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I have two questions but they are related so I am putting them both here. Is it better to put the transfer sheets on top of the chocolate ganache squares dipped into tempered chocolate (by cutting the sheets into into smaller squares?) or put the tempered squares directly on top of the transfer sheet? Also, would it be possible to airbrush an acetate sheet and then put the tempered squares onto the acetate as a way of making my own transfer sheet? Any suggestions would be welcome! Thanks, Jeff

I came back with a bottle of lemoncello. Any ideas on how to incorporate it into a ganache? Would you think it would be better in a white chocolate ganache or dark chocolate or neither? Thanks, Jeff

On the back of the January issue of Fine Cooking, there is an article about Christopher Elbow and his chocolates... they are gorgeous! He is out of Kansas City, MO. I am definitely going to order some for Christmas presents! http://www.elbowchocolates.com/

I meant to get to this weeks ago and got sidetracked. I apologize and hope that this demo, in conjunction with John's fab demo, will completely demystify molded chocolates. Because I needed Honey to take the photos this was done at home. So, please also accept my apologies for the dog bowls, etc. It's usually too cold in the kitchen in the morning to make happy chocolates so instead of wasting precious gas on the heater, I cranked on the oven and made these. Not only do they warm the kitchen to a chocolate favorable 68 degrees but they also make for a nice afternoon snack! So, here's the stuff: Baby tempering machine, Mommy tempering machine, Vibrating table, gold leaf, luster dusts, PCB colors, Polycarb mold (I get mine from Tomric), natural cotton batting, offset spatula, some paintbrushes, and a rubber scraper all on top of plenty of parchment for easier clean-up. Oh, and a pastry bag and some scissors for the ganache. Make yourself a nice ganache so it has time to cool while you get things ready and temper your chocolate. If you're using a machine you will start the tempering process now. Polish your mold well with the natural cotton batting (found at most fabric stores). It can be washed and used again and again. If you're not using a tempering machine you may want to create a set-up like this. Grab a big bowl, put a heating pad in it and set it to low. Add a few towels and a probe thermometer followed by your bowl of tempered chocolate. You can monitor the temp of the bowls and add or subtract towels as needed to maintain a good working temperature. Just before filling, I hit my molds with a blow dryer just enough to ensure the poly is the same temperature as the chocolate. I find that although the ambient temperature is just right, sometimes the various objects haven't quite warmed up enough. This step will secure a glossy bonbon. Fun time! Warm some colored cocoa butter in the micro and drop it on your finger or directly into the cavity.... Swirl it around the inside of each cavity. Get creative. Use as many colors as you like and have fun, it's not that serious. You'll notice I smeared some gold leaf into one row of cavities in this same fashion. For more complete coverage and that super-trendy, high-color look, use a fluffy brush to coat the entire cavity. Tap in some luster dust for a little more drama and texture. You may prefer to create definition with a different shade of chocolate. I used my favorite tool, my finger, and swirled in some milk chocolate. On the next row I used a spoon to pool some milk chocolate in the bottom of the mold. One could use an airbrush with some white chocolate here too (if one could make friends with her airbrush). Let these set a bit and fill the entire mold with dark chocolate. I like to use a deep silicone spatula because I can use it again later when cleaning out the bowl. Many chocolatiers prefer a ladle. Give it a quick scrape with your offset spatula (just so things don't get TOO messy). Set the mold on your spiffy "new" vibrating table for a few seconds. OR smack it around violently on the counter, bouncing it from side to side while doing a little dance to release bubbles and get some exercise. Turn 'er over and dump out the extra. I do this over a sheet of parchment and use the chocolate another day. I worry that pouring it back into my tempered chocolate may upset things. It probably wouldn't but we all have our neurosis. Swirl that baby around to get out all the extra and make a nice thin shell. Give it another scrape and set it aside to dry. Now the shells have that velvety sheen which means they're dry and are ready to be filled. Fill a pastry bag or a squirt bottle (if you don't mind washing it) with ganache and pipe into the shells. Be sure to leave 1/8 inch of space for the bottom and don't allow the ganache to touch the rim of the shell or the bottom may not adhere properly. In this batch I have piped a drop of ganache, added a glaced cherry and covered it with ganache. Now you want to give your ganache an hour or two to develop a slight crust. If you're working with caramel you may have to wait a day before bottoming. Use your silicone spatula to add chocolate with the same technique you used to fill the shells. Give it a couple of taps and swiftly scrape of the excess. Don't muck about here. The more you mess with it, the less successful your bottoms will be. Leave the mold in a cool spot for an hour or so and them turn the bonbons out onto a sheet of parchment. You may have to give it a little whack to get every last one out. Use a gloved hand to place them on a pretty platter or into a gift box. and here's the final presentation! Notice the gold leaf; the colors; the colors with gold dust; the two toned; and even one that got a last minute dusting of lustre. Honey liked the photo so well, he put it on the website! There are so many options. Have fun, be creative, be silly, and remember, it's all edible.

Demo: How to Use Transfer Sheets (and Structure Sheets) with Magnetic Molds for Making Chocolate Bonbons This thread will demonstrate how to use transfer sheets to decorate chocolate bonbons. Structure sheets, which are plastic sheets embossed with a pattern, can be used in exactly the same way. Let’s begin: 1. Here is a photograph of my workbench. It's important to have all of your tools ready when you work with chocolate because you need to work fast. a) Transfer Sheet; b) Structure Sheet; c) Bowl of seed chocolate; d) Small bowl; e) Scale; f) 2-piece Magnetic chocolate molds; g) Magnetic mold taken apart to show top and bottom pieces; h) Scissors; i) Acrylic paint brush; j) Straight spatulas; k) 7” Wide Spatulas; l) Ladle; m) Chocolate Melter 2. Here's a close up of the magnetic chocolate molds. On the left, two fully assembled molds; on the right, a mold with the back showing. 3. Here is a close up of the transfer sheet we'll be using. On the right is a structure sheet. 4. The first thing we need to do is cut the transfer sheet to fit into our magnetic mold. Here, I'm using a pre-cut structure sheet as a guide for marking my transfer sheet. Obviously it should be marked on the non-cocoa butter side. 5. Cutting the transfer sheet. 6. Positioning the transfer sheet inside the chocolate mold. Here I have the mold upside-down and the transfer sheet is positioned over the cavities with the cocoa-butter side down. 7. Carefully replacing the mold backing. As you can see, we are "sandwiching" the sheet between the two parts of the mold. Be sure that the sheet doesn't slip out of position as you're replacing the back. 8. Fully assembled (upside-down). 9. Fully assembled (right side up). 10. Painting each cavity with tempered chocolate ensures that you won't have bubbles in your finished pieces. You may be able to skip this step if your chocolate is very thin. 11. Once all the cavities have been painted, you can scrape with a chocolate scraper to remove excess chocolate bits from the top of the mold. The scraper should run smoothly across the top. 12. Here is our prepped mold held up to the light. You can see that it doesn't need to be very pretty; you just need to be sure you've gotten into all the corner spaces. 13. Now we can immediately ladle in some tempered chocolate to make a suitable chocolate shell for our bonbons. 14. Spread the chocolate with a palette knife so that each cavity gets its share of chocolate. Work quickly. 15. Tap the side of the mold to help the chocolate settle and to remove bubbles. Here, you're just trying to ensure that no bubbles are clinging to the surface of the mold. 16. Now we need to eliminate excess chocolate in our mold. Just turn the mold over and let the chocolate drain back into the melter. You can tap it on the sides with the palette knife or whack the mold on the edges of your melting pan to encourage the chocolate to depart. 17. Now we scrape with a spatula to clean up our mold. 18. Turn your mold over and allow excess chocolate to drain, if necessary. Check again in a few minutes and scrape with a spatula, as before, to clean the mold. 19. Here we see our chocolate shells, still in the mold, with a nice even coating of chocolate. They are now ready for filling with your favorite ganache and sealing in the usual way with tempered chocolate. Our bonbons: transfer sheet and structure sheet examples

I'm planning on making chocolate truffles in the near future so I've been reading a bit about chocolate tempering. Now, as far as I understand it, as long as chocolate is already in temper (like most chocolate that you can buy), keeping the chocolate liquid, but in temper is simply a matter of heating it to between 90F and 94F. Conventionally, this is either done by suspending over a pot of simmering water or by using a microwave. But that always seemed rather illogical to me, if you want something to get to, and stay at 94F, then why would you use something hotter. Whats wrong with simply getting a large water bath, heating it to exactly 94F and then suspending the chocolate in the water until the chocolate comes into equilibrium with the water? First of all, it allows you to keep the chocolate at a stable temperature for longer, the water has a huge amount of thermal inertia so it can keep within the 90-94 band. Secondly, you don't have the problem of steam condensation like with a bain, water at 94F is less than body temp and wont steam. Finally, as long as you have a good digital thermometer, keeping the water in range is very easy. Just have a large pot of boiling water on hand and just pour some in and stir if it starts dropping. Is there some hidden flaw with this technique that I am missing? It seems eminently sensible for the home cook who cant afford marble slabs and $10,000 tempering machines.

I would love to be able to make Glacé fruit and or vegetables at home. Looking around there seem to be a variety of techniques some taking only 30 minutes ( boiling in a thick sugar syrup for peels) or taking up to a month slowly creating a stronger syrup each night and ending up with a glazed product as opposed to a crystalised product. Has anyone tried this ? What was sucessfull? What did not work so well, has anyone tried candying something unusual ? I believe you can do this to carrots and watermelon rind. I am really looking forward to hearing from anyone that has done this and knowing how and what fruit - veges you used

Technically a New Jersey item, but of interest to Philadelphians like me who find themselves on the other side of the river: Stopped by Miel's Patisserie at Village Walk, Cherry Hill this afternoon, and found that their chocolates are on sale at 50% off. Although I've had finer French style flavored chocolates, these are still darned good chocolates. And at $19 a pound rather than $38, a very good value, indeed, a downright bargain. I believe the sale lasts through the weekend, but they are closed on Labor Day. Lots of interesting flavors, including a dark ganache with fleur de sel.

Hi all, I need some advice what to charge a bakery that is ordering some chocolates from me. I still don't know what the quantity will be, but lets say it's about 150-200 pieces, and about 5 different flavours. I think the best way is to come up with a price per piece. I am concerned with charging enough to make it worth my while, yet not too much, as the bakery needs to make thier profit as well. Suggestions???? Thanks!

Hello to the EGullet community. I own a small artisanal chocolate company, and I'm in search of a good supplier of custom European-style candy boxes. Currently I'm covering 2-pc boxes by hand; very pretty but it just takes up too much time. [Time I'd rather spend making chocolate!] I'd like to find a supplier who can furnish the hot-stamped box, candy pads, candy trays (blisters) and custom-stamped ribbon. The level of quality I'm looking for is similar to what you would find in La Maison du Chocolat boxes. Does anyone have a recommendation? Thanks in advance!

I looked at some of the recipes in wybauw's book, and while I have some good pastry and chocolate experience, as an "amateur" I don't have access to all the ingredients he mentions in some of his recipes. The coconut chocolate lists ingredients like sorbitol, mycryo butter and inverted sugar. [i am still in the process of reading the book on a detail level, but had a craving for a "Mounds" bar so I figured, I'd try making one myself] I think for inverted sugar I can use corn syrup. But what are your comments about the other items he lists in his ingredients. How about list in the front of the book. Jeff

Do they exist? I've found a number of US sites that sell them, but I'm hoping to purchase locally if possible. Ideally, I'm looking for a good selection of styles, preferably coloured sheets (red hearts, floral motifs, etc. ) over the typical gold swirls or coffee beans. I don't even know where to begin trying to track them down, so I appreciate any help you can offer. Thanks!!

We've been meaning to try this place which we've heard is really the best chocolatier in Lyon, Tourtiller. Sunday was Mother's Day in France, and since I have visitors with children visiting, it was the perfect opportunity to pick up a nice cake, diet be damned. Some snapshots from the patisserie side - A budding food photographer... The thing about this place is the chocolate...

School has been on my mind lately. When nightscotsman, a fellow host of the P&B forum here on the 'gullet graduated from the FPS (http://home.earthlink.net/~neilr/pastryschool/), I was very impressed with the quality of his work and then when he landed a job at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, specifically the pastry department, under Executive Pastry Chef Jean Philippe Maury it impressed me even more. So it was with great interest I read the article in the new issue of PA&D magazine. At the moment I find myself caught between the proverbial 'Rock & a Hard Place'. When I got into cooking, attending a nine month course right outside of D.C. at 'L'Academie de Cuisine', I did a basic cooking course, two actually. 'Theory and Technique', which is exactly that, and 'Practique', the practical useage of what you learned in the T & T class, hands on cooking. I was pretty sure I wanted to work in pastry but thought being grounded in everything would be helpful ( it has been, immensely) and also, there was no "short" course in pastry (2 year minimum) and the cost was prohibitive, no time for that kind of commitment, etc. I graduated, got an apprenticeship at a highly rated yet "homey" French Place outside of D.C., and began working in food on and off for the next few years, including a stint in a Manhattan restaurant where I learned a huge amount and fell in love with actually making plated desserts like I was eating in some of the nations best restaurants. Cut to the present. I've been a pastry chef pretty much exclusively for the last 4 or 5 years now, garnered a bit of a reputation for my work here in my neck of the S.W. but have hit a wall in what I can achieve monetarily, benefits (LOL!) and feel like the 6 month course that FPS offers could "complete" me. I'm self taught, for the most part, I can temper chocolate, do some sugar work but not in the classical sense. Everything I've seen about FPS seems like that would be the place to go, unless I would choose to take shorter courses at Ewald Notters school. I feel like Notter would be good if I was already making the kind of money I want to be making, I know the instruction there is top notch. Notters seems like where you want to go to brush up or learn new techniques. 17.5k isn't cheap but if I could couple a diploma from the FPS with already having had previous experience in running my own pastry programs, it would seem like perhaps I could get into a place at a bit of a higher rate, not feel as inexperienced in the kind of garnishes I would probably be expected to produce in a place like Las Vegas, for instance, and maybe even be able to find backers easier if I choose to do my own thing and open a dessert place of my own. My main qualm is, is the state of pastry at the moment really as "hot" as that article states? Are pastry chefs really "more in demand then ever before", like Norman Love states in the article? My own experience's, by that I mean what I've personally observed, participated in, and even read here, don't totally back that up. But I'm willing to be proved wrong. What do you folks think? Have you gone to either one of these fine places or to other 'pastry-centric" schools, especially if you're already a working chef, and felt like you had an advantage in the kind of salary you were able to get offered or ask for? If you went to school, did you take advantage of any scholarships that are out there? I'm all ears ( eyes, actually). Talk to me...

I was talking with a local Potter today who explained that she leaves a little blemish in every piece that she creates. She says that is what distinguishes her work from the work of machines. An artist friend, who loves to paint with lots of color, chastised me for adding a chip of colored chocolate to the top of my green tea chocolate. She said chocolate should look like chocolate, dark and satiny, nothing more. I've noticed that some of the artisanal chocolatiers are exclusively using a guitar slicer and transfer sheets. Some seem to use only Belgian molds. Some allow tiny air holes or slight irregularities. I know what matters in the end is the taste but what about first impressions? You're spending $30 on a box of 20 pieces.....Would you rather see something so perfect that it looks as if it cuold have been created by a machine or something flawed in some small way? Do you want it to look naturaly formed and organic in color or more dolled up in high fashion. Opinions please.... trish

I'm trying to start a small chocolate business. Boxes are eluding me. I've tried package nakazowa that someone else recommended, and while their boxes are beautiful, I'd like to find a retailer in Canada to cut down on shipping costs(and exchange). Does anyone have any ideas?? How can I find something? Google does not seem to be my friend, as whenever I search I just come up with other chocolatiers trying to sell their packages.

I am developing a line of chocolates and am quite ignorant as to the necessary ingredients to ensure a two month shelf life. I have some base recipes that I am comfortable but would appreciate any advice regarding "preservatives" or storage techniques. All the ganaches are simply Cream Invert sugar Chocolate Butter Thanks

I have a jar in the kitchen where I put all those chocolates that nobody in the family wants. I keep telling myself to throw them out, but I can't bring myself to. Perhaps I could put them to good use? Any suggestions to use them up? It's a real mish-mash, there some expensive chocolates from boxes, some easter eggs as well as the cheaper kids' chocolate bars. I did a search here and on Google, but couldn't find anything substantial. Is my only option to throw them out? Thanks as always, Suman

Hi everyone! I came across this site trying to learn about my great-grandfather Edison Sutter's famous New York bakery and noticed there was an old topic that discussed it in passing. My grandfather recently passed, and he lived in the old Sutter house. Now having the opportunity to go through it and learn the story, I have decided that this is a calling to reopen a great New York landmark. I even have the old neon signs and menus in my possession. If anyone here has any stories or pictures to share that would be great as I was born a decade after the corner Greenwich store closed. Thanks, Dan

For my first eGullet post I thought I'd do something meaningful, so therefore it involves two favorite things - beer and chocolate. For the grand opening of my husbands brewpub, I'd like to surprise him with some themed molded chocolates, the theme being beer. I'm thinking about a stout flavoured filling and perhaps something made with malt syrup and maybe a hint of hops. Anybody have experience with any of this? I've dabbled with making a stout flavoured ganache (Young's chocolate stout, cream, chocolate), but the stout flavour was way to subtle, ie. basically non-existing... All ideas regarding this theme are most appreciated. I've only got the kitchen in my home, but a good supply of chocolate-making equipment (and experience) as well as access to good quality chocolate and all sorts of beery ingredients. Thanks Mette (no longer an eGullet virgin)

There's no shortage of fine chocolates today to be found from many suppliers. Many of them offer their products classified by cocoa solids content, and many of them do so in incriments that are fairly small, such as 50%, 54%, 58%, etc. I'm interested to see how those of you who are selecting your chocolates using cocoa solids as one of your criteria are using them. Especially those of you who are using multiple products that are slightly differientated from one another such as the above example. Do you find, for example, the 50% more desireable for baking, while the 54%'s more appropriate for mousses and ganaches? Do you like to make shelled materials with the very dark products that have very sweet centers, or would you rather bake with the very dark products? Inquiring minds want to know 8-) So how about it - what products do you use, and why?

I love the PCB transfer sheets I see on their european website but can't find the selection here. I have been trying to find European Imports but can't find a website. Any good links for chocolate transfers would be appreciated. Thanks All

While I have been able to get through most of the rough translation in La Patisserie de Pierre Herme, I'm still lost on "Maitre Chocolatier". My best guess is that it is calling for Chapon (and the reasoning behind my guess is poor). Can anyone enlighten me?

Minister of D®ink and I are thinking of venturing out in the real world after a few more inches fall. I've never not gone to a bar on a snow day since I've been of boozing age... Minister's still partially honoring the early stages of the South Beach Diet...and I'm pretending to follow in his foot steps. So, where can we go to get a hot drink that's cooler than our Tazo teas at home? Someone said Oyamel for hot chocolate? Why is this? Please help! Our wagon is out of fuel.

Could anyone please tell me where I could buy these in the DC/VA area?? I am desperate - thank you!!!!