Confections! (2006-2012)

[JenBunk]

Mina6907- Those are great! Your stuff tempts me to try my hand at sugar!!

[minas6907]

You should try it! Once you get the hang of it you can make some cool stuff, and it'll toughen up your hands! Currently, the thrill of working with sugar has sort of worn off (I was thinking of getting into cheese) so when I do things now, its just for special occasions and way to sort of personalize a gift.

[Darienne]

Mina6907- Those are great! Your stuff tempts me to try my hand at sugar!!

The 'wafer' type candies are perfect for kids to work on. You make larger circles or shapes from the basic 'dough' and then when it has dried...about 24 hours...you can give the children small snack bags with different colored royal icing inside them, pricked with a pin, and let them loose. They have a ball!

[gap]

Picked a couple of kilos of raspberries at one of the nurses homes the other night - decorated a nice pavlova with some (along with some wild blueberries) and made some puree to make some PDF. The strange pectin combination didn't work quite as well as it had with the Strawberry Rhubarb batch - they are a little more tender than would be expected but still satisfactory.

Kerry - when you make your own purees for PDF, do you add 10% sugar like, say, Boiron purees tend to have (I think they normally have invert sugar but not sure on that). Also, do you just "wing it" when trying to adjust for the natural pectin level of the fresh fruit you have picked?

Edited July 19, 2012 by gap (log)

[gap]

Buche Noel for Christmas in July. Made with gingerbread mousse and a chocolate cremeux insert on almond dacquoise.

[Kerry Beal]

Picked a couple of kilos of raspberries at one of the nurses homes the other night - decorated a nice pavlova with some (along with some wild blueberries) and made some puree to make some PDF. The strange pectin combination didn't work quite as well as it had with the Strawberry Rhubarb batch - they are a little more tender than would be expected but still satisfactory.

Kerry - when you make your own purees for PDF, do you add 10% sugar like, say, Boiron purees tend to have (I think they normally have invert sugar but not sure on that). Also, do you just "wing it" when trying to adjust for the natural pectin level of the fresh fruit you have picked?

I added it to the strawberry puree - but not to the rhubarb or the raspberry.

[minas6907]

Heres the pate du fruit I did for my friends wedding. The bottom layer is strawberry, and the top is peach. I used the formula from C&C at Home because I think I'm totally retarded when it comes to powdered pectin, have yet to make fruit jellies that set up properly with the stuff, its always too soft. So I continue to use the liquid stuff, I think thats dummy proof, but the only think I dont like is the high temperature you have to cook the fruit mixture to. Anywho, I was hoping for the layers to be a bit more defined, but maybe I'll try again sometime with a combo like blueberry and apricot or such.

[minas6907]

Here's the last of the wedding candies, its champagne and raspberry.

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[minas6907]

Whoops, sorry about the wrong angle

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[curls]

minas6907, what pretty wedding candies!

[YetiChocolates]

Jen, Washington just passed a cottage foods law, sounds the same but I haven't looked into it much. Where do you sell if wholesale is not allowed? I'm also surprised jams made the list of low-hazard foods, with all the potential for improper canning and botulism. Are the rules on confections pretty specific about formulation (available water, sugar density) or do they just figure confections are all safe? Thanks.

Hey pastrygirl just wanted to let you know that you got me really excited when you posted that Washington state had passed a cottage law since I'm planning on buying a house in WA this fall and was hoping to get my chocolate operation off the ground on a small scale. However, after looking into the cottage law that was just passed and talking to the lady that has done the leg work to get the cottage law off the ground, unfortunately at this time they are only allowing foods that are baked to be produced out of the home, so for now chocolates are off limits. Rats! She did say though that it is something that is being considered and hopefully will be allowed sometime next year. I'll be waiting impatiently for that day to come! Just thought I'd throw that out there.

[pastrygirl]

Jen, Washington just passed a cottage foods law, sounds the same but I haven't looked into it much. Where do you sell if wholesale is not allowed? I'm also surprised jams made the list of low-hazard foods, with all the potential for improper canning and botulism. Are the rules on confections pretty specific about formulation (available water, sugar density) or do they just figure confections are all safe? Thanks.

Hey pastrygirl just wanted to let you know that you got me really excited when you posted that Washington state had passed a cottage law since I'm planning on buying a house in WA this fall and was hoping to get my chocolate operation off the ground on a small scale. However, after looking into the cottage law that was just passed and talking to the lady that has done the leg work to get the cottage law off the ground, unfortunately at this time they are only allowing foods that are baked to be produced out of the home, so for now chocolates are off limits. Rats! She did say though that it is something that is being considered and hopefully will be allowed sometime next year. I'll be waiting impatiently for that day to come! Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Thanks for doing the research. That is too bad, hopefully they will reconsider.

[LynnFoodies]

Picked a couple of kilos of raspberries at one of the nurses homes the other night - decorated a nice pavlova with some (along with some wild blueberries) and made some puree to make some PDF. The strange pectin combination didn't work quite as well as it had with the Strawberry Rhubarb batch - they are a little more tender than would be expected but still satisfactory.

Can't say anything but wow.. Tempting!

[keychris]

A peanut praline base, topped with a caramelized peanut and all dipped in milk chocolate. My 3yr old daughter immediately named them "gnomes" so they are peanut gnomes now

a few bubbles here and there, and I took the caramel which I made the peanut praline paste with a little too far so the base has a quite strong flavour. I like that dark caramel flavour but it's a bit too intense for the people that have tried these ones so I'll back it off a little on the next batch.

(hope that picture isn't screen-burstingly enormous...)

[stuartlikesstrudel]

Haha great, they look really unique. Do most people start by biting off the top? I think that's how I'd go about it

Is it from a recipe? I really like the sound of it and would like to give it a go, I think...

[stuartlikesstrudel]

Had a bit of a play on the weekend - Chai Tigers truffles... I didn't have a great chai tea to use so I kind of fudged one together and thought cardamom and ginger should be prominent. The end result is ok but I would work on it for next time.

My temper worked out better this time, I don't know if I did anything different but there wasn't any streakiness... success! I couldn't figure out how to dip the truffles cleanly so ended up handrolling most of them.

Put a bit of leftover chocolate into some little molds someone gave me - they're too small to put fillings in but I thought it would be fun to just give it a go. Apart from a few bubbles they worked out fine (but solid dark chocolate is quite hard and not that pleasant to eat, I've decided).

[minas6907]

Very nice temper on your chocolate

[curls]

squares are spiced mango

domes are brown sugar & rum salted caramel

[carol lang]

Those a beautiful!

[minas6907]

Oh wow, those are beautiful. I can only dream about my chocolates looking like that!

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Gum paste Oncidium orchids, for a christening cake (full effect to be posted once assembled on-site). I also did Callas and triple Azaleas for the same cake, but they're not nearly as impressive as the orchids are....

This is the beginning of the paste flower run for the wedding season; expect to see more native orchids and other complex native flowers in coming weeks. (One cake will have cascading paste fuchsias from one tier to another).

For scale - these are life-size.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Well! The bride with the cascading fuchsias cake changed her mind! Now it's a fairy forest for 400 on 4 flavours of shamrock-shaped cake. This is probably the largest cake I've ever undertaken to decorate; the sugar things that I put on it will be taken by guests for mementoes of the event, so there have to be at least 300 figures worthy of that.

So, I'm calling on y'all for inspiration here. I'm making fairies and mushrooms and whatnot, but I need some inspiration for mythical critters and other assorted fairy forest denizens that I could be sculpting out of gum paste for this cake. There will be a bridge to hold the bride and groom figurines, which will apparently be gnomes; I am certain that there's a troll under the bridge but that's as far as I've gotten. I will be making varied flavours of gum paste - neutral/sugar, strong mint (think Altoids), lemon zest, clove (this is for the troll and the gnomes), sweet almond, white vanilla, and coconut. I'm using gum paste in place of pastillage for its slightly longer open time with which to sculpt.

Here's the best of what I've got so far; I'll post the first of the fairies once her gelatine wings are set. If you'd like to see the mushrooms, I can stage 'em and take a picture. Some of them have eyes.

Curiously strong mint dragon

Neutral sugar frog

[stuartlikesstrudel]

Well those two look fantastic! Sounds like a MASSIVE undertaking - 300 figures?!

I think any kind of cute little critters would be popular - even ones that aren't so mythical, like the frog I guess. Birds, lizards, furry things. Beetles! They'd look great all glossy and colourful.

[gap]

I'll post the first of the fairies once her gelatine wings are set. If you'd like to see the mushrooms, I can stage 'em and take a picture. Some of them have eyes.

Yes, I'd like to see pics please. Love the dragon and frog.

[judiu]

Pan Can, how about unicorns, the Green Man, fire flies, flying pigs, little houses with chicken legs (might be a bit too big...) butterflies, flying butter, a golden goose, and you've GOT to have a red maple leaf in there just for a label!