Chocolates with that Showroom Finish, 2012 –

[Kerry Beal]

Nice! I particularly like the zebras.

[Jim D.]

Jenjcook,

Very impressive display. And it was only about a month ago that you were learning how to make your own colored cocoa butter. Obviously you have been making chocolates longer than that.

I would be interested in knowing what all the fillings are. If you don't mind telling, what is in the red velvet? And I would love to know how you made the shell with the single stripe--that is fantastic. There was a discussion of this decoration in an earlier thread, which I cannot locate right now, but I think the piece was made by Norman Love. If I recall correctly, nobody on the forum was able to duplicate that look.

[Jenjcook]

Thanks! The zebras are tricky, I can't seem to do them as we'll as others lol!

I've been making chocolates since my mama put me to work bottoming chocolate covered cherries when I was seven, however I took about a decade break to go to medical school and pursue a career in that field. A few months ago I discovered shell molding, which wasn't all that popular a decade ago, and fell in love with the artistic aspects available. I've been on a medical sebatical to raise kids and have picked up chocolates again.

The red velvet is a double layer red milk chocolate and cream cheese ganache. The other flavors are

White chocolate - key lime pie, birthday cake, cookies n cream, egg nog, and pumpkin spice

Milk chocolate - honey hazelnut, peanut butter n jelly, lemon pie, strawberry cheesecake, roasted

Almond chew, pecan pie, caramel cappuccino, cinnamon roll, and s'mores.

Dark - creme de menthe, raspberry, tiramisu, creme brûlée, pistachio, chocolate chip cookie dough, mimosa, salted caramel coconut, and bananas foster.

The idea for the single strip came right from that discussion on this forum. I tried several ways to replicate it, including someone's suggestion of a qtip, which works, but the line isn't very clean. Ultimately I found some food safe plastic adhesive sheets in a local cake craft store. I cut a strip, stick it to the mold and airbrush my main color. After it sets I peal off the strip and paint the second color, or leave blank if I want the color if the chocolate to come through.

As for the cocoa butter, I did end up buying a few of chef rubbers jewel tones such as gold and silver because I couldn't replicate the glittery pigment in them. I tried adding luster and pearl dust to my colors but for some reason that made the cocoa butter stick to my molds pretty badly. Other than that, I made most of the colors.

[Kerry Beal]

So yesterday Anna and I spent the day doing demos and classes at the Luxury Chocolate Show at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto.

For the demo on the main stage I covered shell molding - I made some really neat painted 1/2 spheres that I joined together and a couple of plates of molded chocolates. When I left the house I had a suspicion I was going to have a bit of trouble getting the molded chocolates out. In aid of that I actually put them in the freezer at home for 3 minutes before packing them. But alas - getting them out at the show was not going to happen.

We froze them again there, bashed the crap out of the molds on the table - but not one single solitary chocolate came out of the mold.

We came home totally bagged - so I unpacked only the absolute necessities from the van. Left the stubborn chocolates in there. Well this morning after overnight during the first good killing frost we've had - they popped out beautifully! At least I don't have to wash out 4 trays - nothing more painful.

[Jenjcook]

Ooh those are beautiful!!

[Jim D.]

Kerry,

What I am about to say about your unmolding experience is NOT in any way an example of Schadenfreude because I am totally in sympathy with your pain. I just didn't think that sort of thing happened to someone with as much experience as you have had! I am convinced chocolate has a mind of its own, and the devil plays a role in there somewhere. Some chocolates will come out of a mold perfectly, the rest in that same mold are a mess. Some fall out so easily it's scary, others take pounding on the counter, chilling, freezing, etc. I haven't yet left mine in the car overnight, but may try that next. A few weeks ago I was trying Chef Rubber's glittery cocoa butters for the first time, went to all the trouble of actually tempering them (not just shaking in the bottle). Some pieces fell right out looking beautiful, others in the same mold left much of the color behind. I was so mad I tried it again, just with some leftover ganache I didn't care about. I threw it all together, didn't take pains with the temperature of the cocoa butter, even noticed I had not gotten every bit of the old color out of the mold. This time every single piece fell out of the mold in perfect condition. I gave them away to some men working in the yard, and they thought they had died and gone to heaven. Mostly I was angry.

[Jim D.]

Jenjcook,

So you have been doing this for only a few months. Now I am really impressed, not to mention a little embarrassed at my slow progress. Thanks for that list of your ganaches. I have seen some of them (or similar recipes) in books like Greweling's (the hazelnut honey, the pumpkin spice, and the eggnog), but many of them are quite unusual. How did you find the recipes, or did you invent some of them yourself? I have, for example, never heard of a cream cheese ganache.

Thanks also for describing how you did the stripe. Very clever. I'll look online for that adhesive.

There must be something similar about the callings of the doctor and the chocolatier. You're the second "chocolate doctor" on the forum. Will you be able to leave all this behind when your sabbatical ends?

[Gary Traffanstedt]

Very cool list of flavors in your 24 and they all look amazing! I'm always curious where people find these recipes as I have a couple books now but nothing about red velvet cake, anything with cream cheese, nor anything close to several of your others.

I do a great pumpkin caramel but as I also offer two other caramel variants I think a pumpkin spice might be better. Wishing I had the pumpkin molds someone on here is using. Hopefully I'll remember those in time to order them for next year.

[Jenjcook]

So a few of my recipes are adapted from the usuals suspects, Notter's key lime, Grewelings egg nog, both the peanut butter and the jelly come from two different greweling recipes as well. And pecan pie is a pecan version of his walnut bon bon, minus the almond paste. A lot of them I've just made up using the basic ganache ratios in greweling and experimenting with adding things. I also troll the Internet for ideas, one of my best finds is the recipe I use for pumpkin spice...

http://dyingforchocolate.blogspot.com/2011/11/pumpkin-pie-truffles.html

I like this version a lot better than Grewelings caramel one, its more traditional pumpkin flavored. A lot of mine are double layer, creme brûlée is a vanilla bean ganache and a caramel white chocolate ganache.

The cream cheese recipe is fairly easy, you basically just use the cream cheese as your emulsifier instead of heavy cream.

8oz cream cheese, softened

1cup confectioners sugar

12 oz white chocolate, melted and tempered

Beat the cream cheese and sugar together. Mix with tempered white chocolate. Pipe into molds!

[Jim D.]

Jenjcook,

Thanks for all that information. Great ideas.

[Gary Traffanstedt]

I make the Greweling pumpkin caramel only because it's the only one I had at the time. Deff going to give yours a try tomorrow. I have two molds ready to go with orange cocoa butter swirls applied. Should come out looking quite nice. And I'm excited to have a more traditional pumpkin flavor. Thank you for all the info!

[YetiChocolates]

Very cool list of flavors in your 24 and they all look amazing! I'm always curious where people find these recipes as I have a couple books now but nothing about red velvet cake, anything with cream cheese, nor anything close to several of your others.

I do a great pumpkin caramel but as I also offer two other caramel variants I think a pumpkin spice might be better. Wishing I had the pumpkin molds someone on here is using. Hopefully I'll remember those in time to order them for next year.

Hey Gary I got that pumpkin mold from Chef Rubber, and I know that Tomric carries it as well, but I was in a bit of a rush and wasn't sure if Tomric would have it in stock and get it out to me in time as I sort of ordered it last minute.

As for the comment you made earlier Jim D about chocolate having a mind of its own, in the last 6 years of tinkering with chocolate in the winter time, one thing I have learned above anything else is that chocolate is the master, not you

[Jim D.]

Jenjcook,

Today my original plan was to make Greweling's pumpkin caramel, but I was intrigued by the alternate pumpkin recipe you found. I looked at the original on the Food Network site and found quite a few reviews. A large number of them said the ganache was much too thin to use--it had the texture of pudding and never set up. There were too many such comments to ignore, so I looked at the proportions, and the recipe does call for a lot of liquid vs. chocolate. Did you make it as described, and did it pipe OK into shells?

I didn't have enough ingredients to take too many risks, so I used Greweling's recipe but made changes to try to get the pumpkin flavor more prominent. I omitted the caramel (which tends to overwhelm the pumpkin), used brown sugar (like the Food Network recipe), and used white instead of dark chocolate (and substituted cocoa butter for some of the chocolate). I must say it turned out very well--good pumpkin flavor, not overwhelmed by chocolate, good consistency. The pumpkin pie spices are, I think, the key, and I did not hold back, also added some vanilla paste. I am not sure I am thrilled with the Food Network use of Grand Marnier. It's OK, but I don't think of orange when I think of a pumpkin pie. Next time I think I will use rum or the brandy Greweling calls for. Now I have to decide whether to pipe into white, milk (Greweling), or dark (Food Network). I'm leaning toward milk or white.

I do have a concern about shelf life as I removed a lot of sugar when I substituted a little brown sugar for caramel. I would use some invert sugar if I understood enough of how its properties compare to those of sucrose.

[Jenjcook]

I made it pretty much as written, without the grand marnier. I generally leave out most liqueurs, or use them sparingly. It does set a bit soft. I would not want to attempt to roll and dip. But it pipes beautifully into molds. I haven't as of yet had much worries for shelf life as I've made them for weddings and events where they were consumed right away, rather than sitting on a shelf for days.

[Jim D.]

I made it pretty much as written, without the grand marnier. I generally leave out most liqueurs, or use them sparingly. It does set a bit soft. I would not want to attempt to roll and dip. But it pipes beautifully into molds. I haven't as of yet had much worries for shelf life as I've made them for weddings and events where they were consumed right away, rather than sitting on a shelf for days.

So you didn't find that the dark chocolate overwhelmed the pumpkin flavor? That was my motive for switching to white.

[Jenjcook]

Oh whoops no. Sorry, I use white for the ganache and pipe into white or milk.

[Jenjcook]

I was so disappointed when tomric said my molds were on back order and I'd have to wait a month. So when ups brought the package today (after 2 weeks) ....i swear it was like I was five years old again on Christmas morning and saw that Santa came!

[Jim D.]

I was so disappointed when tomric said my molds were on back order and I'd have to wait a month. So when ups brought the package today (after 2 weeks) ....i swear it was like I was five years old again on Christmas morning and saw that Santa came!

I know your feeling. I just got an order from them after 3 1/2 weeks--and thought I was doing well. Unfortunately one of the molds was out of stock, so it's another 3-4 week wait. I have never seen their place, but I do wish they could find room to keep more of the Chocolate World molds in stock.

[lebowits]

Jenjcook - How long did it take you to place the strips in each cavity? Can you imagine doing that in production? Would you share the source for the food safe adhesive sheets? I'd like to try that!

The idea for the single strip came right from that discussion on this forum. I tried several ways to replicate it, including someone's suggestion of a qtip, which works, but the line isn't very clean. Ultimately I found some food safe plastic adhesive sheets in a local cake craft store. I cut a strip, stick it to the mold and airbrush my main color. After it sets I peal off the strip and paint the second color, or leave blank if I want the color if the chocolate to come through.

[keychris]

Thanks! The zebras are tricky, I can't seem to do them as we'll as others lol!

They're beautiful!

I do my zebras with many paper cones, a very small hole and lots of swearing. Start in the middle of the cavity and work outwards!

[grammacake12]

Finally finished all 24 flavors!image.jpg

Nice, I really like the bright colors.

here is some of my creations from last Christmas. I hope to make some to sell this year.

Edited November 12, 2013 by grammacake12 (log)

[Jenjcook]

My zebras are getting better!

[Kerry Beal]

Love the flowers too!

[Chocolot]

I love it when they turn out!! Gianduja in milk chocolate.

[keychris]

I love how they're so shiny we can see your reflection in them