Confections! (2006-2012)

[Kerry Beal]

I only had some basic shapes before. I'm still looking for a hedgehog mold, if anyone might know where to find one.

Tomric Systems Inc carries a hedgehog mold in two sizes.

I recently splurged on a few new molds, and am still working out the kinks. I only had some basic shapes before. I'm still looking for a hedgehog mold, if anyone might know where to find one.

Chocolat Chocolat carries 2 hedgehog molds. The smaller one CW1213 has 12 pieces, the larger one CW2259 has 18 pieces, but the actual size of the piece is the same for both

Those are all essentially the same mold - but as Dave says one has 12 and one has 15. Shipping will likely be a lot cheaper from Tomric if you are in the states. Tomric also carries colours made for them by Chef Rubber and they cost about $20 each.

[piracer]

i dont know if macarons count as confectionery but i made a roasted pumpkin pie-spiced macaron to welcome in the fall. The roasted pumpkin was mixed with pate a bombe from the left over egg yolks and i think is is a pretty solid substitution for butter cream that utilized the yolks. Quite pleased with the results.

[Mjx]

i dont know if macarons count as confectionery but i made a roasted pumpkin pie-spiced macaron to welcome in the fall. The roasted pumpkin was mixed with pate a bombe from the left over egg yolks and i think is is a pretty solid substitution for butter cream that utilized the yolks. Quite pleased with the results.

I really like the sound of this! Much as I like macarons, I find the butter-cream to be a real drawback, since it almost invariably leaves me feeling a bit queasy, sometimes even if I eat just one.

[Kerry Beal]

Those look fabulous!

[Viktoria]

Those macaro'ns look amazing. I haven't had the courage to try making those yet.

I got some new candy rulers to play with. A family member made them for me. My first time using them!

So I made chocolate molasses caramels. I love the molasses flavor. unfortunately they came out REALLY chewy. Too hard, I think. I'll try and cook them to a slightly lower temperature next time. What would the fat ratio in the caramel do to the texture?

I had some trouble with the chocolate as well. Lots of air bubbles, and I had some trouble with the temper, which isn't usually as issue.

[piracer]

oh those look pretty good! the air bubbles dont seem to be much of a problem if i had that, then again, ive never made my own chocolate like that.

Whats a candy ruler btw? I've never used one or heard of one.

[YetiChocolates]

Molasses Caramels!! What a great idea Viktoria, I love the molasses flavor as well. The thought never crossed my mind to make a molasses caramel, but I might have to give that a try. As for the air bubbles, if you are hand tempering your chocolate in a bowl, I'd just give it a few taps on the table before dipping to release the air bubbles trapped from too much aeration during tempering. I've had that happen many times when I hand temper. You'll have to report back if you are more successful with a softer caramel. Good luck!

[minas6907]

I got some new candy rulers to play with. A family member made them for me. [attachment=20845:IMG_1172

Just out of my own curiosity, are your bars solid metal, or are they hollow inside?

[Viktoria]

The candy rulers are the 4 metal bars that you can use to free-form a block of caramel, pâté de fruit, etc, with. They're nice because they make unmolding your candy easier, the sides are straight, and you don't have to pour hot liquid on plastic (which is often the trick people give to unmold a pan: line it with plastic wrap).

These are solid stainless, and quite heavy. My grandfather owns a metal working company. I commissioned these from him. They're 3/8x3/4x14 inches. On one of the 3/4 inch sides on each bar, there is a very small groove running the length of the bar at 1/4 and 1/2 inch "height", so I can tell the thickness of my layer. I used an actual ruler to lay out the form, but I might ask him to put inch markings on each bar. I think they worked perfectly.

My next hope is to discuss whether he thinks his guys could make me a guitar cutter. Gotta be cheaper than $1K... I hope...

I love these caramels. They disappeared quite quickly, despite their hard chew. If you google " chocolate molasses caramels" you'll probably find the recipe I started with. The hungry mouse, I think was the site. I hand temper my chocolate, though I'm contemplating getting some kind of warmer. I sometimes get bubbles in my molds, too. I imagine it's the same problem. I will try tapping, Willow. I've read that some people use a vibration table for molds I think, is this useful?

As an aside, even now I still get excited when I successfully temper my chocolate. I am so thrilled when my leftovers have a great shine and snap. Is that weird?

Edited for spelling

Edited October 21, 2011 by Viktoria (log)

[YetiChocolates]

No Viktoria, it's not weird when you successfully temper your chocolate, as when I hand temper I feel the same way. I recently took the plunge and got myself a tempering machine, my first major equipment purchase, and I freakin' love the thing. It's like those infomercials, "Set it and forget it!" And you never have to worry about having to dip quickly because your chocolate in the bowl is starting to set up. But it is an investment and I recently moved into a much smaller place, so space will definitely be an issue this winter, which might make hand tempering a more convenient option

As for vibrating tables, I've heard they are pretty handy, I just use a paintbrush to bob up and down inside the mold to release the air bubbles, though I've heard swirling the molds around while dumping out the chocolate helps as well, though I have yet to try it. To save you some money, you might want to check out the homemade vibrating table thread here. I purchased a dental vibrator in hopes to make one myself, but haven't finished that project yet...might be something to tackle this winter finally.

And I'll have to check out that recipe for the molasses caramels. Thanks for the head's up where to look!

[Viktoria]

Oooh. a tempering machine. Sooo jealous! Much like other fun toys (like a Sous Vide machine! a Thermomix!) I look on with envy but can't yet justify the cost. Heck, my husband looked at me funny when I gazed longingly at a food saver machine. It's one reason I'm hoping I can get a guitar cutter made for cheap. (obviously I thought that the cost of regular candy rulers was too much ) hmmm... I have an old piece of lab equipment lying around that I might be able to repurpose for a homemade vibrating table.

So I have a question for the group, and I'm not sure where to put it:

Marble or not marble?

That is, many recipes call for putting the chocolate or other substance on a marble slab. It seems to me that this is primarily about thermal conduction.

So, is granite or some other relatively non-porous stone sufficient? Is there some other consideration? Should this question go elsewhere?

[RobertM]

I have 2 marble tables (one got caramel corn and tiffs, the other is the work surface for all my other confections). While I love my marble I think granite would be just as acceptable. To me, it's not just an issue of pulling heat out of the product but also how porous is the material your working with? With that said, a water cooled cooling table for the toffee would be a nice thing to have...

I think the first question you should ask yourself is what your purpose of the stone is going to be and how big a piece do you need? Sometimes you can go dumpster diving at a stone facility and come up with the viroids for the sink which is a nice workable size. (I speak from experience as having recovered two or three pieces of granite in such a manner). Often they will give you the pieces; they are usually trashed anyway. If you ask, maybe they would polish all 6 sides for you to avoid damaging your existing table....

[RobertM]

I posted the above from my iPhone and it corrected some of my comment. The two tables I have, one is FOR caramel corn and Toffee

[RobertM]

Some Port, Merlot and Cabernet Franc Truffles I worked on this week. The yellow ones are not yellow. I used Chef Rubber's Gold coca butter. I personally like the orange/red one's myself, they go well with the colors of the vineyard.

[Darienne]

Splendid, Robert M.

[Kerry Beal]

I'm with Robert - granite is fine. I usually go to a countertop place and ask them for one of the larger sink cutouts from a kitchen installation. I think the most I've ever paid for one has been about $10 and they are often free for the taking. No polished edges but the price is right.

Nice chocolates Robert.

[curls]

Gorgeous chocolates Robert. Are you going to be selling them at a local vineyard? Great weekend in Northern Virginia to check out the vineyards and the fall colors.

[RobertM]

Curls - indeed, those are for some local vineyards.

[curls]

RobertM, I'll keep my eyes open for those designs and that packaging.

[minas6907]

These are solid stainless, and quite heavy. My grandfather owns a metal working company. I commissioned these from him. They're 3/8x3/4x14 inches. On one of the 3/4 inch sides on each bar, there is a very small groove running the length of the bar at 1/4 and 1/2 inch "height", so I can tell the thickness of my layer. I used an actual ruler to lay out the form, but I might ask him to put inch markings on each bar. I think they worked perfectly.

Thats awesome you have a resource for metal so close in the family. When I made my own bars for a frame, I looked around quite a bit online, and just decided to go to Home Depot to see what they had in stock bars. I decided on a 1/8 inch thick aluminum (they didnt have stainless) angle piece, 4ft long, and 3/4 inch in height. I cut it with a diamond blade, cleaned up the edges with a grinder, and polished the outer faces that would touch the candy with a buffing compound to make them much less porous, so the candy doesn't have any grooves to stick in.

I have 2 marble tables (one got caramel corn and tiffs, the other is the work surface for all my other confections). While I love my marble I think granite would be just as acceptable. To me, it's not just an issue of pulling heat out of the product but also how porous is the material your working with? With that said, a water cooled cooling table for the toffee would be a nice thing to have...

I think the first question you should ask yourself is what your purpose of the stone is going to be and how big a piece do you need? Sometimes you can go dumpster diving at a stone facility and come up with the viroids for the sink which is a nice workable size. (I speak from experience as having recovered two or three pieces of granite in such a manner). Often they will give you the pieces; they are usually trashed anyway. If you ask, maybe they would polish all 6 sides for you to avoid damaging your existing table....

Viktoria, I'd listen to that Robert is saying. You can use granite or marble effectively in chocolate work, you just need to see that the material is not porous. Call up some local fabricators, I think that would be your best bet if you dont know anyone in the construction trade. I polish and restore stone (mostly travertine and marble) surfaces for a living, there are some granites that are very very smooth, with absolutely no pits, which would work great. And one the other hand, there marbles that have an unbelievable amount of pits, it just varies on the stone. The white marble tables you see in kitchen stores and in professional pastry kitchens is Carrara marble, thats sort of standard because I suppose it stands in contrast to the dark chocoalte, but when polished it is very smooth surface with basically no pits whatsoever, so it's ideal for working with a fluid like melted chocolate. Perhaps you can give it a try, something I have been thinking about lately is going to a tile showroom and purchasing a few marble tiles. I have seen repeatedly 20x20 pieces of Carrara, and a 1/2 inch thick, which is thicker then most tiles (it is normally 1/4 inch thick, but it is increased because of the size of the tile) I wanted to get a few pieces and bond them together with an epoxy resin. The thicker the stone piece is, the more more it retains its temperature. Anyways, maybe one of these days I'll get around to doing that and report back how it worked.

[minas6907]

Robert, also your chocolates look semi decent.

Hahaha, I'm kidding, those are awesome! I love the various shades of red, boy do you have the coloring down. I have some red color I just got (its just powdered stuff) and have yet to try adding some color to my chocolates. Good going.

[Lior]

I have decided that caramek rulersare not convenient. I cannot manage them no matter how many times I have tried. I like to be able to give a knock to flatten out the ganache and remove air bubbles. My rulers are from CW, they move around, even after I "glue" them down. I had a tray made with an attached slider-works very well for me. I will get a photo of it. Being that I am not a big production at all, the rulers are too big for me as well even though you can make a small area-the rulers stick out way to much. I have a few different heights as well.

Bob, you bon bons look devine-I also love your orange ones.Excellent and professional work.

[Lior]

Here:

BTW. the slider-ruler slides to where I want it. It is a tight fit so it does not jiggle after I leave it in a certain place. This way you can also make two different kinds of ganache in one tray.I place the ganache tray onto another tray, like this one for example:

You can slide the ruler/slider to any position:

A crunchy ganache:

[Darienne]

Your slider tray looks brilliant, Lior.

[Viktoria]

Lior -I'm totally jealous of that frame!

Thank you all for the tips on the stone. I haven't decided which way to go yet. I have granite counters, but I don't know if I want to be doing things like that right on them.

Inspired by Chocolot's eyeball post upstream, I had to make some myself. (I also just got your book, and it's great!)

Because of the discussion about air bubble problems I was having, I dug out my mini-vortexer, which is designed to shake test tubes, etc in the lab. (I bought it for another hobby of mine) If you look closely you can see the bubbles coming to the surface. The mold was just small hemispheres, so it remains to be seen if it will work equally well in a mold with detail, but so far I'd say it did the job. I shook them before I cleaned the mold, which ended up being messy.

Anyway, the eyes are just white chocolate with raspberry jelly filling. I love the tart with the creamy shell.

Because I'm a nerd I debated whether to make the filling a clear one (since the vitreous humor is a transparent gel) but in the end I thought the red would be funnier and tastier. Alas, there goes realism

Anyway, here are pictures: