Cooking with "Chocolates and Confections" by Peter Greweling (Part 2)

[John DePaula]

I don't have any experience with this so I apologize if this suggestion doesn't help...

What if you place a "fluffy" kitchen towel on the counter top. Have a heavy flat cookie sheet, topped with a silpat, in the oven, preheated and ready to go when your caramel is ready. Then you can take it out and put it on the towel, which will help to insulate it. Quickly arrange your rulers and pour your caramel.

Hope this helps.

[Beth Wilson]

I make many pans of toffee in the store and usually I heat up 2 or 3 pans then put them all on top of a few layers of towels. The towels help insulate the heat and the 2 pans under the pan I am working on, keep the heat a bit longer than just on top of the towels. Most times I just warm the oven to 170C, put the pans in and turn off the oven.

As soon as the toffee is spread evenly I take the top pan with the toffee and put it in my cooling racks, put the warmed trays back in the oven to make another batch of toffee.

Our kitchen is airconditioned and I find the pans cool too fast without the benefit of the warmed trays underneath.

[Tri2Cook]

@#%^... $@&%.... @!*#...

How the heck do people without guitars cut those PB&J's without the peanut butter gianduja breaking all to pieces? I followed his ratio exactly, mixed the tempered milk chocolate with the peanut butter, tabled it, poured it over the PDF and let it set. It now is like trying to chop a block of tempered chocolate rather than slicing like a ganache. It just snaps and breaks all over the place. I'm thinking next time I'll skip the tempering and tabling and just mix melted chocolate and peanut butter and maybe increase the PB a bit. The PB flavor is a bit muted behind the PDF and the dark chocolate I dipped the few decent surviving pieces in.

[Lior]

Well I had a similar experience. I made a white chocolate with praline paste and cocoa nibs- so it is sort of like gianduja with cocoa nibs. I borrowed my friends guitar cause I really suck at cutting. I couldn't cut through it! I didn't try too hard as I didnot want to snap a string. I used untempered to foot but the foot was too thick. I think that and the nibs caused a problem. Back to cutting by hand, crumbling feet and frustration.

[Chris Hennes]

It's been a while since I've done any chocolate work, but I think it's time to get started back up: to that end, I have a question about the "Madras"—how strong is the curry flavor? I'll be sending these into work with my wife, and this is Oklahoma: not exactly the land of adventurous eaters. These things sound good to me, but, well...

[Kerry Beal]

It's been a while since I've done any chocolate work, but I think it's time to get started back up: to that end, I have a question about the "Madras"—how strong is the curry flavor? I'll be sending these into work with my wife, and this is Oklahoma: not exactly the land of adventurous eaters. These things sound good to me, but, well...

←

I tasted these in Germany -made by schneich - they were wonderful. Just the right amount of curry to make them tasty. But I'd start with a small batch given your audience.

[patris]

It's been a while since I've done any chocolate work, but I think it's time to get started back up: to that end, I have a question about the "Madras"—how strong is the curry flavor? I'll be sending these into work with my wife, and this is Oklahoma: not exactly the land of adventurous eaters. These things sound good to me, but, well...

←

I made these with garam masala instead of curry powder - I couldn't find a mix without garlic and/or onions, and I couldn't stomach the idea of either of those combined with chocolate. I'm one of those not-exactly-adventurous eaters, for sure. They were great with the garam masala, though. Crazy fragrant and delicious.

[Chris Hennes]

Made the Madras today: it's been a while and took some time to get back into the groove of dipping. Overall, the recipe is OK, in my opinion. Not great, I doubt I will make it again, but OK. I am a bit worried that it will be too much for my wife's co-workers tomorrow, however. We shall see...

[Kerry Beal]

What did you not like about it Chris?

[Chris Hennes]

The taste.

OK, on a more serious note: it's not that I dislike them, I just like every single other confection I've made from this book better. The lingering curry flavor at the end, in particular, bothered me a bit. I'm sure I could play around with different curry powders to achieve a better effect (when making curries I don't usually even use the bottled stuff... why did I start now?), but I don't think this one is worth the trouble of experimenting to get it "right"—it's never going to taste as good (to me) as the PB&Js or the Habanos.

[Tri2Cook]

Nice Chris! Why is it when everyone else is complaining about their dipping, they still look better than mine on a good day? I actually had that recipe (along with the habanos and a couple others) bookmarked to try but hadn't got around to it yet. Maybe I'll just mix up a small batch of the ganache first and make sure I don't fall on the "yuck" side of the fence.

[bdonaghy]

The taste. 

OK, on a more serious note: it's not that I dislike them, I just like every single other confection I've made from this book better. The lingering curry flavor at the end, in particular, bothered me a bit. I'm sure I could play around with different curry powders to achieve a better effect (when making curries I don't usually even use the bottled stuff... why did I start now?), but I don't think this one is worth the trouble of experimenting to get it "right"—it's never going to taste as good (to me) as the PB&Js or the Habanos.

←

For what it's worth . . . curry is a "hard" flavor to get right. Different spice blends taste different and therefore will be different. I think you hit it on the head, if you wanted to nail this recipe it's about developing your own spice blend to highlight the flavors you want to see in the finished piece. However, I disagree that coming up with a good chocolate curry recipe isn't worth the effort, in my world curry is far superior to PB&J. LOL

[CKatCook]

I am in the process of reading through the whole thread, but I am eagar to get started now that I am all geared up, but now I am wondering, how does one cut down the size of the formulas? I understand they are in percentages, but I am not that math savey to work them out, or if some one could clue me in on how the percentages work?

I am just now starting to read the book, even though I had it for a while now, I just got hooked on bread.

[CKatCook]

ok, you can all flog me with a stupid stick...I figured it out.

[Kerry Beal]

ok, you can all flog me with a stupid stick...I figured it out.

I'm so glad - I started to answer - then realized I'm not capable of explaining that in print.

[LindaK]

HOST'S NOTE: The discussion of Peter Greweling's new cookbook, Chocolates and Confections at Home, has been moved to its own topic here.

[John DePaula]

I made some marzipan today, à la Greweling, and it came out well. I think I stopped processing it just in time because just as I stopped, I noticed very slight wisps of smoke coming from my commercial grade food processor!

Very fine texture; possibly finer, in fact, than any I’ve had before. It looked just like the pictures in Greweling – sort of like bread dough.

It’s not quite sweet enough, in my opinion, which I think can be corrected with confectioners sugar when I roll it out.

These California almonds, although of excellent quality, do not seem to have as much flavor as European almonds. Does the flavor intensify after a few days, or should I correct this by adding some drops of bitter almond oil?

[Kerry Beal]

I made some marzipan today, à la Greweling, and it came out well. I think I stopped processing it just in time because just as I stopped, I noticed very slight wisps of smoke coming from my commercial grade food processor!

Very fine texture; possibly finer, in fact, than any I’ve had before. It looked just like the pictures in Greweling – sort of like bread dough.

It’s not quite sweet enough, in my opinion, which I think can be corrected with confectioners sugar when I roll it out.

These California almonds, although of excellent quality, do not seem to have as much flavor as European almonds. Does the flavor intensify after a few days, or should I correct this by adding some drops of bitter almond oil?

I always add bitter almond oil to mine.

[Darienne]

Made the 'Coffee Truffle' (p.72) ganache yesterday, using Expresso coffee granules for the instant coffee granules and 70% Belcolade dark. DH loves it. It'll never make it to truffles....

No, I lie. I didn't use his method which calls for refrigerating the ganache for an hour and then beating it for 30 seconds. I don't know what this would accomplish. Perhaps someone could be kind enough to enlighten me.

[Kerry Beal]

I suspect it's the home version of tabling the ganache. I do something similar with my meltaways - I'm not prepared to pour a lot of liquidy liquid on the slab (too much like herding cats) so I put it in a bowl over ice and stir until it starts to thicken.

[Darienne]

Thanks for the explanation, Kerry

[QbanCrackr]

I've made the pecan brittle, pecan buttercrunch & the pecan pralines

all great hits

[Darienne]

I've made the pecan brittle, pecan buttercrunch & the pecan pralines

Looked up all those recipes. Boy, if there is one thing I miss from Moab UT, it's the availability of decent pecans. They obviously don't grow them in Moab, but they can get them. We really can't get decent pecans where I live.

My next-door neighbor/landlady/friend in Moab got her pecans from Florida, huge tasty pecans, and I bought bags and bags of them.

I'm going to try the pecan buttercrunch. Thanks

ps. As for the wiping the surface of the crunch to help the chocolate to adhere...Kerry Beal gave me the excellent advice to dust the surface lightly with cocoa. That really helps.

Edited January 31, 2010 by Darienne (log)

[QbanCrackr]

My next-door neighbor/landlady/friend in Moab got her pecans from Florida, huge tasty pecans, and I bought bags and bags of them.

Any idea where she got them? I live in Miami and right now I get my pecans at Costco...wouldn't mind having another source for them

I'm going to try the pecan buttercrunch. Thanks

ps. As for the wiping the surface of the crunch to help the chocolate to adhere...Kerry Beal gave me the excellent advice to dust the surface lightly with cocoa. That really helps.

thats a great idea on the cocoa, first time i made it the chocolate would come right off--2nd time, i tabbed the surface and it held much better. i think the next time i make it i'll try the cocoa

[lironp]

Do you think there is any added value to buying this book after buying the original Chocolates and Confections?