Chocolate without Soy Products
Posted in: News & New Product Press
Pretty sure that Patric chocolate products don't contain soy lecithin.
Forum Activity for @Kerry
Where can I purchase wholesale chocolate in Florida?
Posted in: Classifieds F/S or Wanted
Try Qzina - here is the location informationQzina Miami (US headquarters)1726 W. Atlantic BlvdPompano Beach, FLUSA 33069Tel: 954-590-4000Toll Free: 1-800-532-5269Fax: 954-975-5421diegoa@qzina.com
Colored Cocoa Butters from ChefRubber
Posted in: Opinion
Lynn,Melt your cocoa butter - temperature is not terribly important - place in a beaker with powdered oil suitable colours and blitz with an immersion blender. The colours will be intense enough as long as you add enough powder - but they will be transparent. In order to make them opaque you need to add titanium dioxide (white powdered cocoa butter colour) - but it will mean that the colour changes somewhat.If you want to mix the colours on a slab, instead of with an immersion blender, then you need to grind the powder with the cocoa butter using the back of your offset spatula - if you don't mix them sufficiently you will end up with streaky mixtures.I don't bother to temper them.So that I don't have to clean the immersion blender and beaker until I'm done, I usually start by making white, then yellow, orange, followed by red, then purple, blue and the greens.If you look about half way down this post you'll see the chef in Belgium mixing together some powdered colour with cocoa butter - and his suggestions on making the colours better. http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?/topic/112523-chocolate-course/page__view__findpost__p__1532682
how to join two halves of filled molded chocolates
Posted in: News & New Product Press
Wybauw does scoop and scrape gianduja - but also does his little bang and scrape thing with regular fillings. I suppose you could use that technique to get a nice full mold before adding the thin layer of chocolate for adherence - but I'd worry that the filling touching the edges might interfere with the sides sticking together.
how to join two halves of filled molded chocolates
Posted in: News & New Product Press
Do you mean with gianduja or regular ganache?
how to join two halves of filled molded chocolates
Posted in: News & New Product Press
If you are filling with gianduja - it will hold the two sides together. If with regular filling - fill more than normal - then a thin layer of chocolate which is as warm as possible between the two - slap together immediately.
Chocolate Thermometers
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
Yup, infrared for me too. I've got a couple of Coopers - some bigger ones and some little ones without the laser. They all work well.Barring that I use a Pyrex brand digital probe thermometer like this one. http://www.amazon.com/Pyrex-16484-Digital-Probe-Thermometer/dp/B0002MH0R2/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1270515232&sr=1-5
Panning machine experts?
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
Excellent. Let me know if I can help. I'd have been there in a heart beat if the schedule allowed.
Panning machine experts?
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
What are you using to warm and cool?
Panning machine experts?
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
Roni-Sue,What do you plan to do with the panning machine? Strictly chocolate?
Adding Own Ingredients.
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
Liquid milk, liquor or fruit juice can't be used in chocolate. It will cause the chocolate to seize. Those liquids can however be used if making a ganche.You can add cocoa butter to couverature - however adding sugar may result in a grainy product. Sugar is generally added before the conching process insuring that the particle size becomes very small and thereby preventing it from be detected as crystalline by the tongue.
I need some advise on two piece chocolate molds.
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
Lana,Those are very cute!I have a bunch of the clips that hold double molds together - but I often find that the rubber bands work just as well and are a whole lot easier to get on.
Mixing two chocolates together and color question
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
I notice when chocolate is melted and not in temper that the colour is different than the same chocolate when it is in temper - so perhaps the change in colour is due to a slight difference in the crystalline structure which reflects light differently and therefore appears lighter.You can mix milk and dark - I tend to temper to the temperatures of the 'most difficult' chocolate ie the milk chocolate. I often mix milk and dark to make a 'dark milk' for use with certain barks and bars.
Functional Candy - Making Chocolate (Candies) Healthy-er
Posted in: News & New Product Press
So Robert - can you counteract the cooling properties of some of the sugar alcohols by using inulin?
Tempering untempered chocolate
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
Brad - looks like you got a lot out of my DVDs! Anyway - it's not totally necessary to stir constantly while it's cooling as long as the water bath you are using is not too cold. If there is a lot of ice in there, then you may find you get a lot of hardening around the bowl and stirring more frequently is wise.
Whats your aibrush of choice?
Posted in: Geek Gear - Cool Tools
The Badger 250 is a great little starter airbrush. When you get into more serious airbrushing - gotta love the Fuji gravity feed units - they let you splatter beautifully and there is much less aerosol produced. http://www.fujispray.com/parts_accessories.htm#gtx_spraygun
Cement mixer as coating pan?
Posted in: Geek Gear - Cool Tools
Didn't Heston Blumenthol do something with an electric drill and a paint can?I'd be questioning the food grade surface. No reason though that you couldn't take the 'bowl' off the cement mixer and replace it with some sort of jury rigged stainless steel bowl.
Chocolate Panning, process and equipment
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
It would be the plastic tubing that you might get at a make your own wine place - used for decanting the wine into bottles. You want something considered food grade.
updated by @Kerry: 09/08/15 06:03:11
Chocolate Panning, process and equipment
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
You can ridge your pan by taping plastic tubing in it.
Chocolate Panning, process and equipment
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
Andal - that's exciting news. Will it have heating and cooling air or just turn?
Chocolate Panning, process and equipment
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
To get the shine without chemicals - you need to let the product sit overnight then put back in the pan - 48 C air is blown in with pan rotating. You are listening for quiet - once it gets quiet you pick a piece up and see if it is squishable (ie the chocolate becomes plastic). Once you reach this point you start adding cold air again (13-15 C) for about an hour until the product shines.
Chocolate Panning, process and equipment
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
You need to add the chocolate slowly (and not tempered). The product (ie hazelnuts) need to be cooled in some way while you add the layers of chocolate. So either some dry ice, or an air conditioner blowing cold air into the pan.
Chocolate Panning, process and equipment
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
Something around 20 inches is all I have experience with. You don't want to overfill the pan initially, because as you add the chocolate the amount of product 'grows'. It doesn't take too long to coat a batch, then it sits overnight anyway before polishing the next day.
Chocolate Panning, process and equipment
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
Yup, those pans would have worked fine. You use the smooth pan for the coating, then one of the ridged pans for polishing. Of course you can tape tubing inside your smooth pan, to make it ridged for polishing.By 'coat the chocolate after panning' I assume you are asking if you need products such as polish and sealers? The whole process can be accomplished without these things.
Chocolate Panning, process and equipment
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
I second the PMCA/NCA panning course. It was an excellent course.You've got to love the Selmi - a little dear in price - but it heats and cools which allows you to polish the product without any additional polishing products being added.E-bay often has pans - I bought a Stokes pan several years ago. I noticed a group of 3 small pans that closed yesterday for about $2100.There are a couple of companies that sell used equipment - Union Machinary being one that comes to mind.The chocolate is probably one of those things you are going to have to experiment with to decide what you like with your product. I've been happy lately with the Belgian Belcolade milk and dark.
Selling at farmer's markets... in the heat of summer?
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
Koolatron manufactures about 30 miles from me - not sure if you still can, but you used to be able to go to their outlet and pick up seconds for just a few bucks. I see them occasionally at thrift stores too.
Custom Chocolate Molds
Posted in: Classifieds F/S or Wanted
Try Tomric in Buffalo.Just out of curiosity - is the overseas company you are using making you polycarbonate molds or thermoformed?
Display cases
Posted in: Opinion
re 2. Indeed you can melt the chocolate in the microwave and then put it in a melter, but it's even easier to just put the chocolate in the melter, turn the heat up to around 40C, leave it overnight with the lid on, then add the seed in the morning, after turning down the heat to around 30 C. The melter will hold the temper for a long time, but the chocolate will start to thicken over time as more stable beta crystals multiply. When this happens you can push the temperature up a bit, to a maximum of 32.5C for milk, and 34.5C for dark.
Metal Mold Refinishing
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
The little blemishes you see are called tin mite. You can try carefully polishing with some calcium carbonate powder (available in asian grocery stores) to try and remove them. If they are small enough they may not interfere too much with molding. I have also carefully applied a bit of naval jelly (a rust remover) before the polishing, but don't leave it on too long or it will eat in to the good metal.I have quite a number of metal molds, and I find I like molding with the newer polycarbonate figural molds more, in part because I can see where I have bubbles and where I have painted the eyes etc on the mold. They also seem to fit together better and don't give me the little rim of chocolate that has to be trimmed off after molding.
Small, Cheap Shaker Table
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
Godiva "Breaks the Mold" for its new Chocoiste store in Tokyo's Harajuku District
Posted in: News & New Product Press
Kind of odd - and incongruent with the cut glass chandelier.
Small equipment for pouring chocolate.
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
That would be a confectionery funnel - not actually all that useful for chocolate, given the speed at which chocolate cools. Look under kitchen equipment here - http://www.dr.ca/ I have seen a european version that is heated which might be more helpful.I either use a disposable plastic pastry bag if I need the control piping chocolate into particular items - or I scoop with my favorite ladle for filling plates of molds.
using ganache cutters
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
Like Carol says, bottom first, then cut. You can punch out about 3 centers before turning it upside down to remove the cut ganache. http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?/topic/95787-advanced-chocolate-class-with-jean-pierre-wybauw/page__view__findpost__p__1310386 Check out the picture about half way down the first post that show's Wybauw using the cutters.
Has anyone used the NETZSCH chocolate machines?
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
I've been playing around with the Cocoa Town Deluxe Melanger - works very nicely. They also make bigger units (look under Grindeur on their website) for when you are ready to make larger batches.
Nutrition Information
Posted in: News & New Product Press
You might want to look at a piece of software called NutraCoster.
Printing on chocolate
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
There is a unit I went to look at in Grimbsy Ontario at a chocolate shop called Monks. I seem to think it did something more like a label - wasn't what I wanted at the time so I didn't pay much attention to it. I think the folks there might actually have been the distributors of the unit.Might be worth giving them a call at 905-309-6161 - they could certainly tell you the name so you could do more research.
Printing on chocolate
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
The company that makes this is Deco ( http://deco.uk.com/chocolate/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8&Itemid=13 ). I'm pretty sure that Tomric handles it in the US, but I can't find it on their site right now.
Need Ideas for an Advanced Chocolate Course - what would people want to learn?
Posted in: Chocolate Education
Due to scheduling issues this class got cancelled in Feb - but we are set to go again on October 17 and 18. We've had one dropout and have room for one more participant if anyone is interested. E-mail me at kerry-at-thechocolatedoctor-dot-ca if interested for the details.
Need Ideas for an Advanced Chocolate Course - what would people want to learn?
Posted in: Chocolate Education
Looks like we've got dates picked out - Feb 28 and Mar 1. Brian is going to firm up the outline and I'll post more later - but the topics to be covered will be shelf life, decorating techniques, 3d molding, dipping and getting a perfectly smooth bottom. Of course we'll make a bunch of centers and provide new recipes for them.
Need Ideas for an Advanced Chocolate Course - what would people want to learn?
Posted in: Chocolate Education
We so gotta do this!
Need Ideas for an Advanced Chocolate Course - what would people want to learn?
Posted in: Chocolate Education
I'll let you know when the party going to happen! I've got the unit up north here with me (it's a Gaggia Alambiccus) for cleaning and polishing - it's all brass and copper and had about an inch of burned on floral crud in the boiling vessel - getting that out was about a week of alternating acid, heat and elbow grease.It's wired 220 so when I get it back home, hubby will put a dedicated plug in my chocolate room and I can fire it up.The plan is to make my own essential oils to flavour the chocolate stuff.I wonder if you take existing alcohol, run it through the still with spices and stuff in the basket to flavour it, is it still illegal?
Need Ideas for an Advanced Chocolate Course - what would people want to learn?
Posted in: Chocolate Education
my website is www.thechocolatedoctor.ca - just send me an e-mail at kerry-at-thechocolatedoctor-dot-ca