Confections! What did we make? (2014 – 2016)

[excv_]

Made tons of things tonight! and finally whipped out my ancient DSLR for some less terrible photos.

 

Rosemary ganache truffles

 

Milk chocolate almond rochers(flavored with rum)

 

Caramel and peanut gianduja bars, enrobed w/ caramelized white chocolate

 

White chocolate covered 'cinnamon latte' caramels

 

Espresso ganache and bitter caramel sauce, molded in milk chocolate

 

[Thanks for the Crepes]

EXTRA sour grape gumdrops 

for a birthday party tomorrow 

very rustic sorry.. I have no patience to make sure they are perfect visually but they do taste good! puckery good! extra citric acid  mixed in with the sugar coating and the grape juice was raw extracted and super sour but very strong solid  supper concentrated concord grape flavored juice ..so these are a success and the inside is a very nice jelly candy texture I think you can see through them,  almost ..I really like the extra sour as well .The kids who planted the grapes … will get to eat these tomorrow it wold have been more fun if they could have made the candy today.. but the party is tomorrow and they had school ..darn the more important things in life 

 

hummingbirdkiss,

 

Those concord grape gumdrops look right up my alley. Rotuts would like them too, I think, as he is the one who coined the term "tart tooth", which I never knew how to describe properly before he turned me on to it.

 

The homemade shapes are artisan, and only add value to me. I wish I could have been one of the ones enjoying them.

[curls]

Some treats for Thanksgiving... chocolate truffles, mints, and muscovado sugar salted caramels. Will also make some salted pumpkin caramels and I am thinking about trying to make a cranberry or cranberry & raspberry pate de fruit.

 

[ChocoMom]

Curls: those look fantastic!  I love the rustic finish, too. The thought of Pumpkin caramels makes my mouth water.  Last fall, I was coerced into making a pumpkin-ale caramel.. and I am so glad that I did!  I didn't think that the flavor would come through very well, but it proved me wrong.   Have fun with it!

-An

[hummingbirdkiss]

omg I am always embarrassed to post under these stunning confections but that is the nice thing about this place "room for all" and on that note (if I already posted these forgive me I am really tried and not sleeping well at all lately ..excuses excuses) ..but I did make some cracker jack! 

 

/

 

 

this has been my dinner I am ashamed to admit for a few nights now probably the reason I am so tired I am eating like crap lately 

 

 

has anyone used "mushroom popcorn" for caramel corn ? if so is it the same as the extra large ? I used Amish extra large for this and really like it nice big corns 

Edited November 20, 2015 by hummingbirdkiss (log)

[RobertM]

Mushroom Corn is designed to be more durable than Butterfly Corn which allows it to stand up to the necessities of being stirred into the caramel.

I've not heard of "extra large" corn before.

[ChocoMom]

Well, it is craft show time again...and like many of you...I'm in full production right now. If I can find one of my kids with a charged up I-pod, I-phone or I-whatever, we will get some pics on here.  But first, I have got to bow down and profusely thank Kriz (Hoofschocolates) for posting his uber-cool method with the swirly colors.  I just did it with blue, green and white...and WOW!!!  Bailey's Irish Creme truffles never looked so cool!   Going back to play in the workshop!  hopefully, we will have some pics later.....

[rajoress]

Here are some earl grey bonbons I finally made for my boss' birthday. I was going for enrobed ganache but it came out too soft so I whipped the ganache and piped it into molds. I'm not that good at filling molds (I usually mess up the bottoms!) but I'm happy at how these turned out! They're dusted with a little silver dust.

Ruth

[excv_]

Rajoress-

Those sound(and look) divine   I'm always such a sucker for tea infused treats... You've got a very lucky boss there. I also love how the sliver lustre dust goes with the shape of your mold; really makes the shine stand out without overpowering the chocolate's own color! Did you just brush the dust on after demolding?

[rajoress]

Thanks so much excv_ for your nice comments! You are correct, after unmolding the chocolates I brushed on a little silver luster dust with a pastry brush to make them stand out. I'm in awe of everyone here who uses colored cocoa butter to color their chocolates, I haven't advanced to that stage yet!!

[Chocolot]

 

I usually don't make peanut brittle, but did this for a friend. I realize I really do enjoy eating it! Reminds me of my mother. She would always make a lot of peanut brittle. She stretched it thin so it didn't mess with your teeth. Might have to make more.

[Smithy]

I don't usually like peanut brittle, but I'd give yours a try.  It looks delicately crunchy and beautiful!

[ElainaA]

My SOD (Seasonal Obsessive Disorder - subtype candy making) is kicking in - I am starting preparation for my yearly holiday gifts. Strictly amateur but lots of fun. Nothing chocolate yet - that starts next week. So far it is pretty monotone but that will change. 

 

I'm making lollipops this year - raspberry; saffron, vanilla and ginger with brandy; and salted chocolate caramel.

 

Sesame candy with almonds and orange and lemon zest, and cashew butter crunch

 

Peanut brittle and candied orange peel.

You can see the peel-less oranges lurking in the background. Hopefully we will eat them before they dry out.

Edited December 14, 2015 by ElainaA (log)

[EsaK]

So many superb looking (and no doubt tasting) chocolates and other goodies here... 

 

I'm currently working on some gift chocolates for family and friends. I'm not sure if I've ever achieved excellent temper on the chocolates I've done, but they've been okay enough. This year I decided to put a little more effort to get it right. In the EZTemper topic I think it was said that you first heat the chocolate to 45-48°C, then cool to 33.5-35°C and stir in 1% cocoa butter which has been held at 33.5°C. Pour in molds and you should be done in about an hour. Question nr 1, is it necessary to hold the cocoa butter in that temp for hours? If not, how precisely should be 33.5°C? Just thinking that I don't have a SV setup, so just working with thermapen and pots basically. Would it work? 

The other two methods I've written down are to heat part of chocolate to 46°C, drop in fresh chunks and stir until 27°C and heat back to 31-32°C (keep there for 5min, never above 33°C). Or, heat 2 parts chocolate not above 45°C, adding 1 part, stirring until 31.5°C with dark chocolate and 30°C for milk/white. Any comments about those methods are welcome as well. I haven't had great success with being able to add 1 part to 2 parts melted and actually have it all melt. 

 

Then on the filling side. I pulled together a "Hervé mousse" variant that I'll use and then a lemon curd filling. But I also infused water and whole milk with butter popcorn, and was thinking of the best way to get those into the chocolate fillings. The water one I think I could do the Hervé way, but does anyone have an idea if I could do some sort of fluid gel with the whole milk? I've got for example agar, xanthan, high-acyl gellan, kappa & iota carrageenan in my pantry to work with. 

 

Thanks for all the input!

[keychris]

8 hours ago, EsaK said:

 In the EZTemper topic I think it was said that you first heat the chocolate to 45-48°C, then cool to 33.5-35°C and stir in 1% cocoa butter which has been held at 33.5°C. Pour in molds and you should be done in about an hour. Question nr 1, is it necessary to hold the cocoa butter in that temp for hours? If not, how precisely should be 33.5°C? Just thinking that I don't have a SV setup, so just working with thermapen and pots basically. Would it work?

 

This will only work with the eztemper silk cocoa butter.

 

As for tempering, browse https://forums.egullet.org/topic/19524-tempering-chocolate/ for more info I can message you more details you if want, but tempering is covered pretty exhaustively on here

 

[Kerry Beal]

So this morning I went over to help a fellow who has a chocolate business that mainly does children's parties. He's branching out into some team building projects and tomorrow has some sort of deal where the folks from the newspaper will be coming over to watch him work. So we were brainstorming building a bridge - he'll give the participants the guidelines and the materials and they then work in teams to build a bridge. 

 

 

Here's what a couple of hours of work and a crap load of rice krispie squares got us. Great potential I think when some talented teams apply themselves to it.

 

[EsaK]

7 hours ago, keychris said:

 

This will only work with the eztemper silk cocoa butter.

 

As for tempering, browse https://forums.egullet.org/topic/19524-tempering-chocolate/ for more info I can message you more details you if want, but tempering is covered pretty exhaustively on here

 

 

Ahh, I thought it'd be the same with any cocoa butter.. Thanks for the heads up! 

 

keychris or anyone else, any thoughts on the filling side? Would love to hear thoughts on how to get those popcorn infusions to work in a way that doesn't mask their flavor.

[Darienne]

Not posting any additional photos of the confection...just reporting that I am into copycat Enstrom toffee making for all the folks in our private and commercial life.  My signature confection is a copycat.  How shameful can one get. 

[RWood]

Holiday chocolates this year. It's always easiest just to feed people :). But, still wears me out with working in a restaurant and then coming home to do these.

Starting at the top dome:

Coconut Creme (really fast buttercream coconut filling, mainly for my mother  )

Red Wine (butter ganache with Nocking Point Wicked Aim Cabernet-still gotta work on the wine thing, hard to get the wine to show through enough)

Spiced Orange Tea (white ganache with orange spice tea, orange oil and extra cloves)

Peppermint (white ganache with crushed peppermint)

Passion Fruit (white ganache with passion fruit, orange zest and PF liqueur)

Absinthe (dark ganache with Pacifique Absinthe)

Black Raspberry (dark ganache with black raspberry purée, very yummy)

Peanut Butter with ground honey roasted peanuts

Mexican Coffee (milk and dark chocolate ganache steeped with Verve espresso, vanilla bean, cinnamon sticks and Kahlua)

Honey Vanilla Caramels in the middle, one with Maldon flakes and one with smoked Maldon. 

 

 

Edited December 17, 2015 by RWood (log)

[keychris]

They look wonderful, how do you get the perfect orange pattern?

[gap]

My Christmas Collection for Family and Friends this year. All up I made ~100-115 of each flavour. The theme was fruit and nuts, but the caramels and gingerbread are traditional favourites and had to be included as well.

[RWood]

52 minutes ago, keychris said:

They look wonderful, how do you get the perfect orange pattern?

It's done with a texture sheet and cocoa butter. I just spread it on, then when it's set, scrape the excess off, then take a paper towel and buff away what's not in the pattern.

[pastrygirl]

 

 

Relatively simple, but they've been a hit, must be the shiny bags... dark chocolate snowflakes with peppermint oil mixed in and silver dust on both sides.  They're pretty 

[rajoress]

The chocolates on this thread look amazing! Beautiful job RWood, gap, and pastrygirl! Can I ask where you got the snowflake molds for your peppermint snowflakes?

[pastrygirl]

Rajoress, they are two different styles of CK hobby molds that I got from Global Sugar Art last year.