Thanks cheebs - that's what I was curious about. When I've "made" a gianduja for chocolate work, I've done so by mixing hazelnut praline paste and chocolate. I was wondering if the grinders could take the nuts/caramelised sugar without any problems, but it sounds like they can if I pre-grind.
Cheers
cheebs - do you caramelise the hazelnuts first and then grind them down for your gianduja?
Lane - a gianduja is usually tempered at a lower temp . . . 27C is what I normally use.
I think I understand your question but I might have it wrong. If you're filling a bar mould: fill with chocolate, keep it upside down and horizontal and scrape the excess chocolate off with a scraper back into the bowl, keep it upside down and horizontal and let it set, turn it the right way up and pop out the bars.
Apologies if I'm misunderstading your question.
Some chocolate will stick to the sides when you turn it upside down and will not run out
Larry - everything with chocolate starts off messy. As you get better at it you learn how to do it cleaner. I use a spatula or big plastic spoon to ladle my chocolate in and then scrape the back with a chocolate scraper (essentially a plaster scraper).
I'm also interested to hear from people with actual experience re. this. I would GUESS it takes longer to do a batch 3x the size because their are 3x as many particles that need to be reduced in size. Once again guessing, but maybe the mass would maintain a higher heat in the machine which could alsoimpact processing time.
Cool stuff Edward J - thanks for sharing.
I haven't used it myself, so i can't comment on how good it is or anything, but i know people who have used this:
http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/foodstandards/nutritionpanelcalculator/
Might be worth checking out
For what it's worth, the sizesI use are 15mm x 30mm for rectangular chocolates and 22.5mm x 22.5mm for sqaure chocolates.
To me that just looks like well tempered chocolate
Hi Brad,
thanks for clearing that up - I would agree with you on the not drinking anti-freeze!
As for the argument that "you eat with your eyes": I do think taste is the ultimate trump card and beats all in the end - your example of repeat customers is a good one and entirely appropraite. However, I spend an equal amount of time with patisserie as I do chocolates and visual appeal does have an impact, it just can't be denied- you just need to look at what is being done in Paris with Easter eggs this year. I would happily pay 50% more for an Easter egg that looks like one of those over a standard looking egg made with the same chocolate.
Coloured chocolates/bon bons/confections are another example of how the industry has moved forward with presentation. As are the new modern range of polycarbonate moulds. So for me, while taste is the ultimate trump card over ANY visual aid, presentation/eye candy does have it's role. I guess in my mind the size of its role is probably determined by what your competitors are doing. Where there is a lot of competition and the level of "taste" is similar across the competitors, people want visual appeal. I think visual appeal can also help people justify a higher price in their own mind for a product (eg., taking it to someone as a gift, you want to hear how beautiful your gift looks).
"Given my stance that the driving force behind what we do is customer service and product freshness and taste, we will NEVER, EVER, EVER, .....EVER use chemicals or food stabilizers to give our products shelf life. EVER.... If we can't make it fresh, we won't make it at all."
I'm not sure what this means (and I've seen a lot of other people say it other than Brad, so I'm after lots of opinions on this, I'm not just asking Brad here). So for those of you who say "no additives" or "no food stablisers" or "only natural", would you use glucose syrup? It's my understanding that glucose syrup will help bind water and extend shelf life. If glucose syrup, then what about glucose powder? (After all, you're just removing the moisture). Then what about sorbitol powder? (It's just another sort of sugar). Would you use honey? So is invert sugar acceptable (given honey is more or less a natural invert sugar anyway)? Would you use lecithin to emulsify your product? What about if there is lecithin in your chocolate anyway (and I acknowledge that you may not use it Brad, but people who don't make their own chocolate almost certainly do)? What about adding salt?
I'm not trying to be difficult or split hairs here - just trying to understand what people mean. My opinion starts with Brad's above - everything is about taste. If you can extend shelf life without affecting taste/texture/flavour/smell etc etc etc, using some of the ingredients I mention above, why wouldn't you? So then the question is - where do you draw the line on what you will add? I'm just curious to see what people think about this and what others are doing out there in chocolate world.
The left over coloured cocoa butter can be re-used whenever you want. just re-melt it and it's ready to go. There's nothing special about the acetate sheets I use, just plain acetate. Thicker than what you use to wrap parcels, but i've done this with the plastic A4 pockets you use in ringbinders as well
I use 5-10% fat soluble colour in cocoa butter (so for 100g of cocoa butter, I add 5-10g of colour). Mix very well (even using an immersion blender if you have enough coloured cocoa butter to do so) and strain through a stocking.
If you've added your own colour to the cocoa butter, you've probably heated the cocoa butter quite high to allow the colour to mix properly, so your coloured cocoa butter will not be in temper. As mentioned above, you temper cocoa butter the same way you do chocolate (actually, when you are tempering chocoalte, you are tempering the cocoa butter in the chocolate). I agree with Andrea that tempering coloured cocoa butter will usually need to be done by tabling because of the small amount used.
Spreading chocolate onto the acetate can melt/smudge part of the design - you can work that in as part of the design if you want. You need to cut the chocolate into squares before it sets. It should be partially set so that the cut you make stays acut and doesn't flow back into a single piece of chocolate, but the chocolate shouldn't be set hard- that way you don't get irregular cuts and they will fit uniformly.
I'm not sure I understand your issue with the second method. It sounds like your cocoa butter is too thick and the whole design is coming off in which case make you cocoa butter pattern thinner (but I might be misunderstanding what you have written).
When I do this I:
- Clean the acetate sheet with cotton wool
- Make sure your coloured cocoa butter is in temper (ie., you haven't heated it too hot)
- Paint/spray/splatter/dab it onto the acetate and let it set
- When you're ready to use your sheet, spread a thin layer of chocolate over the acetate, cover with baking paper and put a few baking trays on top to weigh it down and keep it flat
At that point, the heat from the chocolate should allow the cocoa butter on the acetate to adhere to the chocolate.
Should have added: when you make your shells (and fill if desired), don't back them off. Just turn them out as is.
I think I have seen this mould before and it is a standard type mould that just happens to have a front and back for the bunny (ie., it's not a3D mould where you clip the back/front together while moulding).
That said, you can do either filling or no filling. Make your shells (and fill if desired). Unmould. Heat a tray in the oven to approx 40C and quickly touch the edges of your shells to the tray and then press/hold them together. It only needs a small amount of melted chocolate to make the two halves stick together.
Hope that I've explained myself clearly
Cheers
Interesting post here
http://www.thequenelle.com/2009/10/cappuccino-chocolate-bar-or-usin...
Chef Migoya uses coffee beans to produce "liquor" and adds sugar and cocoa butter to make chocolate. The post is interesting as is the Comments section which generated some interesing questions and answers.
Edited to add: to incorporate coffee in my chocolate confections, I put 100g coffee beans in 600g of white chocolate (at 45 C), cover the bowland keep the bowl at 45 C (either in a heat cabinet or put your bowl inside a melting tank heated to ~55 C. Leave for 4-5 hours and then strain out the beans. The white chocolate has a strong coffee taste and smell.
I used dark malt extract from a brewing store. I initially used 3% and, for dark malt extract, it was too much. I dropped that to 1.75% for my second batch and that seems closer to the mark.
I haven't tried using light malt extract yet.
I refined for 24 hours and the texture was smooth - no mouthfeel difference. It was noticeably less sweet (which is what I was aiming for).
FWIW - the sugar makeup of my recipe being 1/3 lactose and 2/3 sucrose worked quite well on the weekend.
OK, thanks Felipe. I was going to give it a try this weekend with 1/3 of the sugar beinglactose and 2/3 being sucrose.
Felipe - did you end up trying to add lactose to your milk chocolate? What is a good proportion of sucrose to substitute with lactose as a starting point? For example if you had 100g of sugar in your recipe originally, would you say 70 sucrose and 30 lactose is a good place to start experimenting? Or should I increase/decrease that lactose proportion of the sugar?
Not looking to get my hands on your recipe, just trying to get a feel for a range to start experimenting in. 
Cheers
OK, thanks Sebastian.
When people talk about adding malt to chocolate, are they referring to malt extract/powder or maltose? Is there a difference between the two in terms of making chocolate?
Just to put my 2c worth in - I often use passionfruit puree direct onto milk chocolate. Raspberry is good straight onto dark. I use Boiron fruit purees.
or coconut cream if you want a coconut/tropical flavour
If you're talking about Tom's 60 nibs, 30 sugar and 10 cocoa butter, that is a 70% chocolate.
For those of you interested, Adam finished his recipe tweaking and did a post on his blog back in Jan
http://www.parispatisseries.com/2012/01/18/parisian-hot-chocolate-recipe-chocolat-chaud/
As Rochelle says, the colour in the transfer sheets is cocoa butter, so treat the transfer sheets as if they were chocolate in terms of storage and in terms of letting them "set" before removing them.
Yep, I've done a lot of courses there. The staff are great and very knowledgeable. I have been doing courses there consistently since 2006 - it's good enough for me to keep going back. Also depends what you want to get out of it. The course notes are basically recipes and methods which is great because it stops you having to write as you go. If you're attentive and detailed, you will get a lot of other tips and tricks as you work through the recipes which are worth writing down as you go. I've generally re-written my materials after the course to incorporate these notes. The instructors are also happy to share if you ask further questions during classes.
Class format is generally introduction and go through the recipes for the day. Then weigh out ingredients (recipes are split between tables, so you work in a group). Depending on the course, the general rule of thumb is each recipe is made big enough for the whole class. When your table's recipe is due to be made, you actually make it yourself in front of the whole group. This is great for hands on experience. It also helps watching the occasional mistakes being fixed on the fly (by the instructor) or watching how things can go wrong.
I started off just doing the chocolate courses but enjoyed the school and staff and their enthusiasm for all pastry that I have just kept goingback forall things pastry. And most importantly, I use the skills I have learnt on a regular basis in things I do at home as well.
Edited to add: you should also choose courses suited to your skill level. I had done a little chocolate work by myself at home before doing Chocolates Level 1 which helped me ask some questions about things I knew could go wrong. If you're already working around chocolate and have a good handle on tempering/moulding etc, you may want to speak with them about which level you should start at.
I was taught a technique where you pour it hot onto a large silpat. Fold the silpat over the hot mixture and pull it apart again. Keep doing this keeping the fondant in the middle (it starts the agitation process). When cool, add to the kitchen aid.
I'd be interested to hear how other people do it as well
Everyone has their own opinions on things like this, but I'll have a go at answering for you:
1. 2 hours sounds way too long. I temper 3-4 kilos of chocolate using the seed method in about 15-20 minutes. I'm sure there's others out there who do it faster as well.
2. Chocolate is over-tempered when it is in temper, but is very thick and doesn't flow well. Use a heat gun (eg., paint stripper from the hardware store or a hair-dryer) on the chocolate for 5-10 seconds at a time while stirring to get the chocolate fluid again. You don't want to heat the chocolate too much or else you will knock it out of temper and have to re-temper it.
3. Sounds like it's over-tempered and you'll need some sort of heat gun on it
4. This one depends - usually on your room temperature and the size of your moulds. I think cooling too slowly or too quickly can cause "blooming" issues. The idea is to find the right middle ground. I always put large moulds (eg., large Easter egg) into the fridge, but smaller moulds (eg., individual bon bons) I allow to cool at room temperature.
It sounds like you're at a stage where taking some sort of class would be a huge benefit - actually seeing someone working with the chocolate and seeing how it should look (eg., how fluid) and a professional's technique for moulding. Given you've taught yourself so much already, you would probably pick up everything very quickly in an environment where you saw it all happening.
Mark,
I would love to hear how the machine works out - seems interesting in that price range.
