I'm inspired to have an airbrush in my chocolate design tool kit. My concern is oil or moisture, from the compressor, will compromise food safety. High quality traps will remove the majority ofbacteria breeding environments but a system that generates 'pure air' pushes way past my budget.
Does anyone have more information on the standard systems used for airbrushing chocolates or the health risks involved in using compressors?
In response to a question from ChocolateLife member Dee:
As the creator of TheChocolateLife one of the options I have to is to "Feature" members. I do this as a way to recognize ChocolateLife members who post photos of themselves in their profiles.
Practically, what being Featured means is that the member's profile photo is displayed on the home page as well as on the Members page. Only the five most recently featured members are shown on the Members page; 27 members are featured on the Home page.
As new members are featured, older ones are no longer displayed even though they are still tagged as featured. I never "unfeature" members.
How does a member get featured?
I only feature members who post pictures of themselves in their profiles. If you use the default avatar image, post a company logo, a photo of your work, a photo of a smoking chimp, a cartoon image - anything other than a photo of a recognizable person - then you aren't featured. If you post a photo of someone who is obviously not you (e.g., a celebrity) you won't get featured.
It's not a perfect system as I never feature more than a few members at a time. So - you may have added a photo to your profile but it escaped my attention in the Latest Activity listing.
Iwant members to post photos of themselves, when they feel comfortable doing so, as a way to grow the feeling that TheChocolateLife is a real community composed of real people - not a group of strangers.
I went to the Ritz the other night to watch a movie in Philadelphia. Afterwards, my friends and I were trying to find a place to hang out. We popped in this Belgian pub, and when we discovered it was seriously overcrowded, they told us about their sister bar called Beneluxx. It was off the beaten path (therefore less crowded), but well worth the venture.
When I first walked in, there was a distinct cheese scent. I was a little concerned, because I didn't expect a bar to smell like that. Turns out that this place doesn't just specialize in fine beer, but wine, cheese, and best of all, chocolate!
I was suspicious, because I've been tricked before by places like MB's, so I started paying close attention. They offered fondue (which I also was unsure about). But when I asked for the "chocolate menu", I discovered this was for real! There were blends of chocolates from all over the world, with descriptions like wine tasters would write.
I ordered a spicy hot chocolate (which had too much spice for me, but that doesn't mean it had a lot). When it was delayed coming out, the waitress brought me a plate of their chocolates. Since I don't drink alcohol, I was thrilled!
I started to taste the chocolates, and I was very impressed. They had beautiful shine, crisp break, smooth texture and three dimensional flavor.
What a great place! Usually I only go to a bar because that's where my friends want to hang out. This is a place I really want to return to! If you're in the Philly area, I think you'll like it.
Hi, everyone,
My name is Emay, Iam here to learn and to share.
I am getting into a gourmet chocolate business, and want to open a store in Beijing China.Why not! We are so lucky to live in the United States and enjoy all kind of finechocolates. But gourmet chocolates arevery new to China, and I want to bring them to China.
There are lots of chocolatiers who making fine chocolates. They all have their best sellers. What I want is to sell premium chocolates from a few brands. For example, I like Recchiuti's dark chocolate covered marshmallow, truffle champagne from Leonidas, Tea flavored chocolate from Charles chocolate...etc. But the problems are gourmet chocolates have a very short shelf life, and the inspection and quarantine, custom clearance, permit are complex. You might say why not learn to make chocolate yourself? Well, the business model in my mind is to collect fine chocolates from different makers, yes, you guessed right, something similar to Fog City News.
So here I am for help. Is my idea realistic? what is the best way to work with chocolatiers to get their chocolate to China?Any suggestions & comments?
Very appreciate your time, and thank you in advance.
Check out a pos last year from Jim Lucas who discussed what controls his beans have to go through to get from Brazil to the USA - and about the precautions you have to take when using the very nasty chemicals involved.
Thanks! You're the first person to provide any kind of answer to this question.
Jeff and Nancy,
A couple points:
Generally, if your paperwork is done correctly stating organic status, most origins will not be fumigated. That being said, these are the biggest exceptions:
Indonesia as an origin is automatically fumigated upon arrival to the US
Venezuela has mandatory fumigating before export but not upon US arrival
As Jeff notes, semi-finished products are not subject to fumigation.
Hope this helps!
Have passed this question around the world without an answer. As I understand, most if not all sea shipments of agricultural products such as rice, corn, and cacao must be fumigated (usally with methyl bromide) before shipping. I would like to know, under what circumstances (type of container used, or via air transport, etc.) are beans shipped and guaranteed not fumigated?-since any fumigated beans would no longer be "organic". It seems that fumigation is a very standard operating procedure performed not once, but sometimes 2x, on cocoa beans. So how do "organic" beans arrive stateside or to other cocoa processing countries?
I have also heard that some companies buy organic liquor in the country of origin, and have it shipped, since liquor does not require fumigation.
Why not just use natural peppermint oil to flavor your milk chocolate? That way you don't have to buy a specialty chocolate for just one product. You could probably find it locally in PR at stores that supply the candymaking industry or hobby.
Edit: woops missed jo's post stating exactly the same! great minds and all...
Thanks. I will look into this and see what I can find. As you can tell, I don't know anything about chocolate and knew that I could find help here.
Hi everyone,
I am looking for a source (preferably Florida or in the Southeast for shipping purposes} for mint milk chocolate. I am located in Puerto Rico and want to make mint chocolate rum balls. I was experimenting with various recipes to come up with what I felt was a great product and I did. I used Hershey's mint sticks in the experimental recipe and then the project stopped when the world blew up in 08.
Can someone help me find a source or offer any suggestions?
Thanks in advance for your reply,
Tim
You should ask Hans...
Depends on what you want to test:
Guillotine - at the level you're at, you'd only really be able to use it to get a feel for degree of fermentation. It will be useless to determine insect damage or mold at this stage. It's more of a qualitative test for fermentation, and not a terribly accurate one at that.
Moisture meter - get a dickey john portable, or an aquaboy with a small sample adapter. Good for rapid, nondestructive testing for moistures < 20% (good to quickly determine if drying is sufficient or not). Be prepared to spend a few hundred bucks.
pH meter. Lots of small hand held devices available. Question would be why do you want it? What is it you're measuring - pulp pH? Whole bean? And what would you do with the results - how would you use them? <$200. Get calibration fluids for 1, 5, 7 pH. You won't need alkaline.
Refractometer - similar to the handheld pH meter. What would you do with it, how would you use the results? < $200.
I'd start with identifying what parameters you want to control / track, then determine what equipment you need to do so.
I will soon be heading to some cacao growing areas in SE Asia, and would like to get some recommendations for good quality/price cacao testing equipment such as a guillotine cross-section cutter, moisture meter, ph meter, refractometers, etc. What are some cost-effective models?
Thanks in advance for your advice and feedback.
Vincent Mourou-Rochebois
I think its important to understand why something became popular then we can build something better. The gelatin based mallows have the advantage of ease of manufacture and taste neutrality.
Fresh Wholefoods Murwillumbah is where I got it my dry marshmallow root. I suspect fresh root works better but am not sure whether it was ever introduced into Australia.
I agree, there is nothing like a bit of experimental archiology, I like making old hot chocolate recipes.
I don't think anywhere here will stock it, is the shop in Brisbane?
From the local health food / organic shop. They stock loads of obscure spices and things. Expensive at $95 a kg though. I just like deconstructing confectionary to understand it. Marshmallow clearly has a facinating history. Perhaps the first sweets of kings in Egypt.
What's amazing is how haunting the marshmallow taste is. It survives a meal for example. I can see why this flavour would become popular as your reminded of it so long. I can also see why gelatine and gum arabic came to be used, because the mallow I have are still sticky and not easy to handle. Using gelatine clearly leads to more stable results but bouncy, soft and sticky with a gooey centre is pleasant too.
Wow, quick turnaround on the experiment. Where did you get your marshmallow root powder from in Aus?
Are we going to see a marshmallow root iceblock?
Wow what a fascinating voyage of discovery. I have combined The Complete Confectioner recipe of 1864 for Syrup of Marshmallow with a recipe of my own for Italian meringue:
egg whites 5
sugar 280 g
marshmallow root 50 g
water 350 ml
Simmer marshmallow root in water for 10 minutes, blend softened root to a soup like consistency with a stick blender, simmer for 20 minutes. Add water if necessary to maintain a soup like consistency. Strain and add sugar to the brown / green liquid. Boil to the soft-ball stage (234F to 240F; 112C to 116C on a candy thermometer). Be careful in the last minutes that the froth does not rise over the pan top.
Whip egg whites to hard peaks. While continuing to whip add in the hot syrup. The mixture will expand and become light green brown. Scoop out mixture onto a dusted baking tray and dry in an oven.
What's amazing about the syrup is its stringiness and bounce. The old texts call it mucilaginous. It's quite possible to pull very fine strand 30 cm or more from the pan. The taste is also quite remarkable. I can confirm that vanilla is definitely not the original marshmallow taste. It's a complex taste with a nice lingering floral, nectar like finish. I detect notes of caramel, not fully cured vanilla bean and mushroom. Nothing quite like it. Fantastic.
I'll try and post some images of the finished marshmallows ifI have time and the kids don't polish them off too quickly.
Very helpful
From what I've read around it looks to me like marshmallow as we know it today was popularised when it was combined with whipped egg whites as a pharmaceutical in France. Perhaps to make it easier to swallow or eat. Thus the most original recipes are probably those containing simply marshmallow root, sugar and egg white. The most original recipes seem to use orange blossom water. I found one recipes that look interesting:
Marshmallows
2 egg whites
1/2 cup raw cane sugar
1 tbsp powdered Marshmallow (root)
Whip egg whites until almost stiff. Then whip in the sugar, 1 tsp at the time. Finally, add Marshmallow and whip again. Place by teaspoon full on cookie sheet. Bake in oven
for 1 hour at 325 F 160 C .
Changing the meringue to Italian style by heating the sugar and marshmallow root with a little water and adding it to the whipped whites then baking may work well too.I like Italian style meringue as it ensures the whites are properly heated. I'll probably make the two in tandem and compare results then tweak until I get a recipe I'm happy with.
We already do (natural) vanilla, strawberry, raspberry, mango and passion fruit marshmallows using the Valrhona recipe. They are truly delicious and are relatively inexpensive to make. No relation whatsoever to the mass-produced bag crap. Huge (huge!) sellers, both in naked and chocolate covered form.
The vanilla marshmallows, burnt a little with a blowtorch, play beautifully with hot chocolate.
I'd love to get an original marshmallow recipe i.e. marshmalow and sugar. I'm guessing the originalis nothing like the sad chemical imitation we have now and vegans would love it
Rocky road with real marshmallow and good chocolate!Maybe rosewater or real strawberry and real vanilla. We could start a revolution!
Definitely potent enough. It's the strongest strawberry smell I've ever come across. I'm just not a fan of the lingering dried eucalyptus leaf finish 
Finger limes are in season and in good supply this year. Riberries are over. Bunya nuts just over.Davidsons mid way. Raspberries not started yet.
I have thought about using other bush tucker flavours but not done anything.
With the strawberry gum I was thinking about grinding the dried leaf into the chocolate until the texture is indistinguisable from the chocolate itself. I have done this with coffee and cinamon with great results, perhaps the strawberry gum leaf would not be potent enough?
Sure I got mine from http://www.playingwithfire.com.au/ . I'd seriously warn you off trying to use the leaf directly. The steam distillation of the methyl cinnamate does not sound too unnatural or toxic but it's probably like having vanillin instead of vanilla i.e. no of the delicious complexity of reality.
If your looking for an interesting bush tucker taste have you tried the native raspberries, bunya nut processed correctly, davidson's plums, finger limes (caviar inclusions?) or riberries?
I have been thinking of using Stawberry gum in chocolate making, there is a place that makes ice-cream with it in http://www.bushtuckericecream.com.au/
Do you know anywhere to get it from I know the Melbourne Food Depot does it http://www.mfcd.net/store/categories.asp?cID=4&c=244157
I doubt they have seen much actual Strawberry. More likey the "natural" strawberry flavouring methyl cinnamate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methyl_cinnamate extracted from the leaves of the Strawberry gum or Eucalyptus olida.
Crazy plant. I have some of the leaves and even after years of storage (because they taste awfull) the smell ofStrawberry is very strong.
That wiki link is fascinating. I wonder if anyone actually uses marshmallow to make marshmallows anymore!
Yeah, New Zealand has a massive tradition of marshmallows and chocolate, a friend of mine was telling me that about half of the chocolate bars in NZ have some form of marshmallow in them.
Perhaps looking back to when it all started, the first marshmallow to sully a hot chocolate, that may provide some insights. I am hoping that perhaps some Americans can comment as for some reason I associate marshmallows in hot chocolate with the USA.
Personally, I find marshmallows revolting, probably on par with fairy floss (candy floss) as the most horrible confection. That said I have not made my own marshmallowsand I usually find that if I make something myself the traditional way they result is lightyears ahead of the mass produced filth.
For me marshmallows are too sweet to add to a good hot chocolate and the huge vanilla hit or God forbid strawberry hit you get from adding them totally overpowers the chocolate. Perhaps you are right and a hand made more subtle variety is required to understand why it was done in the first place....or perhaps it was a sugar addict that did it!
