Confections! (2006-2012)

[choux]

Did you get the guitar from DR? I couldn't convince my husband of my dire need for one, so I'm still working with a knife for now.

[Kerry Beal]

Did you get the guitar from DR? I couldn't convince my husband of my dire need for one, so I'm still working with a knife for now.

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[Desiderio]

Kerry , nice piece of gear!!!( where is the green face??? )

I am about to dip my passion fruit caramels.I am going to a restaurant and at the end of the month for our annyvarsary I have notice they have chocolates in their desserts tray and one of those is passion fruit caramels .I will definately try that and report .

The caramels cut very easy and they smell very good ( I use some Alize as well).I will dip them in El Rey Irapa ( milk ) I think its the best combo for my taste.I will post the pic when I am done and had some feed back from my ghinnypigs

Edited June 12, 2007 by Desiderio (log)

[Desiderio]

Hehe they came out ok ,I need to slow down when I do experiment , I am alwasy in hurry to see the end and then I am not satisfied with the result of my dipping LOL .Oh well

Edited June 13, 2007 by Desiderio (log)

[Kerry Beal]

Hehe they came out ok ,I need to slow down when I do experiment , I am alwasy in hurry to see the end and then I am not satisfied with the result of my dipping LOL .Oh well

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The swirly lines look so classy on those caramels.

[John DePaula]

Ok, so finished off my Dark and Stormies tonight.  The texture was perfect for cutting WITH MY NEW GUITAR.

<snip>

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Ahhhhhh! Congrats, Kerry! I know that you'll enjoy having it!

[Kerry Beal]

Ok, so finished off my Dark and Stormies tonight.  The texture was perfect for cutting WITH MY NEW GUITAR.

<snip>

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Ahhhhhh! Congrats, Kerry! I know that you'll enjoy having it!

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I think it's going to be a good toy for sure. Given my piss poor dipping skills the next toy needs to be an enrober, but only if I can find one for a couple of hundred bucks.

[alanamoana]

Ok, so finished off my Dark and Stormies tonight.  The texture was perfect for cutting WITH MY NEW GUITAR.

<snip>

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Ahhhhhh! Congrats, Kerry! I know that you'll enjoy having it!

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I think it's going to be a good toy for sure. Given my piss poor dipping skills the next toy needs to be an enrober, but only if I can find one for a couple of hundred bucks.

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I'll volunteer to be your enrober if you let me play with your guitar! Oh, I'm so jealous!

[Kerry Beal]

I'll volunteer to be your enrober if you let me play with your guitar!  Oh, I'm so jealous!

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Any time! Then I'll get you to drill me until I learn how to dip properly.

[alanamoana]

I'll volunteer to be your enrober if you let me play with your guitar!  Oh, I'm so jealous!

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Any time! Then I'll get you to drill me until I learn how to dip properly.

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shhhh, don't let everyone else find out how bossy i am!

[Rhubarb]

Good heavens--if you ever find an enrober for a couple hundred bucks, do let us know. I think my heart would stop.

[Mary F]

Congrats Kerry, very exciting!

Alana, not bossy..just perfection. (I picture you holding a class with about 10 of us lined up cracking the whip making us dip, dip, dip until we get it perfect!!)

[alanamoana]

^^

[Serj]

I have a question about caramels for you guys. I had a little bit of beginners luck with them last week - they came out beautifully. I have tried to reproduce twice this week again and they are coming out too soft.

The recipe I am using is (school's recipe):

225g sucrose

33.8g glucose

15.8g sorbitol

135g butter

0.5g lecithin

225g heavy cream (warm)

0.5g baking soda

2.5g vanilla bean

1g salt

So they said at school that you want to cook the sucrose/glucose/sorbitol on a low heat until the white foam on the caramel reaches the outside of the pot. Then add the rest of the ingredients and crank up the heat to max and whisk like crazy until it gets to 120 degrees C. Then let it cool for 30 seconds before casting. The caramel is wrapped in plastic as soon as it comes down in temperature and is let set overnight in a low humidity chocolate cooler.

So the thing is it's really humid here in Chicago right now. The first time it was soft I went to 120, the second time I went to 121. Am I safe to go to 122 degrees or is there something else wrong with the method that is causing them to be soft?

I feel like at times egulleters are often a little more practical than the chefs at school!

Wish I could type without erorrs (joke).

Edited June 14, 2007 by Serj (log)

[Trishiad]

Wow, what a lot of ingredients. Your recipe is a bit more complicated than any I use. I can tell you that my caramel cools for at least 24 hours before I slice it. Sometimes, if it's really hot or humid, I find that it doesn't set as hard as I would like and I do sometimes cook it 2-3 degrees farther to account for the weather. I think caramel likes a cool room temp for setting. Perhaps you could let it cool in the low humidity fridge before wrapping?

[Serj]

Yeah it is a lot of ingredients... that's the way the FPS rolls... they are pretty good though, soft or not. When I said they get wrapped, the casted caramel just gets wrapped in plastic wrap to prevent any skin from forming. A lot of people in my class seem to be having issues with varying degrees of softness. I imagine it has something to do with differences in thermometers - I calibrated mine and it seems to be accurate.

I know that it doesnt take a lot of degrees more to turn soft caramel into hard caramel, so I guess it's just about finding the middle ground...

[Desiderio]

TO me it seems like to much liquid for the sugar.I use that kinda of formula to make caramel sauce But I guess it doesnt matter since you cook everything together after the first stage ( as long as you get to the temperature right?).Maybe the microclimate of the kitchen really influences the results.

[Kerry Beal]

I've found that different days the same cooking temperature gives you different results. I think the suggestions to go a couple of degrees higher when it is humid are very practical.

[FWED]

I don't know if this applies here but I have found that with some confections that I have made, especially Pates de Fruit, its not only how high the temperature that you are trying to reach but the how long it takes to reach that point. I know that I did a patch of Pates de Fruits one time and it reached the required temp quite fast (this was before I started using a refractometer) and yet the finished product was soft and runny. Once I remelted it and took it to the temp again it set up as expected. Don't know if this helps but I thought I would mention it.

[Serj]

So yesterday I cooked off another batch but somehow managed to burn some of the diary so there were black specks all over the place when I casted it. I cooked it to 122C and the consistency was good. I did another batch today to 122C and was a little more careful with the whisking (trying to evaporate liquid ASAP) and it came out PERFECT! Thanks for the comments guys.

[prairiegirl]

I hope I'm doing this right!

I finally got the frog mould. I am going to mould a lillypad and the frogs will be sitting on top and will go as a gift to my daughter's grade 4 teacher. Apparently there is some kind of inside joke with the kids in the classroom and the teacher!!

Edited June 19, 2007 by prairiegirl (log)

[Kerry Beal]

I hope I'm doing this right!

I finally got the frog mould.  I am going to mould a lillypad and the frogs will be sitting on top and will go as a gift to my daughter's grade 4 teacher.  Apparently there is some kind of inside joke with the kids in the classroom and the teacher!!

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Great colouring!!!! What are you going to use for lillypads?

[prairiegirl]

For the lilipads I went to a garden supply place. They gave me a lilly pad leaf and I used that for moulding. Usually I also check to make sure the leaf is not poisonous but this time I didn't have time! I used the airbrush and sprayed the leaf with green cocoa butter by PCB. I sprayed it quite thoroughly and then put a layer of white chocolate to give a stronger base and to bring out the green. All the veins in the leaf came thru quite well with the end product.

[Varmint]

I made bourbon marshmallows last night for a "deconstructed rocky road sundae" I'm serving for dessert on Saturday. The marshmallows weren't as airy as I wanted, but good nonetheless. I'm also making a bittersweet chocolate sorbet, candied almonds, roasted bing cherries (and sauce) and an almond tuile as part of the dessert.

[Desiderio]

Made orange flavored Turkish Delights.They came out perfect, perfect taste perfect texture.A friend of mine , brought me a bag of mix flavored turkish delights from Canada ,a while back , and I have to say this ones came pretty close in texture and probably better in flavor.Next I will make lemon, raspberry and dates /pistachios ones.Yummy.