Confections! What did we make? (2017 – )

[Kerry Beal]

2 hours ago, gfron1 said:

 

Rob - Lookie here - just a bit back in this same topic I made a batch of this.

 

Actually just made another batch today. And that stuff you linked to is likely not silicone - it can be remelted which silicone can't I believe. 

Edited January 16, 2017 by Kerry Beal (log)

[gfron1]

2 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

Rob - Lookie here - just a bit back in this same topic I made a batch of this.

 

Actually just made another batch today. And that stuff you linked to is likely not silicone - it can be remelted which silicone can't I believe. 

 

Yep, I missed that. Thanks for flagging it for me. I do have glycerin.

[Kerry Beal]

1 hour ago, gfron1 said:

Yep, I missed that. Thanks for flagging it for me. I do have glycerin.

But do you have 5 kg like I now do?

[Stu Jordan]

On 9/01/2017 at 8:18 AM, Kerry Beal said:

Electronic guillotine? Tell us more.

I don't have a photo, but I use it for hard caramels, nougats etc.  It has a conveyer belt which can be reversed, guards to prevent fingers being chopped off, and guides on each side of the blade so the item can't stick to the blade when it comes back up after cutting. It works off an air compressor and single phase power. The speed of the belt can be adjusted, as can the speed of the blade, so I can cut various sizes. We can cut a slab of hard caramels or nougats in about 3 minutes. Cool toy, will try and get a wee video of it working.

[Kerry Beal]

8 hours ago, Stu Jordan said:

I don't have a photo, but I use it for hard caramels, nougats etc.  It has a conveyer belt which can be reversed, guards to prevent fingers being chopped off, and guides on each side of the blade so the item can't stick to the blade when it comes back up after cutting. It works off an air compressor and single phase power. The speed of the belt can be adjusted, as can the speed of the blade, so I can cut various sizes. We can cut a slab of hard caramels or nougats in about 3 minutes. Cool toy, will try and get a wee video of it working.

Thanks Stu - I shall await your video with bated breath!

[kriz6912]

Chocolate flowers showpiece. Part 1 of 3; to be continued...

 

Edited February 3, 2017 by kriz6912 (log)

[curls]

Valentine's Day is almost here... time to fill the heart moulds!

[pastryani]

Nice work @curls!  What did you use for the red stripes on the gold hearts?  At first I thought it was red cocoa butter, but the lines are too clean (and there are no drops).  Then I thought white chocolate with red cocoa butter, but for me that's resulted in pink, not red... so I'm intrigued.  

[keychris]

coloured white chocolate is my guess @pastryani. just need more colour to make it red not pink

[curls]

7 hours ago, pastryani said:

Nice work @curls!  What did you use for the red stripes on the gold hearts?  At first I thought it was red cocoa butter, but the lines are too clean (and there are no drops).  Then I thought white chocolate with red cocoa butter, but for me that's resulted in pink, not red... so I'm intrigued.  

Thank you @pastryani! I did use white chocolate with red cocoa butter - add enough and you don't wind up with pink.

 

Just saw that keychris answered too... and guessed correctly.

Edited February 11, 2017 by curls (log)

[pastrygirl]

 

Valentines collections- gold are milk chocolate salty caramel, black are caramel mocha, red & white have amarena cherry and hazelnut. 

 

 

[ChocoMom]

It didn't take long for me to annihilate the new shop. Apparently, I'm a bit rusty after a year's hiatus. I accidentally left the cover on the end of the new airbrush, so when I went to spray the new molds, all the hot pink METALLIC cocoa butter splattered right.in.my.face, and on the walls, ceiling and refrigerator. Guess we could say it was a christening, of sorts.  Anyways, I'm still moving things around, developing a workflow...but managed to produce some pieces of Vday.  

Black and white....Shotts' vanilla/espresso in 72%

Gold swirl.....Creamed honey+72%

Heart-Paisley.... Key Lime

Green/dark....58% + Mint

I also did milk and dark SS caramels, and a 72%+raspberry

[pastryani]

On ‎2‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 7:13 PM, curls said:

Thank you @pastryani! I did use white chocolate with red cocoa butter - add enough and you don't wind up with pink.

 

Just saw that keychris answered too... and guessed correctly.

 

 

Thanks @curls and @keychris.  Will have to try it out sometime.

[Jim D.]

@ChocoMom, welcome back to chocolate production. It's obvious you have not forgotten, in the course of your terrible ordeal, how to make beautiful bonbons. Do you mind telling how you got those nice white dots on the black and white piece? I don't have one of those airbrushes that are adjustable and are good for this sort of decoration, so using various hand-held brushes, I get more splotches and drips and dribbles than dots. I need to find a "brush shop" (like the Container Store) somewhere and keep experimenting.

[ChocoMom]

1 hour ago, Jim D. said:

@ChocoMom, welcome back to chocolate production. It's obvious you have not forgotten, in the course of your terrible ordeal, how to make beautiful bonbons. Do you mind telling how you got those nice white dots on the black and white piece? I don't have one of those airbrushes that are adjustable and are good for this sort of decoration, so using various hand-held brushes, I get more splotches and drips and dribbles than dots. I need to find a "brush shop" (like the Container Store) somewhere and keep experimenting.

Thank you, Jim!  For starters, (and I don't know if it's proper that I did this...but whatever), I added a bit of black cocoa butter to my 72% while it was melting. I wanted a darker backdrop for the white spray...so that seemed to be the most expeditious way to accomplish the goal. I buffed and polished out the mold cavities, then just did a quick spray of the white cocoa butter using the airbrush.  The new airbrush is one I found on Amazon, pretty sure it was a Badger Patriot, or the Master brand one. But it delivered a nice, fine spray (AFTER I took the cover off!).                                                                                  If you're using hand-held brush, try trimming off the length of the bristles, and then dip into the melted cocoa butter, flick off excess, and then try splattering the molds. I found that the shorter bristles couldn't hold as much cocoa butter thus eliminated a lot of the blobs and dribbles. It is time consuming though. I didn't like using my fingers for the splattering when I was using the brush, because so much of the butter ended up on my fingertips, so instead I used the end of a knife or wood skewer to do the splattering for me.  Not sure how much that might help you, but that was my progression into using an airbrush the first time around.  Happy Chocolating!!!  

[Jim D.]

@ChocoMom, Thanks for all that helpful information. I have a Paasche airbrush, which is very similar to the Badger. To use that, you must have sprayed very briefly in each cavity, correct? Otherwise I find that the cocoa butter starts to spread rather quickly (usually that is what one wants, to get full coverage, but not in this case).

 

Jim

[Bentley]

@Jim D. To do a splatter pattern with an airbrush, I find it useful to turn the air pressure way down (<10psi on mine).  Each time I press the trigger on the gun, it sort of sputters and coughs out a splatter of paint.  Experiment with that and see if it gives you what you want.  

[Jim D.]

@Bentley, thanks for that suggestion. I will give it a try.
 

 

[martin0642]

As ever, I am stunned by the artistry of people here - just beautiful. So...figured it was time I put some of my semi-amateur (semi because I do have a chocolate business :)) efforts up! 

 

Large Valentines Hearts (double normal size) -

Dark ones are a 65% shell filled with a little Orange & Balsamic caramel (William Curley recipe) and a firm dark chocolate ganache infused with a little orange zest and cinnamon.

White ones are a Casa Luker white chocolate (yummy!) filled with a homemade hazelnut gianduja.

 

The boxed chocolates are some of my Valentines selection - 

Top row = 70% dark heart with a Vanilla Sencha ganache, Dark and white cup with a fresh coffee ganache, White heart with a morello cherry pate de fruit centre (blended to make it pipeable)

Bottom Row = 70% half dome with an orange & balsamic caramel, 45% Milk heart with a hazelnut praline centre, 65% dark shell with a ginger caramel centre (the caramel is actually a dulce de leche, blended with milk chocolate and pieces of preserved ginger)

 

Then - Dark squares decorated with white and orange cocoa butter - filled with an Orange & Clove ganache

 

Finally - White & Dark chocolate shells, filled with an Apple & Cinnamon ganache (big favourite for many people!)

 

I have to thank the many people who post helpful tips on this board for helping me to be able to do any of these chocolates

 

[pastryani]

Happy Valentine's Day All!   Cinnamon caramel hearts. 

 

[Kerry Beal]

It's been a while since I've made any transfer sheets - I've forgotten a whole lot! I picked up one of the YUDU systems before they stopped selling them - figured I'd use it for the lights to expose my screens. 

 

I picked up some images to use with it when I found them at Michael's for a couple of bucks - so decided to use one of those to help determine exposure time required with the emulsion that I'm using. I need some practice coating the screens so there aren't any drips and the maximum amount of screen is covered (of course the right sized scoop coater is the key to that part).

 

 

 

Don't think a single one of the images is complete between the drips and the coverage of emulsion.

 

 

Printed a couple of transfer sheets (poorly).

 

 

Tempered up some chocolate with the EZtemper silk.

 

 

Made some plaques. 

 

It's a start! Next screens will be finer gauge (these are coarse - next will be 220), the area with the image will take up much less of the screen so the printing is easier. 

 

Fun to play with something I haven't played with for a while.

[kriz6912]

Chocolate flowers showpiece. Part 2 of 3; to be continued...

 

 

[RobertM]

The Bride wanted Buckeyes and Salted Caramels for wedding favors

 

[kriz6912]

Chocolate flowers showpiece. Part 3 of 3

 

 

 

Edited February 22, 2017 by kriz6912 (log)

[keychris]

so do you still describe yourself as just a "hobbyist" @kriz6912

 

amazing as always, thanks for those videos