 Littlefield Ave. South San Francisco 888-882-7288 This is a great place to get chocolate in bulk at good prices. Other than their "store brand" Belgium chocolate, there are also E. Guittard, Callebaut, Scharffen Berger, Valrhona, and Weiss (it's amazing stuff!). Other than chocolate (44 lbs), we also got some coconut, vanilla beans (Madagascar - $22 for 4oz!!!! About 20 beans in all!!!!), and a box of Paillete Feuillentine. Chocolate transfer sheet (can order custom made ones), praline paste, cocoa nibs and powder, chocolate decorations, nuts and nut flour, flavoring, gelato ingredients are some of the products you can find there. If you want to pick up some stuff there personally (they will deliver for free on orders over $100, I assume in the Bay Area), call ahead and make an appointment. It was good that we did that as we got to taste some of the chocolate before we decided which brand to pick. Susana was the sales rep who helped us and she was really great. Just remember, most items are sold in bulk. The website gives you a good idea on what they carry. Have fun shopping!

This was the first chocolate class I have taken and I had no idea what to expect. I arrived in Chicago a day early and walked down to the French Pastry School an hour early to deal with any paperwork, but I was told to return just fifteen minutes before class so I headed back to the hotel to grab some lunch. When I arrived back I found there were six of us from outside the school and the rest of the seventeen were current students of the school. We were handed a 25 page class book and signed in. It was a good thing that I ate a large meal because we didn’t get a single break in the whole seven hours! I was warned by jcho that a break may not be forthcoming so I brought a box of crackers and a bottle of water. I was so busy the first day that I didn’t stop to eat, but I made a point of snacking a little throughout the class the next two days so I wouldn’t drop. The six of us were taken upstairs to a learning kitchen where I quickly spotted Chef Jean-Pierre Wybauw from Kerry’s pictures. From there the whole class headed up one more floor to a classroom where we introduced ourselves and he gave an hour and a half lecture on tempering. I had read most of what he had to say before, either here or in his book, but it all clicked and fell into place for me then. All the unstable crystals melt before the stable Beta ones do, and that was the basis of every tempering method. They may start from different places, but they basically generate either just good crystals (in the case of seeding straight from fresh chocolate), or a mix of crystal types and then melt out all but the good ones by raising the temperature into the proper range. A properly tempered batch of chocolate has a certain amount of good crystals which act as a seed when it cools. However these crystals don’t just sit there in the bowl. They generate more crystals which is why as time goes on the chocolate gets thicker. There are two ways to deal with that, the first being adding more untempered chocolate to bring the ratio back in line, and the other to hit it with a heat gun to melt out some of the over crystallization. He kept pointing out that the temperature of the chocolate may be in the correct range, but it won’t necessarily have the proper crystal seed. He also said that you have to stir the chocolate to keep it evenly heated (he was using the Mol D’art melters) as chocolate is a good insulator and the chocolate next to the heating element will be warmer than that on top. There is already a detailed discussion on the melters in another active thread so I’ll leave it at that. What I hadn’t paid much attention to before was proper cooling. Too fast and the temperature dips down into the range where the unstable crystals form and compete with the good crystals for the cocoa butter. Too slow and the crystals form coarsely for a poor result as well. I’m not clear on the mechanism for that however. If anyone can enlighten me on the subject feel free to speak up. He has a suggestion of a working room temperature of 68F and a cooling room/fridge of 50F for the artisan who can’t afford the three temperature ranges that are used commercially. Once it starts setting at the working room temperature you move it to the cooler. Setting chocolate is exothermic so you have to watch placing too much chocolate in close proximity or it could cause some of it to go out of temper before it cools enough to fully set. He later made a point that when dipping you don’t want to place the pieces too close together, especially if they are tall, otherwise the sides could end up out of temper due to cooling too slowly. I have abused my cooling in the past by just popping it into the fridge too early, or even a shot in the freezer if they weren’t releasing easily. I’m going to be much more careful and it will probably do wonders. Then it was back down to the teaching kitchen to watch him temper the three 12kg melters of dark, milk, and white chocolate. That was a simple matter of tossing in callets and stirring until they stopped melting easily. Then a bit of heavier stirring took care of the rest and it was done. Having only used an automatic tempering machine before (a Rev2), I was surprised at the ease. A couple of my classmates who had the melters confirmed that it was pretty easy to temper and keep it in temper, so I am now sold on the idea. The class kitchen, eight tables with two students to a table. JPW then demonstrated the first ganache which I believe was a Jasmine tea. It’s difficult to recall the order of the recipes as we made a total of ten over the three days. He stressed that he didn’t want to make it a class about ganache anyway, but rather on techniques. Over the course of the class he made the ganaches in different ways. With the Jasmine he steeped the tea in water first before adding it to the cream in order to extract maximum flavor, and another time he steeped directly in the cream. He added the invert sugar after the cream had cooled so that the water binding aspect of the sugar not be destroyed. Some times he added the glucose to the hot cream, and other times later. He always added the butter last and at room temperature. Once he chucked everything together at once in a Robo-Coupe food processor, but the recipe wasn’t the best one to demo that way. It was thick enough that the machine kept tripping its breaker, and eventually the ganache separated. That was fortunate though, as it gave him an opportunity to demonstrate rescuing a split batch. He started by taking a small amount of the ganache and whipping in cold cream. That helped but didn’t do the trick completely. So the backup plan was to refrigerate it until the outer edges started to set, then scrape it and mix it in. That brought the small bit together, and he started adding a bit of the still separated batch a little at a time, being careful to not overwork it and heat it up enough to separate again. It took a little time, but he completed the rescue. I’ve had to toss out a couple batches in the past due to this problem so it was very valuable to me. He also hand whisked and used an immersion blender to demonstrate other methods. He said that he will have another book in the future all about ganaches and I will be one of the first in line to purchase it. Later in the day he brought out his new book on Chocolate Decorations and I was indeed first in line. I pulled out cash and was ribbed by my classmates for my eagerness. JPW asked me why I was so fast to buy it sight unseen and I told him that I already had a good idea what was in it based on reports here at eGullet. That reminded him of Kerry’s mention of the site and he said that he tried but failed to find us here. I knew the huge site could be confusing so I wrote out full instructions on how to get to this part of the forum. He sounded interested enough that we might just get a visit. Chef stated his preference for tempered chocolate in the ganache, claiming that it results in a smoother ganache. Most of the time he started with tempered chocolate from the melter and added the cream only after it cooled enough not to take it out of temper. However once he poured hot cream on solid chocolate and waited for it to cool into the range before adding butter. I thought it was a bit odd that butter crystals could temper chocolate and being a skeptical person I’m not convinced that works. I will try the pre-tempered chocolate though to see if I can determine a difference in texture. He then gave a demonstration of creating shells in a mold. I’ve done that many times so I figured there wasn’t anything new to me, but he did go on to state that rounded cavities can be poured thinner than those with square sides as the latter needs to contract more to release. Then he added the tip to let the mold set cavities down on parchment in order to ensure the top of the cavity doesn’t thin out too much. He also had us set it on the long edge if you are creating empty cups to fill later. I flipped mine to the other side after a bit, but I don’t know if it was really required. We made a couple more batches of ganache which were cut later with an oval cutter or the guitar cutter. For most of the recipes there was one set of ingredients per four students so you had to share the duties. A couple recipes were so large that chef just made a couple batches himself. He showed us several different ways to pour out an even slab of ganache, involving a pastry frame, a half sheet pan with a metal bar to subdivide it, a set of caramel bars, and rolling out between a pair of bars in a sandwich of guitar sheets. These half sheet size flat aluminum sheets were SO useful! I’m going to have to find a source for these things. Especially useful for re-rolling leftover ganache when using a punch cutter This is our Mocha ganache Coating it with a layer of chocolate Using an extra tall oval cutter to punch three pieces before emptying. One center is left inside the cutter while the other two fall out easily due to the flaring sides. Remember to cut with the chocolate side down so it doesn’t shatter. Cutting a slab with the guitar cutter. Note the care to produce the least waste. The slab goes at the back of the table for ease of cutting. Chef demonstrated the correct usage of the guitar cutter, including what to do when it gets stuck half way through a slab. After using it I now have a better idea how to build my own. Dipping: JPW dips using the surface of the chocolate to pull the excess away rather than pounding the fork against the side of the bowl. This keeps the fork from being driven into soft centers. He also had a nifty way to dip by placing the center in upside down and using the fork on an end to flip it over and pull it out. He made it look so easy as he tossed a new center in the bowl with one hand while depositing the dipped center on the paper with the other. Detailed instructions for dipping can be found on Callebaut’s website under the Applications>Covering with chocolate / Coating>Dipping chocolates/petits fours/biscuits section. It reads just as he taught us. Using a truffle grid to achieve the characteristic points. Coat the truffles once, then a second time and roll on the grid just as they start to set. He called these Chestnuts due to the look, but they are marzipan, candied orange, orange liquor and orange compound. Another trick I hadn’t used before was to use rubber stencils to quickly form bases for a soft piped ganache. I am on the lookout for a set of round and oval stencils. So far the only source I located on the web is in the UK. That is a VERY neat idea. The bottoms stick to the parchment just enough that they don’t shift around as you pipe. That’s a Kahlua ganache below. The ganache on the table is from a series of "How not to pipe". None of mine looked as good as his. Chef demonstrated caramel making and spoke of the different methods, all covered very well in a demo and other threads in this forum so I won’t elaborate here. Something I hadn’t thought of was the trick of adding water to tempered chocolate to thicken it up for piping decorations. I was warned so hard against moisture that I thought a drop of water would instantly cause the chocolate to seize up rock hard. Turns out that the case was overstated a bit and one can sprinkle a bit of water into a piping bag amount of chocolate to get it to a perfect piping viscosity. We were also instructed on how to properly form a small paper piping cone and form two different decorations, a form of stylized tree and a line of hearts. That one truffle dragged across the paper was done on purpose to show us how not to remove the fork. One of the most useful bits of information for me was an explanation of the Callebaut coding system. The basic formulation is a three digit number, with no specific sequence. The dark chocolate in order of bitterness is 805, 811, 835, 815, and 845. If there is a letter prefix, it denotes a percentage less cocoa butter: A811 is 1% less, B811, 2% less, C811 3% less, and so on. If there is a number, that denotes a percentage more: 1811 is 1% over the standard formulation, etc. Suffixes denote the type of chocolate such as Milk or White. Additionally there is a number of little drops on the package, ranging from one to five drops. The more drops the more fluid the chocolate. JPW stated a preference for the standard formula, though I think we ended up with the “C” formulation on the last day. I ordered from gourmail.com and they had only one formulation of each of the basic types. I had always thought that the chocolate I have been using was a bit thick, so I checked it out: Callebaut Semi-Sweet Chocolate (Belgium) D835 49% Callebaut Bittersweet Chocolate (Belgium) L60-40 60% Wow. The Semi-Sweet was 4% less and the Bittersweet was a full 12% less! No wonder I was having a hard time getting thin shells with it. The Semi-Sweet has just two drops on the label and the Bittersweet only one. On one website the legend states that one drop means it is good for solid molding and not much else. I will be locating a supply of the standard formulation soon. I was very pleased with the thin shells I was able to get with it in class and want to duplicate that at home. Chef gave a short lecture on using sugar syrup for liquor centered chocolates, but given time constraints he had the school staff create a batch in favor of the students. He poured this the end of the second day and left it to crust overnight. Unfortunately the shells he poured it in were out of temper so he didn’t finish them off. I had tried it on my own at home the week prior in anticipation of many questions. One that I had based on the instructions in his book was just what the degree symbol meant in regards to the description of the alcohol. Kerry Beal assured me that it was degrees proof in another thread, and she was right. Well, mostly right. It turns out to be degrees proof European, which is different from the US system. There are at least four different measuring systems so it was good to get that cleared up. I showed him the formulation from another book which varied the amount of sugar based on the proof of the alcohol, and he wasn’t sure why it varied. He stated that sugar doesn’t dissolve in alcohol so it shouldn’t matter, and the amount he called for was to balance the sweetness in the flavor rather than to affect the forming of the sugar shell. I had brought in a few bon-bons from my second home trial for inspection. The bottoms were a bit messy and the shells were too thick, but he approved of the sugar shell thickness and the overall taste which pleased me. I had used a vanilla liquor and enrobed it in milk chocolate. I came out with a better appreciation for how gentle one should be with the syrup after it cools in order to not generate crystals which would cause lumps to form inside the center. He gave a demonstration of using contrasting chocolate colors in molds and using colored cocoa butter wiped in the mold for color. We have an excellent demo of that in the demo thread and a pretty in depth discussion on the “Chocolates with a showroom finish” thread. He used a paintbrush here. Working the chocolate in with the brush creates crystals (by movement as you jam the bristles in) so you have to watch how much you go over each cavity or you risk loosing the shine from a good temper. Painting the chocolate in The painted trays Cleaning the tops A very neat trick for production work is what I call “slam filling”. Rather than painstakingly fill each mold cavity to the correct depth with a piping bag, he used a spatula to drop a mound of ganache on the tray, filled the whole thing at once and scraped it off. Of course you are thinking that you can’t create a bottom now, and you would be right if that was the last step. Chef held the tray at an angle to the table and slammed it down, causing the fillings to shift slightly and ooze a bit out of each cavity. He then took the spatula and quickly swiped that overflow off, tapped the tray flat on the table, and each cavity was perfectly filled. The whole process saved a great deal of effort and would really save time if you were processing a dozen or more trays. I’m sure it would take a bit of practice to achieve just the right touch, but it would be well rewarded. Filling every cavity at once. I wasn’t fast enough on the shutter to catch the “slam” Chef then went on to demonstrate creating 3D chocolates from two identical flat molds. He used a pair of seashell molds and the result was very nice. Candying was discussed as an alternative to coating with chocolate and he showed us his pan with double screens to suspend the centers in the syrup. We didn’t take it any further than the discussion phase though. After three days of chocolate making the class had quite a few trays of truffles that hadn’t been dipped. This called for a mass enrobing using the machine. We sent hundreds of centers through this thing over the course of an hour. I’ll never have an excuse to spend $30K for one of these, but it was fun to play with once. The enrobing machine Warming up the chocolate Chef took the last few minutes of the class to show us how to pack a box for the customer. The first layer – all the same height and neatly filling the bottom Finished results. The flavors are terrific! To sum up, I either performed or watched a fair number of techniques that I haven’t gotten around to yet, and absorbed many new ideas and information that I wouldn’t have gotten in another year or two at my own pace. This was just the right time in my learning to take the class as I had enough experience to be able to absorb all the information, and not so much that I was already familiar with the majority of it. I heartily recommend it! The obligatory shot. Note the nifty jacket my wife gave me for our anniversary! One postscript: I stayed at the Best Western River North which has a deal with the FPS, but it turned out to be a fairly noisy hotel. I could hear everything going on in the street and quite a bit in the room next door which made sleeping in problematic. If you opt to stay there get to bed early to ensure a good night sleep.

Very recently I found out from my chocolate supplier that for the first time in 10 years Jean Pierre Wybauw was going to be in Canada. Qzina and Callebaut were sponsoring a day. In the morning they were going to talk about products and in the afternoon a demo by Wybauw. The day was full before I could get the word out to fellow eG'ers about it so it was a surprise when I got a call at the very last minute asking if I was going to be using my 'second ticket' because a whole lot more people wanted to come. Quite a shock, not knowing I had a second ticket, but without batting an eye I said "of course". I quickly consulted my PM list of fellow eG chocolatiers that I converse with on a regular basis, put all the names in a hat and chose Ruthie Jewell. With some scrambling she was able to get herself here early yesterday morning. The day was held in a lovely old hotel in west Toronto called the Old Mill. A very beautiful place that I hadn't been to before. The set up left a bit to be desired, they had 2 flat screens set half way back and everything on a raised stage so if you were close to the front you couldn't see well what was happening on the marble. He has a new book and he brought some copies, but not enough for all. Ruthie scored one, but I will have to wait. It is called Decorating Techniques. There was also a new soft cover about chocolate desserts, but I took a pass on that. He says next book, out next year, is on ganaches and that should cover more of the theory of available water and shelf life. I'm going to post a couple of pictures then as I go over my notes and organize them I'm going to post the pearls that I learned. So stay tuned. I hope Ruthie will chime in with the things she learned as well, because it always amazes me how two people can hear the same and learn differently. Ruthie got the better picture with the hug, he was getting pretty tired by the end. And by the way, I do realize it wasn't the first sighting this year, just needed a catchy title.

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

I am wondering if there is any problem with shipping liquor filled chocolates as a gift. Does anyone here know the rules or can point me to the relevant official information? I've been sending gift boxes of standard truffles and bon-bons and am just about to experiment with making hand dipped and molded liquor centers. I'd like to be able to include them in my gifting.

Anyone know where to find a nice acrylic display case for chocolates, doesn't need refridgeration, and should sit on a counter top. Even better would be a Canadian source of this. Also wanted are the trays that chocolates are displayed on in a case such as this.

I'm looking at buying confection frames for ganache centers. Does anyone know where to buy them other than Tomric (they dont stock anything and I don't want to wait 3- 4 weeks) or Pastry Chef (to expensive)? Here's a link to what I'm looking for. http://www.tomric.com/ItemDetail.aspx?cmd=local&item=4969 Thanks in advance.

hi all - Can anyone tell me what edible lacquer or confectionery glaze are used for? If I understand correctly they are both used in cake decorating as a finishing...but I'm not a baker so I don't know for sure... Are they the same thing? Are they used interchangably? I guess what I really want to know is ...what are they?? Lynne

My lovely husband has given me a surprise trip to London for my birthday, leaving tomorrow There will be lots of eating and drinking, but I also need chocolate recommendations! Please! What is good, what is overrated, what is best to avoid? Leaving tomorrow morning and having to work doesn't leave me much time to research, and besides, I prefer recommendations from the people in the know Thank you P.S. Will post pics if anything good comes my way in the UK

Ok finally I got my testure sheets ( still to hot to order transfer sheets ), I am going to use them for chocolates , and I was wondering a silly question, can i cut the sheets like I would for transfer sheets to fit the chocolate size?And can I reause them? Thank you much