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Last week I ruined a wonderful chocolate cake...didn't hear the timer...and made cake balls/pops/truffles with the crumb, dipped in tempered 70% chocolate. An interesting first. They were delicious. Oh my. Gave them all away. Serious complaints were forthcoming from friends who are attending next weekend's Annual Dog Weekend. So, I found an old...not too old I hope...Angel Food Cake mix in the cupboard and will add some 52% chocolate to the resulting crumb and then dip the balls into tempered 70% chocolate again. Question: what would be the shelf life of the "Cake Doodads"? They'll be eaten Friday August 17 until they are gone. How early next week can I actually make them? (I need to make as much as I can ahead of time to accommodate my old and doddering bod.) Thanks.

MARIA BONBONS (Brazilian Candy) Serves 60 as Dessert. Easy to make. Even kids can do it!! 3 packages Maria cookies 1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk ½ cup seedless raisin 2 c (12 oz pkg) chocolate Morsels 1 T vegetable shortening PREPARE: Grind cookies in a food processor until you get coarse flour. Place ground cookies in a big bowl. Pour condensed milk while mixing with a wood spoon until you get dough. Make small candy balls. Place couple raisins inside the balls while shaping them. Coat candies with chocolate: Line baking sheet with waxed paper. Melt morsels and shortening in small saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally, until smooth. Dip each candy into chocolate using a fork; place on prepared baking sheets. Let stand until chocolate is set. SERVE: Place in candy cups to serve. Make about 60 candies. Keywords: Dessert ( RG1730 )

I know that American something or other in Atlanta does them, but I have an event that conflicts with their vacation schedule. Are there others in the US that are doing custom wafer? This will go on top of 80 pastries I'm making for a wedding.

I have been making macarons for a few years now, and have been making LOTS of macarons lately for my new baking business, and what occurred tonight is a first for me. When baking off my trays tonight, I'm getting meringue cookies (no glossy hard top, no foot) instead of macaron shells. I baked off several dozen earlier today with no problems, so I don't think it's an issue of the weather -- but it's been dry. The texture of the (freshly made) batter was as usual, as was my oven temp. The formula is one I've used many times before, with success. I weigh my ingredients carefully. What the heck did I do wrong, and how can I prevent it from happening again?!

One of my favorite confections is Halvah, the kind my Bubi gave me as a child. Just made some awful-tasting awful-textured Halvah from a recipe from Bruce Weinstein The Ultimate Candy Book. I can't think it was the recipe: Sesame oil, white flour, tahini and honey. I probably got something terribly wrong. There appear to be dozens of different halvah recipes. Might try an egg white based one next with sugar. Does anyone have a halvah recipe that turns out well?

Can you say "chocolatiere" And if so is the "r" pronounced? I know that chocolatier is"shokolattieh". I seem to recall that there is not a feminine form-perhaps I am wrong!

I am looking to find a candy maker or confectioner who might just be getting started for a product I would like... I am an artist making food and wine jewelry. I currently have a line based on sushi and at wholesale trade shows, I would like to offer bites of sushi-looking candy. There were two different companies offering; the most famous being Koo-Ki Sushi who is out of business. Those pieces were actually too big for me to want to offer as a free perk and I am hoping someone might be interested in producing some that are smaller (and maybe individually wrapped). Thoughts?

While we haven't actually started yet - I figured I get a little teaser going for all you folks that are 'green'. I headed down to Niagara on the Lake this morning to drop off yet another load of stuff for the conference. Poor Peter - the patisserie instructor at the college - he wants to keep all my stuff safe so he's putting it in his office. He had no idea just how much stuff I was bringing. I don't think you could swing a cat in his office now. Tomorrow morning I pack my clothes, my computer and a whole bunch of stuff from the freezer and fridge and head down there to stay for the weekend. I have two slabs of ganache to take to Tomric so we will have something to play with on the Selmi. I've also taken some chocolate animal crackers - can't wait to see what they look like enrobed. I wonder if we can dab little eyes on them when they come out of their chocolate shower. I've got a little bottle of ice wine that I've had for about 12 years, and a bottle of banyuls for the wine and chocolate tasting - as well as a few squares of the Becolade single origin Papua New Guinea chocolate (actually more like a bunch of shards - as I dropped the mold on the counter as I was unmolding and broke them all). I had the pleasure of having lunch with John DePaula today - we checked out the restaurant "August" that I mentioned on the planning thread. A very satisfactory lunch, and it was such a treat to get together with John again. I picked up some white cocoa butter colour from Peter as I had run out half way through my preparations - so tonight after getting home from work, I've mixed it up with the immersion blender and consigned it to it's little specimen bottles. I'm sure as people start posting pictures on this thread you are going to get to see my extensive use of these special bottles. Try not to be too horrified!

I have established this topic to being the planning for the 2nd (hopefully) annual eG Candy & Confectionery Conference. The first event organized by KerryBeal et. al. was a great success and now it is time to start thinking about next year. THIS EVENT HAS BEEN ORGANIZED THROUGH EG FORUMS BY MEMBERS BUT IS NOT SPONSORED BY THE EGULLET SOCIETY FOR CULINARY ARTS AND LETTERS OR EG FORUMS. YOUR PARTICIPATION IN ANY EVENT OR ACTIVITY ARRANGED ON OR DISCUSSED IN EG FORUMS IS AT YOUR SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE RISK. BY USING AND PARTICIPATING IN THE FORUMS YOU AGREE AND UNDERSTAND (1) THAT IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR PARTICIPATION IN ANY EVENT OR ACTIVITY, YOU MAY BE EXPOSED TO A VARIETY OF HAZARDS AND RISKS ARISING FROM THOSE ACTIVITIES AND EVENTS; (2) TO THE FULLEST EXTENT ALLOWED BY LAW, YOU AGREE TO WAIVE, DISCHARGE CLAIMS, RELEASE, INDEMNIFY AND HOLD HARMLESS THE SOCIETY, ITS AFFILIATES, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, AGENTS, AND OTHER PARTNERS AND EMPLOYEES, FROM ANY AND ALL LIABILITY ON ACCOUNT OF, OR IN ANY WAY RESULTING FROM INJURIES AND DAMAGES IN ANY WAY CONNECTED WITH ANY SUCH EVENTS OR ACTIVITIES. YOU AGREE AND UNDERSTAND THAT THESE TERMS WILL BE BINDING UPON YOU AND YOUR HEIRS, EXECUTORS, AGENTS, ADMINISTRATORS AND ASSIGNS, AS WELL AS ANY GUESTS AND MINORS ACCOMPANYING YOU AT THE EVENTS.

I was making chocolates in my Mom's kitchen this afternoon, which somehow prompted her to ask me what is in the 'buttercream' centers that some See's candies have. I have no idea, so now of course I am curious. Haven't had any in a while, but I recall they are very creamy and awfully sweet. Is there fondant involved? Is there any butter in the buttercreams? Do I have to go buy some to find out?

i just came back from my trip to the salon du chocolat. on our second and third day we visited all the good places in paris. we went also to jacques genin marvelous shop, where we had the chance to talk to the master himself. of course we tried his caramels of which i heard a lot beforehand. before i tasted them i thought they were just caramels, like i tasted many before. so we left the place with a 30,- euro box of chocolats and a 14 euro bag of caramels. as soon as we left the shop i poped one of the suckers into my mouth, it was just HEAVEN they we soo soft an unctuos, with a deeeep creamy buttery caramel flavour, so i turn on the foot and spend another 34 euros on a box of caramels, on top we bought a bag of mango-caramels he kept in the cooling for freshness he said. soon i knew i HAVE to make these caramels for my customers, so i spent the better part of this beuatiful sunday in the pastry shop, trying to get anywhere near his recipe. the first attempt was the greweling soft caramel recipe with fresh cream. bsides beeing chewy beyond good belief it lacked 90% of the deep flavour. second attempt a recipe from a french patissier schoolbook called "caramel mou" which uses 700 sugar, 900 glucose, 1l cream 35%, and 200 butter. since in this recipe sugars and cream are cooked together it too lacked any deep caramel flavour, and was besides beeing sticky a miraculous substance which could be pulled into long ribbons even when cold :-( my next attempt is a recipe from morato which i pimped a little bit it consisted of 750 35% cream, 700 sugar, 150 gluco, 200 butter, 2 sod. bicarb. - i added another 200g butter, dry caramelized the sugar, boiled cream, gluco and bicarb, and turned the butter into a beurre noisette before mixing into the 114c caramel. the result was a bit darker than genins, and since i brought it to 118 a bit tougher, but flavourrichnesswise it was already quite close. next thing would be to cook the dry caramel a bit lighter, put a little bit more salt and cook to 116. any suggestioins are very welcome. cheers torsten s.

I would be curious to hear from others about what sorts of things they have done to change caramel recipes. My interest comes from my reading of the Genin caramel thread about 100 times. I finally attempted the recipe yesterday. I feel like I have gotten a start, but will make some adaptations to get what I want. First, the fruit flavor was not strong enough in my opinion (I used pureed mango with some reduced passionfruit juice). I cooked it on an induction burner, but I got impatient because I was on call so I switched to the stovetop for the last 20 degrees. It got much darker on the stovetop and the bottom of the pan scorched a little. It is a nice soft caramel but still holds shape when cut and the flavor and texture are good. I would like the fruit flavor to be the star of it and I would like the caramel to be lighter. So, next attempt, I am going to use some passionfruit juice which I drastically reduced and I will cook it the entire way through on induction. I may go a degree or two more to make it a little firmer. I also have some Indian Mango Powder which I think I will blend into the butter before adding it to the recipe. SO, I am just curious what others have done with caramel- I know Tikidoc started a thread about wanting to change texture, but I am also curious as to what sort of changes to flavor or mouthfeel people have made. I am also curious if anyone has ever gotten their caramel to be so light in color like the one from Genin that someone posted a link to- it was golden/yellow instead of brown. Kerri posted about making a foie caramel- I think it is interesting that you could exchange the butter for duckfat. I imagine there are all sorts of substitutions that could be made....

At the recent workshop, I finally got a clue as to how to work with chocolate molds. I have a caramel recipe (also posted in the report thread from the workshop) that I would like to adapt so that it can be a soft, pipe-able filling for a bon bon. I started out with a fleur de sel caramel recipe from the internet (Ina Garten's recipe). I wanted an apple pie flavor, so I decreased the cream from 1 cup to 3/4 cup, then added 1/2 cup of apple cider jelly, which is basically just reduced cider, so a net increase of 1/4 cup liquid (some of which is sugar, obviously) and a small decrease in fat. I also added 1 tsp cinnamon. The changes were fairly arbitrary, but they worked, although the caramel was a bit softer than the original, it still basically held it's shape but was pretty sticky. Worked fine for dipping. I would like to play with modifying the recipe to use it as a filling, so more fluid than currently. I am happy with the flavor, so want to make changes that will not have a major impact on the flavor profile. My thoughts would be to either increase the cream back up to a cup or even more, decrease the final temp (currently 248F) or both. I would like to avoid trying too many batches since I have a limited amount of apple jelly left (need to make another order) so any advice to give me a starting point would be helpful. I have made a fair amount of firm caramels, but never fluid caramel fillings. The current recipe is as follows: ½ cup apple cider jelly* ¾ cup heavy cream 5 tablespoons unsalted butter 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon fleur de sel or kosher salt 1 ½ cups sugar ¼ cup light corn syrup ¼ cup water Combine jelly, cream, butter, vanilla, cinnamon and salt and heat until jelly melts most of the way. Combine sugar, corn syrup, water and sugar and heat until it begins to caramelize. Add the cream mixture to the sugar, stir and heat to 248F. Pour. *http://woodscidermill.com/PRODUCTS/CiderJelly.html Thoughts? Suggestions? Thanks! Jess

Has anyone used a Bakon MTD 1-2-3 Mini? What are the pros and cons of this chocolate melter vs. the Mol d'Art 6 Kg chocolate melter? Looks like both are large enough to work with 1000 & 2000 series chocolate molds. It appears that the Bakon is all stainless steel while the Mol d'Art is plastic and stainless steel. Wondering if this really matters for a piece of equipment with no moving parts. So is one piece of equipment more reliable than the other? Easier to operate? The Bakon costs a bit more than the Mol d'Art is the extra expense worth it?

Moving this over from the report thread on the 2012 conference - noticed I've changed the name to Workshop from Conference as it seems more appropriate to what we get up to. Conference sounds so dry! Anyway I've already booked the dates with Niagara College - April 27 and 28, 2013. I'm working on a block of rooms at the Hilton Garden Inn - rates will likely be between $109 and $119/night depending on two queen beds vs 1 king. The rates are lower than that for the Wed, Thursday and the Monday after. I won't have definite amounts until the beginning of May. There is certainly other accommodation available - but I won't be able to do block for that. I think we can safely say that one of the Friday activities will be a tour of Art and Wilma's new panning facility - they've moved from their very small quarters in to a huge new building and it is a treat to see. I think we'll skip Tomric this time around - but I'm sure people may want to hit there if they are flying into Buffalo. HOST'S NOTE: Click here for the terms under which this event is listed at the eG Forums.

I have an opportunity to buy a case each of Caoba(milk) and Icoa(white). The seller is a chocolatier who is retiring, so I'm hoping the price will be quite good. But of course, one should only buy chocolate that tastes good and is easy to work with. So I wonder if any of you have worked with these chocolates, and what do you think of them? Also, I'm only making confections for friends and family, so I might have these around for a while. What is the shelf life of chocolate discs? Many thanks.

Is anyone willing to share a recipe for a pipe-able marshmallow cream? I have made three attempts with two different recipes (Greweling, removing the gelatin per chocoera) and the marshmallow recipe in Craft of Baking (also removing the gelatin). They have all resulted in syrupy goo and not marshmallow goo. What gives? I have some hot chocolate bonbons just waiting on their marshmallow, and I am about ready to give up and buy some fluff, but I thought someome here might have a suggestion. Thanks in advance!!!

Does anyone have an opinion on freezing extra ganache fillings? Would it be useable? I made the bananas foster ganache from last weekends conference, and even thought I halved the recipe it is still way more than I need. I did add some citric acid to stabilize it. I hate to waste it, but not sure if freezing a filling to use at a later date would work- looking for advice from you experts out there!!! Thank you in advance!

Hi all -- So I have plans with a friend to make these amazing-sounding thai-flavor infused peanut butter cups: Thai Peanut Butter Cups However since I've never done that kind of chocolate work before, I figured I'd ask for advice here. The recipe seems to suggest using small foil or paper candy cup liners, and brushing chocolate on the inside, piping the filling in, and then adding chocolate on top. I'm wondering about the brushing step -- how thick to make the chocolate layer? How to get the bottom layer of the chocolate to meet up with the top layer? Am I being prematurely neurotic? Thanks for any help you chocolate masters can provide! Emily

What to make when it's sweltering? Trying to think of heat-proof confections for the summer. Every week I make 7-800 little bite sized treats that we give with the bill at the restaurant. Truffles were great for the winter, but it's getting too warm in both the kitchen and the dining room to produce and hold truffles. Last summer I made pate de fruits, which hold up well, but which I'm pretty sure gave me a splatter burn every single time I made it. Too much pain. Ive been working on some gelatin gummies that I like and that don't hurt, but they seem to get droopy in the heat as well. I've been adding agar to help the texture, maybe more agar and/or cook the syrup to a hotter temperature? How do hard candies hold up? Nougat? Humidity can be an issue but I'm more concerned about heat. Cookies are an option, especially easy to pipe or slice and bake. Amaretti? Has anyone tried cutting shortbread with the guitar? Candied nuts seem a little too simple - what else besides chocolate would make them special? What are your favorite treats that stand up to heat?

Hello All! I am new to the eGullet community, here to pose my first question: I really enjoy the look of handmade plaques to decorate dipped chocolates (I have posted an example picture below, but for reference Thomas Haas and Theo Chocolates use such decorations). Yes, they are time consuming and probably not worth the effort on a grand scale, but for small batch production I think they are a beautiful detail. I have been cutting the little squares by hand, which takes a dreadfully long time. I am considering a caramel cutter – one like a rolling pin with a bunch of cutting disks attached. Has anyone tried this? Do you have a certain time-saving technique that you like to use? I’d love to glean from your wisdom, if you have some to share. My apologies if this topic has been discussed elsewhere already. I tried searching the forums, but it did not yield the results I was looking for.

I'm no kind of pastry chef or even a particularly keen pastry eater. (I tend towards the savoury rather than the sweet.), but I thought this article by the BBC would be interesting to all the eG pastry chefs. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24609525. Nice to see innovation.

Does anyone know the approximate Brix for nanking cherries. I know there are several variables involved such as terrior etc. I am just looking for an approx value. I want to make pate de fruit and it has been ages since I have made anything pate de fruit!

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.

In keeping with all those great eG threads like "Breakfast! The most important meal of the day", "Lunch! What'd ya have", "Dinner! What did we cook" and "What's for dessert?", I think it is time that the chocolatiers and confectioners on eG have a place to post their day to day "what did I make" pictures and projects. So to start things off - I'm on holiday for 3 weeks and our plans to go sailing got buggered, so here I am with some time on my hands to play. I haven't made nougat for a while so yesterday I measured out a couple of those egg whites that have been sitting in the fridge for a while and here's the result. Nougat with almond and pistachio. It is excellent! soft, chewy, with well toasted crunchy nuts. The only thing missing is a bit of milk chocolate on the ends. And of course the best part, the scraps. So c'mon folks, lets have a look at your candy, confections, chocolate. All those nice goodies that don't fit well into breakfast, lunch, dinner or dessert.