Confections! What did we make? (2017 – )

[Jim D.]

Chocolate assortment for May 2020, clockwise starting with orange sphere at top: dark chocolate ganache with orange & spiced honey, Irish coffee ganache topped with a coffee bean, "lemon meringue pie" (marshmallow meringue, lemon ganache, shortbread crust), "pecan pie" (dark caramel, pecan praline gianduja, pecan shortbread), strawberry ganache with St-Germain elderflower liqueur, caramel flavored with mango & passion fruit, hazelnut caramel, Speculoos cookie butter, apricot pâte de fruit & pistachio gianduja:

 

 

Flowers on the outside, strawberry and elderflower on the inside:

 

[GRiker]

Those look great!  The lemon sounds especially refreshing!  If you have an extra one, will you show what the inside looks like?

49 minutes ago, Jim D. said:

 "lemon meringue pie" (marshmallow meringue, lemon ganache, shortbread crust)

[Rajala]

 

These are my coffee caramel and tonka bonbons.

[GRiker]

21 minutes ago, Rajala said:

These are my coffee caramel and tonka bonbons.

Wow! Look at the shine and love the colors with the flavors! 

[Jim D.]

23 hours ago, GRiker said:

Those look great!  The lemon sounds especially refreshing!  If you have an extra one, will you show what the inside looks like?

 

As requested:

 

 

(with thanks to pastrypastmidnight for her tips on doing "the cut," at which she is a recognized master)

 

Tasting a new bonbon all assembled and ready to go is always different (to me) from tasting the components during production. This tasting told me the Notter lemon ganache recipe is great, but, when paired with marshmallow, it could use more zest. It's not clearly visible, but below the lemon there is a thin "moisture barrier" of white chocolate flavored with the wonderful Boyajian lemon oil, keeping the cookie crisp.

 

I made some new discoveries about making pipeable marshmallow (this was the best it has ever turned out--it even self-leveled as I piped it into the molds), and I have incorporated those into the recipe I posted on using marshmallow in bonbons.

Edited May 29, 2020 by Jim D.
Edited to add comments on marshmallow (log)

[jimb0]

4 hours ago, Jim D. said:

Chocolate assortment for May 2020, clockwise starting with orange sphere at top: dark chocolate ganache with orange & spiced honey, Irish coffee ganache topped with a coffee bean, "lemon meringue pie" (marshmallow meringue, lemon ganache, shortbread crust), "pecan pie" (dark caramel, pecan praline gianduja, pecan shortbread), strawberry ganache with St-Germain elderflower liqueur, caramel flavored with mango & passion fruit, hazelnut caramel, Speculoos cookie butter, apricot pâte de fruit & pistachio gianduja:

 

would eat all of these, repeatedly

 

2 hours ago, Rajala said:

These are my coffee caramel and tonka bonbons.

 

these, too; they look delicious and i love tonka beans. i'm actually making some coffee caramels tomorrow.

 

1 hour ago, Jim D. said:

 

nice stratification!

[Rajala]

5 hours ago, jimb0 said:

these, too; they look delicious and i love tonka beans. i'm actually making some coffee caramels tomorrow.

 

Thank you! It's a bit weird that I loathe coffee as a drink, but in sweets and pastry? All good!

[minas6907]

Just something I wanted to show, a work in progress. A few weeks ago, I got a copy of An Encyclopedia of Candy and Ice Cream Making by Simon Leon on ebay (theres still another copy listed for $42). Heres two items I've been long wanting to make. Jelly Beans and Jordan Almonds. I obviously cant mold the jelly beans into a starch bed (mixture too thick, needs a machine to deposit), so I dusted a half sheet pan with starch, spread the mixture out, covered with more starch, and into the oven to dry for a few days. After I cut into pieces, and back into the oven for a few days. The end result was quite firm, closer to a jelly bean then I thought I would get. They were then soft sugar panned. They dont look perfect, but not too bad for being homemade (and first try). Currently, I have some black anise flavored jelly beans (my favorite) awaiting panning, I'll post those when I get to finishing them. The Jordan almonds were made with a syrup that has gum arabic in it, that was the first time seeing them formulated like that. I just decided to go with it. A little syrup + a heat gun, that shell built up in about 1.5 hours. One drawback (at least in my apartment) the hard panning the almonds is loud, I was a little concerned about the noise. For the jordan almonds, I want to build up the coating more, I'm only about 1/2 way through that recipe, so we'll see how the final result looks. Next step is polishing with wax. Honestly not sure if I should go straight bees wax or mix bees wax and carnauba, thats still a in the research phase. Any suggestions are more then welcome.

[Darienne]

10 hours ago, minas6907 said:

Just something I wanted to show, a work in progress. A few weeks ago, I got a copy of An Encyclopedia of Candy and Ice Cream Making by Simon Leon on ebay (theres still another copy listed for $42). Heres two items I've been long wanting to make. Jelly Beans and Jordan Almonds. I obviously cant mold the jelly beans into a starch bed (mixture too thick, needs a machine to deposit), so I dusted a half sheet pan with starch, spread the mixture out, covered with more starch, and into the oven to dry for a few days. After I cut into pieces, and back into the oven for a few days. The end result was quite firm, closer to a jelly bean then I thought I would get. They were then soft sugar panned. They dont look perfect, but not too bad for being homemade (and first try). Currently, I have some black anise flavored jelly beans (my favorite) awaiting panning, I'll post those when I get to finishing them. The Jordan almonds were made with a syrup that has gum arabic in it, that was the first time seeing them formulated like that. I just decided to go with it. A little syrup + a heat gun, that shell built up in about 1.5 hours. One drawback (at least in my apartment) the hard panning the almonds is loud, I was a little concerned about the noise. For the jordan almonds, I want to build up the coating more, I'm only about 1/2 way through that recipe, so we'll see how the final result looks. Next step is polishing with wax. Honestly not sure if I should go straight bees wax or mix bees wax and carnauba, thats still a in the research phase. Any suggestions are more then welcome.

 

 

Wonderful as ever, @minas6907.  You truly are my confectionery hero.  And if I ever get back to your hometown, I will make sure to meet you and try some of your excellent goodies.  

[Rajala]

Lingonberry chocolate, bacon ganache, potato crisp layer.

 

[Jim D.]

59 minutes ago, Rajala said:

Lingonberry chocolate, bacon ganache, potato crisp layer.

You are really heading into uncharted territory now.  Sounds delicious, though certainly too far out there for my customers, but still interesting.  Can you say more about the three flavors and how they were made?  Bacon has been discussed a lot on eGullet, and, if I recall correctly, the consensus was that bacon fat gave better flavor than bacon itself.

[jimb0]

21 hours ago, minas6907 said:

 

well if that ain't impressive as all get-out. inspiring.

Edited June 3, 2020 by jimb0 (log)

[Rajala]

6 hours ago, Jim D. said:

You are really heading into uncharted territory now.  Sounds delicious, though certainly too far out there for my customers, but still interesting.  Can you say more about the three flavors and how they were made?  Bacon has been discussed a lot on eGullet, and, if I recall correctly, the consensus was that bacon fat gave better flavor than bacon itself.

 

Yeah, the bacon is there - but I would probably try to enhance it more if I were to make this again, like you say; with fat in the ganache as well. The lingonberry chocolate is 100 grams of freeze dried lingonberry, 380 grams och cocoa butter, 520 grams of sugar and 5 grams of lecithin. The potato crisp is "grinded" potato chips that I mixed with some almond butter, salt and cocoa butter to get a better and more solid texture. There's a dish called "raggmunk", from where I live, that's potato pancake served with a few slices of fried pork belly and lingonberry jam, so I tried to make that into a bonbon.

[Rajala]

Bonbons with salty liquorice caramel. Most likely very few here would enjoy these?

 

[minas6907]

On 6/2/2020 at 7:09 AM, Darienne said:

Wonderful as ever, @minas6907.  You truly are my confectionery hero.  And if I ever get back to your hometown, I will make sure to meet you and try some of your excellent goodies.  

Thank you very much for your kind words. Let me know anytime 🙂

 

On 6/2/2020 at 6:15 PM, jimb0 said:

 

well if that ain't impressive as all get-out. inspiring.

 

Thank you! 🙂

 

21 hours ago, Rajala said:

Bonbons with salty liquorice caramel. Most likely very few here would enjoy these?

 

That looks delicious! Any chance you'd share your formula? 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

7 minutes ago, minas6907 said:

Thank you very much for your kind words. Let me know anytime 🙂

 

Thank you! 🙂

 

That looks delicious! Any chance you'd share your formula? 

 

It does look delicious.  How do you feel about ammonia as a food group?

 

[Rajala]

3 hours ago, minas6907 said:

That looks delicious! Any chance you'd share your formula? 

 

 I make a regular caramel by pouring 100 grams of water in a saucepan, followed by 300 grams of caster sugar and 50 grams of glucose. Deglaze with 200 grams of cream when you get that dark amber color and it's basically ready. I don't boil it anymore after that, it gets a nice consistency as is. This is a great base I believe, I used it for my hazelnut caramel where I add 50 grams of hazelnut paste. For the salty liquorice caramel, I just add q.s. of this https://lakridsbybulow.com/products/salty-liquorice-syrup/170g

[Chocoguyin Pemby]

I made some passion fruit mango caramels for the first time tonight.  They taste great but are softer than I expected.  I make a lot of caramel and cooked this the same way i always do and cooked it too 255F.  I used frozen puree - should I reduce the purees before adding to the caramel - I added it with the cream by subbing the purees for half the cream of the same weight.   I really like the flavour profile just want them to be a little firmer.  Should I just cook the caramel to a higher temp ?    It was also a very different consistency when I poured it into the silicone molds - much more fluid than the caramel I normally make but it set up a lot firmer than I expected just not as firm as I wanted. 

 

I didn't use a recipe - made my own using sugar, corn syrup, cream, purees, butter, vanilla and salt.

 

Any trouble shooting or suggestions appreciated.  The picture is of the caramels waiting to be dipped in dark chocolate tomorrow. 

Edited June 13, 2020 by Chocoguyin Pemby (log)

[gfron1]

Huckleberry & buttermilk

[RWood]

Made a couple quick things for my dad for his birthday/Father's Day this week. 

Beer caramels, some just wrapped and a few dipped in milk chocolate with smoked Maldon flakes. 

This was a recipe that I hadn't tried before, and they came out too soft. So, I chilled a few as I was dipping, but they will probably have little blow outs. I used an aged Belgian style beer called Allagash. 

And, the other was a request from my mom. Spanish red skin peanut clusters with white chocolate. But, my dad loves them too.

 

[GRiker]

18 minutes ago, RWood said:

Made a couple quick things for my dad for his birthday/Father's Day this week

 

Lucky parents. 🙂 Those look nice!

[pastrygirl]

‘Tis the season for bitching about hot kitchens, at least in the northern hemisphere. I decided to quit whining and see if I could make bonbons anyway.  Success!  Room temp is about 80f (low humidity, at least) but with frequent refrigeration they still came out nicely. L-R, passion fruit, vanilla, honey caramel, rum caramel, cinnamon mocha. 

 

 

Edited July 26, 2020 by pastrygirl (log)

[curls]

Beautiful bon bons @pastrygirl!

 

I’m waiting for cooler weather; it is 95 F in my area. While my work space has AC and is in the 70s, it is difficult to deliver chocolates when it is so hot. Hope I struck the appropriate amount of complaining about the weather. 😉

[Jim D.]

@pastrygirl, beautiful, and a great shine, especially for 80F. I did not fare so well at 70F. The dark items came out beautifully, but the milk ones stuck horribly. It's a first time for 4 molds turned upside down, tapped, and.... nothing came out. With some perseverance (and time in the freezer), I eventually got almost all of them out.

 

But back to your hearts. I love the decoration on the honey caramel, a sly hint of what's inside. Did you paint on the stripes?  I did that once and thought I would cut my wrists before I finished. And I like the concept of cinnamon mocha. Is that one a caramel or ganache?  Having tasted your caramels, I can attest to their excellence. Are you sure you don't need some more Aw readings done in exchange for aforementioned caramels?

[pastrygirl]

@Jim D. I was actually surprised they all came out, it was a very ‘here goes nothing’ project. But I basically kept them refrigerated between every step, and at least the airbrush doesn’t clog up as fast 😂   For the stripes, I piped dark chocolate in a quick zigzag across the mold then sprayed with gold to fill in the gaps. The fillings were random bits from the freezer, the mocha one was layered (weirdly viscous) milk chocolate  cinnamon ganache and dark chocolate coffee caramel ganache. I probably do need more aw readings! 
 

@curls yeah it’s supposed to be 90 here tomorrow, these will all go into the freezer to sell online later. 

Edited July 26, 2020 by pastrygirl (log)