Kindred spirits!

[Wisp]

I was reading about pretzel salt on "The Fresh Loaf", followed a suggestion to do a google search on "pretzel salt wax", and was mesmerized by a discussion I found here. I didn't know this website existed, and here was someone panning salt with carnauba wax, and mailing it to someone else who did a series of pretzel bakes to see how it turned out, and actually posting follow-up photos on how the bake went! I am now hooked. I also have done a pretzel test some time ago, comparing the different coating, dipping, boiling methods that I've come across; baked baking soda is ok; lye is the best. I read a panning thread, and someone suggested using an Ankarsrum (Magic Mill) turned on its side; this is something I've tried already! It kind of worked, but I don't know what I'm doing. It made lots of doubles when I tried chocolate almonds, and also flung jelly beans out at me when trying that. I may make a shield for it to deflect them back into the bowl. However, polishing was a failure; I don't understand the airflow and temperature control needed, and likely need to learn more than just that. I've been making milk chocolate from home-roasted nibs lately, and would really like to candy-coat them with bright, shiny colorful shells. I've also been tinkering with making candy using 4:1 dextrose to sucrose ratio instead of all sucrose, with some success. My food dabbling is on my own time, after my "day job". It's fun and interesting figuring out how to do things. 

[Tropicalsenior]

Welcome! It sounds like you have come to the right place and you are the kind of people that we love to hear from. This is the most educational Forum on the internet. It's all first-hand knowledge and experience with mutual cooperation and information-sharing. You can spend absolutely hours, even days just learning new things and learning about food from other countries from our members in other lands.

One of the best features is the help from other members. If you have a question about anything just start a new topic and ask. Someone here will have the answer. I know that you will enjoy being here as much as I have.

[Kim Shook]

Welcome to eG, @Wisp!  Love your kitty avatar!  I think you'll find lots of help with fairly arcane cooking stuff here.  We have a bevy of extremely knowledgeable and generous members.

[TdeV]

Also, @Wisp, eGulleteers are often very funny. Hope you find fast friends. Welcome.

[Jon S]

Happy to have someone with so many questions and bringing their own wisdom of experiments.

 Glad you are here and that you’ve found us! You definitely belong! 😆 

 

Good look with the candy, can’t wait to see photos of attempts or showing off the hard earned ideal lol 😉 (Humbly of course!)

[Wisp]

Thanks everybody! I'm looking forward to it! 

[Wisp]

@Kim Shook thanks, that is my very own kitty. I imagine he's thinking "Ok, now that I'm seated at the table, surely they will serve me a nice plate of dinner!"

 

A few minutes later, he popped up onto the table and started creeping towards the food. Nice try, buddy!

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I once had a kitty who made off with a steak.  After that we had a rule that anyone on the table was fair game for being eaten.

 

[Kim Shook]

19 hours ago, Wisp said:

@Kim Shook thanks, that is my very own kitty. I imagine he's thinking "Ok, now that I'm seated at the table, surely they will serve me a nice plate of dinner!"

 

A few minutes later, he popped up onto the table and started creeping towards the food. Nice try, buddy!

We used to have one that would jump up into a recently vacated chair at the table (usually mine, since I was the cook and up and down a lot) and reach just his arm up to try to snag something off the plate.  It was such a parlour trick that he'd sometimes succeed while we were busy laughing at it.