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My supplier decided that cocoa butter is now special order so I had to buy a case. And now I have an excessive amount of cocoa butter, anyone need any? Cacao Barry cocoa butter pistoles with a best by date of April 2021 $66 for the 3 kg tub or $22 per kg plus shipping.

Has anyone used Valrhona Absolut Crystal neutral glaze particularly to thicken a coulis or to glaze a tart? If so, how did you like it and is there another glaze you think worked as well but is less expensive or can be purchased in smaller quantities?

Does anyone have a chewy chocolate caramel recipe they love? One that holds its shape but can be cut on a guitar? The recipes I’ve tried have either been not very chocolate-y or suuuuuuuper stiff. Like, I bruised the palm of my hand cutting them stiff :(. Or or even if you can just point me in the direction of some theory, that would be great!

A mistake was made with my Albert Uster order this week and I received it twice. Since it's shipped from CA, doesn't go bad, and I'll use it eventually, I'm not going to mess with trying to return the second delivery. But now I have a huge amount of inventory so I thought I'd see if anyone here was looking for Felchlin by the bag. Each bag is 2kg (4# 7oz) in the following varieties and prices: Maracaibo Creole 49%, $48 Sao Palme 60%, $30 Arriba 72%, $46 As for shipping, I can fit 2 bags in a medium flat rate box for $14 or 3 bags in a large box for $19 to go anywhere in the USA. If you'd like some, PM me with your selection, email, and shipping address. I'll invoice you via Square and you can pay securely online with a credit card. Thanks for reading!

I've recently started making caramels and been experimenting with lots of flavors and having a blast. One thing that I am having a hard time finding information about is the role of the different ingredients and how different ratios affect the firmness of a caramel. In particular, I have an espresso caramel recipe that I can't seem to get to the soft, no-effort-while-chewing texture that I've achieved with other flavors, yet I've stuck to the same temperatures as other recipes. This leads me to believe that the ratio of ingredients is key. I was hoping I'd be able to get some insight into how to alter ingredient ratios to produce a softer caramel. Any help would be appreciated.

So, what is everyone doing for the pastry & baking side of Easter? I'm working on the following chocolates: fruit & nut eggs, hollow bunnies, Jelly Belly filled bunnies, coconut bunnies, dragons (filled with rice krispies & chocolate), peanut butter hedgehogs, and malted milk hens. Hoping to finish my dark chocolate production today and get started on all my milk chocolate items. My father-in-law will be baking the traditional family Easter bread a day or two before Easter. Its an enriched bread and he makes two versions -- one with raisins and one without (I prefer the one with raisins). And I was lucky enough to spot this couple in the sale moulds stock at last year's eGullet chocolate & confections workshop in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. These love bunnies help so very much with Easter chocolate production! ;-)

I need some advice on a safe(ish), easy, and fast way to cut buttermints I often make buttermints for friends for the holidays, and have run into problems cutting them into bite size pieces before the sugar cools and starts to crystallize too much, so I'm looking for ideas on how to do it more quickly so I can do larger batches. Note that I am doing this at home and have very little budget, but on the plus side I don't need to end up with perfectly uniform pieces. The basic process for making the buttermints is: 1. cook butter and sugar to 260 degrees 2. pour out onto buttered marble slab and let cool slightly 3. add color and flavor, and pull like taffy while it cools further 4. when it just starts to show signs of crystallizing, roll into ropes and cut before it crystallizes much further (I have maybe 2 minutes if I'm lucky to get all the cutting done) The main problem I run into is that when handling the candy during steps 3 and 4, my hands need to be buttered so the candy doesn't stick to me, and even if I quickly wash my hands, any cutting tool needs to also be buttered to prevent sticking, and basically it's nearly impossible to maintain a good grip on anything. The second problem is that the candy at this point is hard enough that if I try to snip it with scissors it will tend to slide along the blade instead of getting cut, yet it is still plastic enough that if I pick it up it will tend to sag under its weight and thin out too much while I'm concentrating on getting the scissors to cut right. My best results so far have been with leaving the candy on the marble and cutting it with a pastry scraper, but pressing down hard enough to cut all the way through with a slippery (due to the aforementioned buttered hands) pastry scraper while trying not to gouge the marble underneath is not particularly fun. I did try pruning shears once because the curved blade holds the candy in place instead of sliding along the blade, which worked fine except for the fear of lopping off parts of a finger made it too nerve-wracking to be done quickly. Basically, I'd love to find something that works like this, but for something with the consistency of a hard caramel: Any ideas? -Trufflenaut

Hello, My question is this... Is there a company that manufactures an automated machine capable of wrapping cube-shaped caramels and chocolates??? And would such a machine also be capable of wrapping large (3-4 oz.) rectangular chocolate bars or would such a product require a flow wrapping machine? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Hello everyone! Im in need of your expertise! Ive been having troubles with my machine, or maybe not even my machine. Ive attached an image (hopefully its clear) to show you a mould that has different tempering problems. I dont understand how one mould can have several different tempering issues. Ive also been advised to have my machine between 30C-31C, however all ive known is to use dark chocolate between 31-32C. Ive done tests from 30C-32C and none have the outcome that is expected, that shiny chocolate. Please share your knowledge I really need it!! Thank you!!!

Hello! I am doing some spring cleaning and am selling some of my used polycarbonate molds. I've attached pictures and dimensions below. The mold prices do not include shipping fee. I will ship these via USPS priority mail. For estimation purposes only, 4 - 5 molds can fit in a medium box and it costs $15.05 to ship. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you. Charlotte W.

Hello everyone! I hope you are all safe and well I have a question regarding Chef Rubber Natural Colours. Its very difficult to get them here in Europe (if anyone has any contacts or knows a company that sells that would be great) and anyone that has used this line, what colours would you recommend? Thank you!

Hi all! I just wanted to pop in here and see if anyone had some advice on canning/jarring caramel sauce for ready-to-eat consumption. The ice cream shop I work at is putting together gift baskets for valentine's day and we wanted to toss in some caramel and fudge jars in to add some tasty treats. We have a recipe that works great in the shop in our squeeze bottles for topping the ice cream, however I don't have a ton of experience with the canning process to make it shelf stable and shippable. I've canned tomato sauce and salsa in the past, but my method wouldn't be efficient for canning hundreds of jars for consumption. What is your method for success? Does it all hinge on the sealing process, and if so what are your favorite (cost efficient) products? Do you know of a jar that is self sealing or more durable than others? Thanks for any suggestions!

On the subject of modern plated desserts: I have noticed a recent trend that has caught my attention - the flexible/pliable ganache (sometimes called the flexicurd). Now, I have made a few recipes for these types of desserts, which have turned out well (Specifically the Alinea Cookbook chocolate pliable ganache). Another recipe can be seen here on page 68. (ingredients listed below) 375 g chocolate 1 sheet gelatin 50 g water 100 g sorbitol 3 g agar 50 g glucose 900 g heavy cream 2 g salt Now, my question is this: does anyone know of a good way to modify this recipe (or of any others) to accommodate other flavors? I have seen some very interesting pliable ganaches, such as yogurt, beet, grapefruit, coconut, etc. However, there doesn't seem an obvious way to modify these recipes. For a lot of dessert components this is as simple as changing a fruit puree to another flavored liquid. I am not so confident in this due to the fact that the recipes contain a lot of chocolate, which contributes significant textural properties. To further complicate this, I know some hydrocolloids are sensitive to pH (pectin) or ion concentrations (LA gellan, carrageenan). Anyone have experience with this?

This is a continuation of the original Confections! topic, which was so popular it grew too large for our servers to load! Carry on...

Hi everyone!!! Does anyone have a good neutral glaze recipe that doesn't use pectin but still uses some thermo reversible gels? Even recipes with gelatin leaves are already a big help! In my country is rather common to do mirror glaze (or sort of) using cornflour, but as you can imagine, it doesn't look or taste the same as the professional glazes do. Because it's only for a small amount of fruit tarts and pastries I would like to be able to do my own glaze instead of buying those 5kg buckets. Thanks guys!!!

The topic of leaking centers has been addressed before: "Leaky chocolate covered peanut butter balls" and "Leaky cherries", but I am dealing with candied ginger pieces in syrup and it's always a problem. (Funny...I googled the problem and found my own posts in eG.) In the PB balls posts, Kerry suggests letting the ginger pieces dry out for a few days. Would that I had a few days. I bought the ginger in syrup today and it has to go out as a gift tomorrow. I have run out of time. In my earlier post, I wondered about precoating the pieces in powdered sugar and cornstarch (and I never tried it). Today I patted the pieces with paper toweling...satisfactory to a point. Next, into a bag of cocoa, shake the cocoa on, shake the cocoa off, and spread on a paper towel. One hour later: most pieces look dry...a few look a tad syrup-ish. Not perfect. Next, repeated above process with some cornstarch. Twenty minutes later: they still all look dry. They still taste just fine. Who has a brilliant tip for me? Or will this latest attempt probably work? I will get back one way or t'other.

Dears, I am about to start experimenting on combining caramel and chocolate for our new product. I was wondering if somebody had experience with creating shelf stable caramel with a deep flavor? Should we go 'dry method' direction? Does it have enough deepness when all the richness of dairy is abscent? If we exclude dairy, what we have is caramelized sugar only.. Do you think that the addition of clarified butter/butteroil/ghee could make a difference or it won't work because of the abscent proteins? Valhrona has a milk chocolate 'Caramelia', with the following ingredients : sugar, cocoa butter, caramel (skimmed milk, whey, sugar, butter, flavoring), whole milk powder, cocoa beans, emulsifier (soya lecithin). I wonder how they did it shelf stable..? Maybe it's milk product powders they use? Would be grateful for any insights!

I was checking out Amazon and I discovered Peter Greweling has a new book coming out. Well, not really a totally new book but a new edition of Chocolates & Confections. http://www.amazon.co...r/dp/0470424419 I have his first two books and I have used them with great success. The first book was a great reference book for my Food Chemistry course last year, actually it was a whole lot more informative than the text I had to buy for the course. I am having a hard time deciding if I want to put the money down and pre-order this book too. Decisions Decisions. I think I am leaning towards getting it anyway. His books have been great so far. Anyone got an opinion on picking this book up if you have the other two?

I'm following a recipe from the Alinea cookbook. The pork belly w/ 'BBQ sugar' and assorted other elements. Anyway. On the sugar front, there's a smoked paprika tuille made with fondant, isomalt and glucose. Now, I can't get isomalt (or, rather, I can, but not by the time I need it). Anyway. The idea is that this tuille, you place it over the piece of pork and then hit it with a blast from the butane torch, melting the 'biscuit' over the pork, creating a sort of sugary wrapper. Will this work without the isomalt? If I'm just using, say, regular caster sugar in addition to the fondant and glucose.

I was in a hurry (as with all the greatest mistakes) and decided to double my batch of chocolate chilli fudge, rather than cook it in 2 separate pans as I usually do. Fudge is sometimes a tricksy beast and I forgot that sometimes you really can't double up on a recipe. Long story short I now have a big bowl of slightly warming chocolate grainy mush, it's not even smooth enough to use as a sauce. Re-heat, reuse or remove? The sugar has slightly crystallised and it's a sandpappery mess, what to do?

Anyone heard of dragon's beard candy? Well it is a traditional china hand-pulled candy which looks like spun sugar, but made very differently. The technique is similar to noodle making, you start with a torus, you expand it, double it, expand, double, etc... the number of strands increases exponentially in powers of 2 (I'm a computer scientist, I love powers of 2) and can go up to 16384. I've discovered this candy on Dave Arnold's blog where you can find a detailed video of the recipe. I tried the recipe a few times and I think it is very fun to do. The first times were highly unsuccessful, but you quickly get better. I followed the recipe of Dave Arnold's (more or less), it was impossible to find corn syrup in Switzerland, I therefore replaced it with glucose syrup which has the same property of preventing crystallization.The temperature 133°C (271°F) is extremely important, if you overshoot, the candy puck will be rock hard. As I was doing small quantities (100g of sugar) and I only have a medium size pan, it was a nightmare to stick my thermometer sufficiently deep in the sugar. I used silicon molds to shape the puck, here are some results: Transferring the molten sugar to the molds: The cooled puck: Forming the stands (I never manage to create equal sized stands, there are always some thicker strands): As I don't like peanuts, I replaced the filling with chocolate: I personally did not like the taste of them, faaaar to sweet, but my 9 year old sister loved them. Maybe I should try with chocolat powder instead of cornstarch for a better taste. And the replacement of the peanuts with chocolate probably was not a good idea in terms of decreasing sweetness. Another idea is to use the stands as decoration for other thing (e.g. a cake). I highly encourage you to try, they are very cheap to do and very fun. If you have questions or suggestions, please post them.

I'm looking for some good books on candying and drying fruit (for later dipping in chocolate, but that's an aside). What books would you suggest? I've got a few recipes that I use, but want to expand my offerings. Thanks.

Hi Everyone. I was wondering if anyone has ever made the Brazil Nut English Toffee from Chocolates and Confections. I should say that I'm no toffee connoisseur, when someone says to me "toffee," I usually think of something along the likes of broken shards of the stuff covered in chocolate, or something along the lines of almond rocha. I have made the toffee drop recipe plenty of times, that was actually the very first candy I made, then from there I moved on to caramels, and spent a bunch of time with hard candy. I was looking through the book, and this caught my attention, I was comparing the Brazil Nut English Toffee (Page 215) recipe to the Toffee Drop recipe (Page 217), and was sort of shocked at the enormous amount of butter and salt in the Brazil Nut English Toffee formula...sounds delicious. Anyways, it was something new I wanted to try, but while the total yield says a 16"x24" sheet, the instructions say to pour into a 12x12 frame, is this a typo? From the amount of ingredients, I know this would not fit in the frame, but after its done boiling, do you normally just pour it out into a giant pool, or would you need to spread it at all with a palate knife? Maybe I'll try making a small batch tomorrow. Also, on the topic of toffee, is there anything specific that makes it English Toffee? Thanks for you thoughts everyone.

HELP me please. During summers past, I may have lost a few bonbons to the humidity, but this year, I am losing whole trays. I keep them in a temperature controlled display case, with the bulk of them in the cold room and yet the fleur de sel is going to water, the sugar is puddling and they look sticky. Any suggestions please.

I'm fairly au fait with candying citrus peel, but fancy doing something a bit more adventurous, I'm guessing I could flavour the candied peel with an alcohol, probably during the last phase (I tend to use William Curley's method from Couture Chocolates - blanch 4 times, add to syrup with vanilla, heat, leave to cool over night, re-heat for 2 hours, allow to cool over night, leave to dry) so the alcohol content is cooked off but the flavour imparts. Is this do-able? Are there recipes out there for this or am I just barking up the wrong tree? I've got a concept I want to try and I'll keep you posted if it's a workable idea.