How do I become a better confectioner and chocolatier

[jrshaul]

A friend of mine is due to receive the reigns of the family bakery in a few years. He's looking to move away from making dinner rolls towards producing for resale, and perhaps move towards a more luxuriant part of the market.

I'm a longtime hobbyist with a little experience mucking about with chocolates. One of my greater successes was the time I brought ten pounds of truffles to a local event, just to see if I could. They seem to have attracted his interest - especially the vegan truffles, which went over spectacularly and have a lot of commercial appeal.

He's looking for someone to help with product development and marketing. I'm going to be spending most of my time running a dog-and-pony show at bridal expos, but getting some workable prototypes is going to require rapidly improving my chops.

Where do I start?

[jrshaul]

The title of this post was supposed to end "Really, really fast."

Jotting out eGullet posts at bus stops is perhaps best avoided.

[minas6907]

I'd start getting some books and just making different things. This is just my opinion, but I dont think theres any fast track, if you want to learn, maybe look into a class and look at other peoples work, you'll see what kind of standard there is when your making different confectionery items. Probably the best way to learn fast is to really have a passion for it. I have a backround in cooking, but for a long time wanted to learn different confections, it always interested me that the same mass produced candies you see now were at one time made completely by hand, and I wanted to learn those old ways. So it didnt bother me to go through 15 lbs of sugar to be able to pull sugar proficiently, see different ways of coloring the candy and adding stripes, etc. I just made what I wanted, moving from toffees, to caramels, pulled hard candies, nougats, fruit jellies, gummies, fondants, marshmallows, and cordials. If your really motivated, you'll want to learn these things, it wont be just work. Pick up the book Chocolates and Confections, especially if you want to the "more luxuriant part of the market" you'll see what professionally made candies look like.

[keychris]

as with all things, practice, practice, practice.

and as much training as you can afford

[Lisa Shock]

See if your local community college offers any pastry classes.