Confections! (2006-2012)

[RobertM]

As a side note - I should apologize for the poor quality photo - the pic was taken with my iPhone - the truffles second from the left should all be RED.... dang...

[Kerry Beal]

Nice job Robert - those look fabulous.

Just dragged myself up from the chocolate room where I'm painting eyes on all my Christmas molds. Too lazy to paint beards and stuff!

[Lior]

Robert!!!! AMAZING WORK!!!!! I even called my hubby to come and see. He went to get his glasses and looked and then said. "WOW!!"

[rena]

Wow Robert those look fantastic. I too was a busy bee this weekend. I made same caramel hopefully I can download the pics right....Everything was done freehand. I don't have a confectionary cutter that's why the pieces are not uniformed.

Rena

[Darienne]

Uniformity is highly over-rated. Those look enticing and delicious.

[rena]

Thank you Darienne,

I finally found a caramel reciep that was firm enough to do freehand without having to put it in molds. I got the reciep from the FoodNetwork magazine, the insert for 50 edible gifts if anyone want to check it out.

Here is another pic I wanted to download in my previous post. It's dk chocolate caramel with flur de sel salt on top....

Rena

[dhardy123]

(left) Sour Cherry & Habanero Pop (sour cherry ganache, spicy cherry pate de fruit)

(middle) Salted Caramel Pop

(right) Pear Pop (pear ganache, pear pate de fruit)

[minas6907]

Very nice, and nice looking macaroons as well. So that caramel pop in the sphere? What kind of a form did you use for that? Silicone?

[dhardy123]

Nope, just used truffle shells

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Candied ginger. This was done in heavy Panela syrup, which was a first for me, and I think I like it better than simple white sugar syrup. The ginger came out darker, of course, but the flavour!

[Prabha]

My first molded chocolates! I'm so proud! L to R - Orange white chocolate ganache in a milk shell, gingerbread ganache in milk shell, peanut butter gianduja and raspberry jelly in a dark shell.

[curls]

Nice chocolates, congratulations Prabha!

[Darienne]

Nice chocolates, congratulations Prabha!

Ditto from me. Such a good feeling when you do something so lovely for the first time.

[Prabha]

Thanks! I read various threads on this forum for weeks before trying to make them. It still took me multiple attempts to get decent looking chocolates, but I know it would have been even longer if not for all of you.

[dhardy123]

Here are the chocolates I did for Christmas 2011:

Top (L to R): Caramel, Passionfruit/Mango, Dipped Cherry, Frangelico

Bottom (L to R): Candy Cane, Buckwheat Beehive, Grand Marnier, Peanut Butter Meltaway

[Kerry Beal]

Those all look great Dave.

[RobertM]

These are the chocolates that I did for Christmas this year. Top left to right - we have a Cabernet Sauvignon; Buckeye; Lemon-Mint; Cherry Cordial; (second row) Apple Pie; Ginger Rum; Orange; Creme Brulee; (third row) Habenero; Buckwheat Beehive; Cabernet Caramel w/Cabernet Ganache; Chi Tea; (fourth row) S'More; Raspberry; Mocha/dulce de leche; Coconut

[Darienne]

Oh my! How I would like to be the recipient of such a wonderful array! So beautifully done!

[Darienne]

Candy Tray Lychee Gels. Never heard of them before. Delicious little gems. Here they are sitting in a pile of sugar waiting to be transported to our Third Annual Chinese Feast.

They should be rolled in sugar at the last minute, but I have already given them a preliminary sugar rolling and will give them a last minute shake before dessert is served and hope that this will work out fine.

One of my fellow cooks loves lychees and normally I would make lychee ice cream but I don't have an ice cream maker with me. Was just googling around last evening and found this recipe under Chinese New Year Candy Recipes and thought Aha! I couldn't be more thrilled.

And thus...

[Darienne]

OK. If there is any way to screw it up, I'll find it. Left the sugared lychee jellies sitting in a container of sugar. Yep. The sugar is all soaked and so are the jellies. Well, I know, you could have told me that. Learn, learn, learn.

Took the jellies out. Patted them all dry. Will shake them in sugar (in a separate container) at the last moment before we eat them. Just grateful that I checked them before we left.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Darienne (log)

[lebowits]

I recently purchased a compressor and air brush. This is my first attempt at decorating molds before casting the shells. The piece is a "Grand Marnier Caramel". The mold is decorated with "sunrise orange" and yellow cocoa butters. The center is a 1:1 caramel with a bit of butter added. Melted, untempered milk chocolate is added to the cooled caramel in a 1:1 ratio with the weight of the completed caramel. 1% of Grand Marnier by weight is then added and I also put in a bit of orange oil to punch up the flavor.

I don't know if it is coincidental or not, but this is my first time using this particular mold. I've read recently that people have had issues with pieces not coming out of new molds easily. Either this is a really good mold, or perhaps the cocoa butter sprayed into the cavities allowed the pieces to come out very easily.

Either way, the pieces taste pretty good and they don't look to bad for a first attempt.

[RWood]

I recently purchased a compressor and air brush. This is my first attempt at decorating molds before casting the shells. The piece is a "Grand Marnier Caramel". The mold is decorated with "sunrise orange" and yellow cocoa butters. The center is a 1:1 caramel with a bit of butter added. Melted, untempered milk chocolate is added to the cooled caramel in a 1:1 ratio with the weight of the completed caramel. 1% of Grand Marnier by weight is then added and I also put in a bit of orange oil to punch up the flavor.

I don't know if it is coincidental or not, but this is my first time using this particular mold. I've read recently that people have had issues with pieces not coming out of new molds easily. Either this is a really good mold, or perhaps the cocoa butter sprayed into the cavities allowed the pieces to come out very easily.

Either way, the pieces taste pretty good and they don't look to bad for a first attempt.

Those look really nice. I had problems with this mold the first time I used them, but have had good luck since. The only thing I have trouble with is that the air bubbles are really hard to get out. I have more trouble with that than cocoa butter sticking.

[lebowits]

I recently purchased a compressor and air brush. This is my first attempt at decorating molds before casting the shells. The piece is a "Grand Marnier Caramel". The mold is decorated with "sunrise orange" and yellow cocoa butters. The center is a 1:1 caramel with a bit of butter added. Melted, untempered milk chocolate is added to the cooled caramel in a 1:1 ratio with the weight of the completed caramel. 1% of Grand Marnier by weight is then added and I also put in a bit of orange oil to punch up the flavor.

I don't know if it is coincidental or not, but this is my first time using this particular mold. I've read recently that people have had issues with pieces not coming out of new molds easily. Either this is a really good mold, or perhaps the cocoa butter sprayed into the cavities allowed the pieces to come out very easily.

Either way, the pieces taste pretty good and they don't look to bad for a first attempt.

Those look really nice. I had problems with this mold the first time I used them, but have had good luck since. The only thing I have trouble with is that the air bubbles are really hard to get out. I have more trouble with that than cocoa butter sticking.

I had a few pieces with air bubbles as well. My usual method of aggressively tapping the sides of the mold with the handle of my spatula worked reasonably well. I had more issues with the milk chocolate itself behaving rather poorly. This was likely due to the weather conditions. Overall, I was very impressed by how cleanly the pieces came out of the molds. I only had to buff a few small places to wipe out excess cocoa butter that was left behind.

[Sue Casey]

lebowits - your Grand Marnier Caramel chocolates look fantastic. I've had trouble with molds at times and when I used a spray of cocoa butter they popped out.

[RWood]

So, the caterer I work for wanted to offer Valentine chocolates and since they wouldn't be under my name, I went with the easiest way to get them done. Transfer sheets and simple decorations. But, they still came out cute .