Report: eGullet Chocolate and Confectionary Workshop 2023

[FauxPas]

Love these photos. But this one in particular makes me think of "like kids in a candy shop." 🙂

 

[Chocolot]

The next day, Gaylene and Willow went off for their own adventures, and my friend Karen and I did ours. Karen wanted to go to the upper west side as she a goal to get some chocolate Babka. As we walked over from Central Park, I texted a friend who lives there and told her we were in the area. Tara Bench, @tarateaspoon, has worked for Martha Stewart, Ladies Home Journal, is on the Today show and other national shows, cookbook author, food stylist and on and on:). Anyway, we were lucky enough to have her join us for our own short walking tour of food in the UWS. She showed us around her neighborhood, all the produce vendors right on the corners, and the local shops. It is a really nice area. If anyone is interested, check her out. Anyway, we went to Kee's Chocolates. If we thought SWMS was small, Kee's is tiny! The clerk didn't know much about the flavors and referred us to the website. They aren't as flashy as SWMS, but she has really nice flavors. Also, the Creme Brulee has a shelf life of 3 days if refrigerated. The rest are 1 week.

Edited May 22, 2023 by Chocolot
typo (log)

[rotuts]

Thank you for everybody 

 

for bringing us along .

 

now chocolate , dark  :  there it is 

 

enjoyed the stunning work on the various 

 

individual chocolates 

 

and of course , the Good Eats for the participants .

 

so

 

thank your !

[Chocolot]

We were still on the UWS, and we were seeking pastries. Tara suggested Breads Bakery as having really good chocolate Babka, so off we went. We got several lovely pastries there, but must have been too busy eating to take a picture. Next, we walked to the original Levain bakery and went down those steep steps. The cookies are huge! the chocolate chip is the iconic one, but I liked the chocolate peanut butter chip one. We were then on our way to the train, and as we walked by a shop, William Greenberg, I asked Tara if there was anything more we needed. She said, of course, you need a black and white cookie. Who were we to say no? In we go for more cookies. I ordered two so I could take back to Willow and Gaylene. I didn't realize until I got back to the hotel, he had put 4 in the bag. Karen said he told her that it was the end of the day, so he included extra. Just what we needed:). They are huge! Really good, but more like cake than a cookie. 

This ends our NYC food tour. Hopefully Willow and Gaylene will add.

[Chocolot]

Now, back to business. 

I will post some random pictures and see if I can remember what we were doing at the time. 

Bernie showing us all his secrets to making Sponge Toffee.

[curls]

Heading home from a wonderful workshop. Will include more details later. Took the opportunity to stop in State College Pennsylvania and visit the Berkey Creamery. I've heard so much about their ice cream program and this is my first visit.

 

Enjoyed their death by chocolate ice cream and sampled the peachy paterno ice cream. Both were delicious with a wonderful texture and flavor.

 

The store has various sizes of ice cream to go along with insulated bags and dry ice. I'm going to have a look and take a half gallon or two home.

Edited May 22, 2023 by curls (log)

[Chocolot]

Willow and Gaylene have the same birthday. May 20. Rodney made them each a special cake and we celebrated.

[Chocolot]

We tried something different this year. We asked various attendees to show us one of their skills. It was certainly optional whether or not you watched. 

Elizabeth showing us how to make our own colored cocoa butter.

[Chocolot]

Haley and Britnee showing how to decorate molds. They are both very artistic.

 

Gaylene showing a pipeable PDF

 

Willow making a vegan caramel

[Chocolot]

Liron piping marshmallow and making a crunch layer.

Dave and Donna watching something.

Maddie helping Dave.

Kerry duplicating a coconut treat that Bob sent us to try. She nailed it on her first attempt.

 

 

Edited May 22, 2023 by Chocolot
typo as usual (log)

[Chocolot]

Our supply table. Some from sponsors, some from Kerry. Had lots of ingredients to choose from. A huge thanks to our sponsors for what they sent.

And Tomric was wonderful. What a facility. Brian, Ben and Meredith were terrific help. Brian even got to show us how to change guitar strings:).

 

[Chocolot]

Breakfast and lunch were a hit, thanks to Rodney and Patty. So much work to put on one of these workshops!

Rodney is a magician! So good. Worth coming to the workshops if only for his pastries.

 

[Chocolot]

Now a word from our sponsors.

Tomric was fantastic. What a facility, employees and equipment.

Bahvani from Melangers.com was very generous and came and demonstrated his machines and gave great advise. 

Thermoworks. 

chocolat chocolat

Fuji

Chef Rubber

Mec 3

Callebaut

Guittard chocolate

Gouter

EzTemper

Boiron

[Chocolot]

Personal takeaways:

I can make caramel with the wet method and be happy

I think I can now make sponge toffee

I can make my own colors

I know what to use for small decorations in molds

Vegan isn't a dirty word

That Rodney is an incredible baker

That we belong to an incredible group of people who enjoy teaching each other and learning new things.

Looking forward to next year!

 

Edited May 22, 2023 by Chocolot
pix (log)

[curls]

On 5/21/2023 at 8:10 PM, Kerry Beal said:

Hopefully as everyone gets home they put up their pictures.

 

Also as we have done in past years - if you could suggest one thing you learned from the workshop. That's my favorite part. 

 

Many thanks to Kerry, Patty, Rodney, Ruth, and everyone else who helped organize and implement this workshop!

 

I learned that I need to think about and re-evaluate my workflows and figure out what I can improve and streamline. When Gaylene showed us how she makes her pipeable pdf, I realized that her process is much more efficient and uses a lot less dishes and equipment than my process. There are many ways to do the same things but some ways are far more efficient than others and it would be great for me to cut down on my dish washing.

 

Not too many more pictures for me to post but here are the last few.

 

Fruit chocolates in the melanger -- @patris made a banana chocolate & @Haley made a mango chocolate. Both used freeze dried fruits from Trader Joes.

  

 

Another day, another amazing breakfast from Rodney / @Alleguede

 

 

The caramel that was added to the hazelnuts to make a hazelnut praline in the melanger. This is a dry caramel made with glucose and sugar.

 

 

A bon bon with a red currant jelly base -- later topped with cheesecake and a piped graham cracker base. A great experiment but needs a lot more work before it is a sell-able piece. Got lots of good advice from the workshop attendees on how they made their cheesecake bon bons and cookie bases.

 

Sunday afternoon, an unplanned sightseeing trip to Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House.

 

On the drive back home, a stop at Penn State's Berkey Creamery. Enjoyed a serving of their Death by Chocolate ice cream and picked up some ice cream, cheese, and beef sticks to take home.

  

 

 

Added to my collection of dipping bowls made by @patris. Love her pottery!

 

 

The contents of our swag bags from the workshop sponsors!

  

 

 

 

The ThermoWorks IR Thermometer that I won as part of our workshop raffle.

 

Thank you to all our sponsors!!!

 

[tikidoc]

I didn’t take many pictures, but a partial list of things I learned this year:

 

1. Making colored cocoa butters. Looking forward to experimenting with this. I like color.

2. Painting molds, and the tip of using nail art tools to do so. Opens a whole new world of decoration. Tools from Amazon already arrived, a big set for under $10.

3. Bernie’s sponge toffee. Yum! Will definitely try this.

4. Leaf croquant. Willow, Gaylene and I (I was pretty much a go-fer and observer both times) tried this several years ago in Las Vegas, and although the flavor was good, the texture was not right. Willow really nailed it this year. It appears that the problem may have been doing it on a marble surface last time, which lowered the temp too much/fast. It was done on the metal counter this time, and the ingredients stayed fluid longer, allowing for better mixing/lamination. I have granite countertops but plan to try it on a full sheet pan with a silpat, sitting on a wood cutting board. I’m thinking this one may also be do-able.

[Haley]

Such a great workshop! The highlights for me were
*sponge toffee technique (I’ve tried and failed in the past and now I’m excited to try again with a better understanding of the temperatures and timing thanks to Bernie)

*playing with the melanger and getting tips and advice from Rodney for where to start with my experiments now that I have my own

*talking to everyone and hearing about each other’s businesses and triumphs and struggles. Thanks to this amazing group for all the support and willingness to share!

[curls]

Someone at the workshop sandwiched a red berry pdf in between two cookies and ran it thru the enrober. Just wanted to say that it is one of my favorite chocolates that I brought home from the workshop. I think @Choco Monsterand @tikidocmade these. Simple but very yummy!

[tikidoc]

13 hours ago, curls said:

Someone at the workshop sandwiched a red berry pdf in between two cookies and ran it thru the enrober. Just wanted to say that it is one of my favorite chocolates that I brought home from the workshop. I think @Choco Monsterand @tikidocmade these. Simple but very yummy!

Yup, that was us, but the credit for that one belongs to Gaylene - we used the leftovers of her pipeable raspberry pdf, which was amazing. The cookies were the thin lemon cookies from Trader Joe’s, which are one of my favorite store-bought cookies. We decided to use up leftover fillings on the last day, and we also enrobed some caramel on TJ’s speculoos (another favorite cookie), which were also nice.

[Jim D.]

@curls wrote:  "Got lots of good advice from the workshop attendees on how they made their cheesecake bon bons and cookie bases."

 

I am interested in learning if there was a consensus on the subject of using whole cookies (surrounded by some sort of moisture barrier) vs. crushing cookies, combining them with cocoa butter/chocolate, and then piping them as a cookie layer.  I have always used whole cookies, but it is a pain to fit them into the molds and keep them below the top edge of each cavity.  I took one of Kalle Jungstedt's online courses, and he always uses a cookie layer--which, of course, he makes look effortless.  My experiments with doing it both ways suggest a whole cookie can be crisper than a layer of crushed cookies, but there is no question that a piped layer is easier.  Nearly all of the ultra-neat halved bonbons one sees online (such as those from Jessica Washburn's Bliss Chocolatier) appear to have used a piped layer.

[curls]

1 hour ago, Jim D. said:

@curls wrote:  "Got lots of good advice from the workshop attendees on how they made their cheesecake bon bons and cookie bases."

 

I am interested in learning if there was a consensus on the subject of using whole cookies (surrounded by some sort of moisture barrier) vs. crushing cookies, combining them with cocoa butter/chocolate, and then piping them as a cookie layer.  I have always used whole cookies, but it is a pain to fit them into the molds and keep them below the top edge of each cavity.  I took one of Kalle Jungstedt's online courses, and he always uses a cookie layer--which, of course, he makes look effortless.  My experiments with doing it both ways suggest a whole cookie can be crisper than a layer of crushed cookies, but there is no question that a piped layer is easier.  Nearly all of the ultra-neat halved bonbons one sees online (such as those from Jessica Washburn's Bliss Chocolatier) appear to have used a piped layer.

 

A lot of people at the workshop have taken some of Kalle Jungstedt's online courses and are using his piped crunchy layer or their variation on his recipes or recipes they created. Jim, I hope that they will reply to your query about cookie layers - pipeable and cut outs ( @Haley @Britney @YetiChocolates @Gwbyls @lironp). I found it very easy to pipe Jungstedt's crunchy layer (used the non-nut version) but I did not like it as the bottom layer of the bonbon -- it made for messy bottoms. When I try it again, I will leave room to pipe the crunchy layer and then add a thin layer of chocolate over that to cap the bonbon. I really don't want to bother with making and cutting out cookie centers and adding those to my bonbons.

[Chocoguyin Pemby]

Thanks to all who posted their pictures and for all the comments and creative ideas - i really want to attend this and will do hopefully next year - I am already planning on it and have told my perfect partner that I need a week off in May to do this.  And kudos to all who helped organize the event so we could follow from afar!

[Kerry Beal]

3 hours ago, Chocoguyin Pemby said:

Thanks to all who posted their pictures and for all the comments and creative ideas - i really want to attend this and will do hopefully next year - I am already planning on it and have told my perfect partner that I need a week off in May to do this.  And kudos to all who helped organize the event so we could follow from afar!

Excellent! I look forward to meeting you in person.

 

We haven't firmed up the venue yet but as soon as we have we will start a planning thread for next year.

 

 

[Kerry Beal]

Anyone missing anything from melangers.com that they were expecting shipped? Small issue with lost notes.