Forum Activity for @John E

I recently picked up 3 books fromJean-Pierre Wybauw called Fine Chocolates: Great Experience (books 1, 2, and 3). I wanted to make some recipes but I don't have all the ingredients yet. In the mean time I wanted to know if anyone here has tried the recipes that he provides in these books. My questions are:

• I am really interested only in the truffles (not others).
• Are the truffle recipes any good?
• Would you say these truffle recipes are some of the best you have every tried? If yes, which are your favorite?
• IsJean-Pierre Wybauw considered the best chocolatier in the world?

I look forward to everyones input!! : )

Cool indeed. i bet any fruits are going to be very slow maturing and quite high in fat - it'd be interesting if you could get it to fruit, mature, and grab one 8-)

I think I might have found the highest altitude cacao in the world. Nobody can know for sure, but we do know that almost all cacao grows below 1,000 feet above sea level. This tree and a few others are healthy and happy at 5,448 feet (1,661 meters) above sea level. There were no pods yet but plenty of flowers. When these trees produce pods the fruit is quickly eaten by squirrels or monkeys.

saludos, brian

When you make bars can you send some test bars this way or are you selling any bar yet.

Where are you located now?

I am on the other end a consumer and work in retail and interested in either blended or plain dark single origin bars.

I live in the New York City area

I have absolutely no idea about cocoa production in Indonesia, but I am Indonesian(-Australian) and like Sebastian above, I agree that it's a tough place, chocolate technicalities aside. Do you know anyone in Indonesia?

An owner of the chocolate factory in Yogyakarta is French (look up Monggo Chocolate) and as far as I know he uses local chocolate. Another guy in Jakarta is French also (L'atelier du chocolat) but I believe he uses Swiss chocolate.

Selamat jalan (Bahasa for safe travels...)

You've picked a tough place to start, mate - almost no one in indonesia ferments their beans, and pod borer is a nightmare there. great beans can certainly be made there, however it's not part of the culture to do so, so it's a bit of a treasure hunt.

Hello everyone,

I thought Id introduce myself a bit more and hope to get some of your professional input.

Me and my partner are starting a bean-to-bar company. Just a brief background of us, Im French and Ive been a Professional Waiter in some great gourmet places in Melbourne, NZ and France and my partner, British, is a Digital Art Director and we are currently based in London. Both of us combined hope to bring a great bar to this world, with the all best intentions.

Were wanting to travel to Indonesia next year for a base to start sourcing and sampling beans in SE Asia and Oceania.

We would be grateful if anyone had any advice, ideas, experience or anything you think we should know. Or perhaps some contacts for translators would also be helpful.

Many thanks in advance, and I look forward to everyones response!

Thomas & Bo

Thanks Sebatian im on to it now:)

"Best" is one of those words that everyone likes, but means something different to everyone who hears it.

What you'll need to get your arms around is

1) Harvesting mature pods.

2) identifying removing damage/disease

3) fermenting

4) drying

and THEN you'll be able to make good chocolate. "best" for fermentation and drying above can vary a great deal, depending on what your targets are. I'm afraid it's very difficult to distill what you need to know in these areas in a few minutes on the web, but there's a great deal of info on these boards to get you started. It'd probably be a good use of time to spend a solid week reading everything here and compiling it to start.

Hi Sebastian,

Yes, I am already in the process now, im doing research on what is the best procedure. To compare to what it is we do.

Do you know of the best procedure currently out there?

Thank Sebastian for your time I appreciate it

Is it that the beans aren't of good stock, or that the post harvest handling procedures are not appropriate? My suspicion is that the beans are just fine, but the knowledge required to properly prepare them once mature is lacking. If that's the case, no change in planting material will help that i'm afraid.

I am new to the chocolate life, this is a great site! I would love help out there regarding the best approach into growing good beans in the Pacific Island. Currently we do grow beans however not good enough for the external market. What beans do you recommend? Any suggestions please. Thank you in advance for your time:)

Thanks for your reply, Terry. I'll do some trial and error.

The addition of coconut oil (76 degree melt point) to your base chocolate will improve its resistance to cracking when the finished product is re-frozen. Depending on how much coconut oil you add, it will be difficult to actually retain temper in the chocolate. As you noted, the only way to determined what is acceptable from an appearance and texture perspective is to do some trials.

Thanks for the tip, but I want to dip the bananas into my semisweet nondairy Belgian chocolate. I guess the only way to decide is to try it and see what happens.

We hand dip naked vanilla ice cream bars into E. Guittard chocolate. It's a special blend of chocolate and coconut oil. Talk to Jerry at Chocosphere. He has the ratio recipe or you can order a 55 pound pail of it already premixed. Much easier and less messy!

Is it necessary to temper the chocolate for chocolate covered frozen bananas since they are kept in the freezer anyhow after they are dipped?

Discussion over at eGullet: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/96102-chocolate-sphere-molds/

Hello, If any one know about how to use the Liquid filling spherical moulds, please share with me the procedure. I have added the pics of the mould.

Hi jessica,

I have not bought one yet, but and interested in purchasing one. Please send me a private message and provide the details.

Thank you!

David

Hi David, Have you bought one already? We have one to sell if you are interested. We just bought it recently and it is barely used. Please let me know : ) Thanks! Jessica

Hi David

We are just gearing up for a much larger production of our chocolates in the magnetic molds. We have hired a national marketing company and are beginning our wholesale division of the company. So I am going to hold off at the current time on selling the Easyfill Depositor as I'm suspecting we will finally be putting it to use.

Thanks for the nice comment on our presentations of the chocolates.

Currently, we have been purchasing our transfer sheets from Chef Rubber.

Hi Alex,

If you are interested in selling it, please send me a message and we can talk.

Thanks!

I purchased this machine about 5 years ago and have never used it. I have made several contacts to Tomric and one other about instructions on how to use it or a video, etc. Never have received a reply. So it still sits on the shelf. Plus, not quite busy enough, volume-wise, to have to put it into operation yet.

Hello,

Has anybody used the Easy Fill Depositing Machine from Tomric? Is there a vibrating table with it? Are there any issues with bubbles and trying to get them out of the ganache? Does anybody have one for sale by chance? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Here's a bit of a secret:

There's no perfect recipe. Since each cacao type is different, and each process is different - they all need to be adjusted to yield the outcome you want. And since each person has a different idea of what 'perfect' means to their palate, well, that makes it even more challenging. If you have cocoa from origin x that made 'the perfect' chocolate for you, taking that exact same recipe but substituting cocoa from origin y may result in the most awful chocolate you've ever tasted.

Not the easy answer you were looking for, i know, it's probably frustrating. But it's the truth i'm afraid. The pathway to enlightenment lies in the same answer of 'how do you get to carnegie hall? practice.' Or find someone who's already practiced and willing to taste your starting material and provide some direction.

How to create a perfect ratio of a chocolate recipe is a very tightly held secret at the top of the chocolate ladder. And usually reserved for the top MOF Chefs of the French and Belgian, Swiss, German and Italian chocolate academies.

There is a pathway for the eager but serious chocolate student, enroll in courses taught by the 'academies.' Getting to the point of learning about perfecting ratios of ingredients usually takes a pathway of Beginner to Intermediate to Advanced coursework.

Check out the Callebaut Chocolate Academies worldwide.

I find that starting with the ratios in Greweling's book and varying the flavours works very well. He also discusses ratios at length in the book.

Hi everyone~

This is a silly but really important question for me

I know how to modify the recipe, but don't know how to create a my own recipe...

Can't find any clues to make a perfect ratio of recipe

Is there anyone can help me how or any books suggest??

Thank you in advance

We are using a Selmi Futura tempering machine. We temper between 84.2 and 86 degrees fahrenheit. Our room temp is about 64 degrees and our cooler is at 58 degrees.

How did you temper them? Each most likely has its own tempering profile: "...milk fat delays the onset of crystallisation, lowers the melting point of cocoa butter and that chocolate containing milk fat requires lower temperatures and longer times for tempering." source

Hello,

I am encountering a problem with my milk chocolate blooming. My dark is not having any problems. Is there a temperature difference that my room needs to be at for the milk?

Thank you!

Chocolate is every ones favorite and especially in kids. They can survive only on chocolate if they want to and parents they also try to make new and different things and food article out of it only. But after sometime one gets out of the recipes available and try to make the old recipes only which is a reason of boredom not only among children but also those who are making them. So here is a Christmas treat for those who are fond of chocolate. This article mentions a very great and easy chocolate dish [Moderator note: an appropriate ecommerce link deleted].

So leave all your old recipes and try this very new one!!!

Ingredients

• 100 gm cranberries, dried
• 30 ml brandy
• 200 gm butter
• 300 gm broken chunks of dark chocolate
• 300 gm light muscovado sugar
• 100 gm roughly chopped pecans
• 200 gm flour, plain
• 4 eggs
• 1 table spoon spice, mixed
• For serving icing sugar

Steps to be followed

Step 1: preheat the oven at 180C and line a tin with baking parchment.

Step 2: heat the brandy gently and add cranberries to it. Leave it to soak aside.

Step 3: take a bowl and melt chocolate and butter in microwave or on gas. Stir it gently on a regular basis and then keep aside to cool.

Step 4: take a bowl large enough and put eggs and sugar in it. Mix it thoroughly until light and fluffy.

Step 5: fluff up the chocolate and butter mix with eggs and then add flour, pecans, cranberries, mixed spice and brandy and mix them until they are smooth.

Step 6: pour the prepared batter in the tins and bake them in the oven for 25-30 min or until they are cooked properly.

Step 7: take them out and let them cool.

Once cooled cut them into pieces and sprinkle icing sugar and serve hot or cold as per the choice.

i am a chocolate love. i like to make a different types of chocolate at home. i am always looking for a new and different chocolate recipe.

i do not know the chocolate cherry brownies recipe so if anyone have it then please share it so i can try it at home.

Chocolates are almost everyones favorite and kids are just fond of them. They can eat loads of them on a regular basis. Chocolate based items are also a lot in demand like chocolate cake, chocolate pastries, pudding or chocolate Truffle; they are being loved by small children and even the adults. Children run to shops for getting these chocolate items every now and then. But why to allow them to eat all these yummy food from outside when one can easily make it in ones own house. Here is given an easy chocolate truffle recipe for which children are crazy!!!

Pull up your socks and get ready to serve your family delicious chocolate Truffle.

Ingredients (makes 1 large bowl)

• 520 g of chocolate sponge cake mixture
• 85 g dry chocolate mousse mixture
• 125ml coffee flavor liquid
• 11 or 28g crushed daim bars
• 40g milk chocolate
• 900ml whipped double cream

Gather all these above mentioned articles and get your oven ready to cake chocolate truffle.

Steps to be followed

Chocolate Truffle recipe is a very easy recipe and it can be made very easily by just following few steps only.

Step1: preheat oven at 180 C.

Step 2: grease three 20 cm cake tins and put some flour in it too with greasing.

Step3: make the cake mix as per the directions given on the pack of it. Pour the batter in the tins.

Step4: put the tins in the oven and bake it for about 30 minutes. Take it out and let it cool and afterwards pierce it with a fork.

Step 5: pour the coffee liquid over the layerings of the cake.

Step 6: now make the chocolate mousse with the help of the directions written on the package. Keep it in the refrigerator to chill.

Step 7: when the cake cools down break it into pieces. Now in a large glass bowl layer the broken cake pieces, chocolate mousse, daim bars and whipped cream 1/3 at a time. Grate the milk chocolate over it. Keep it in the refrigerator to chill.

Take it out after several hours from the refrigerator. Now chocolate Truffle is ready to be served. Give them to your children when they return from school and see a broad smile on their face.

Sweets, cakes or pastries and normal food items are so common in any festival or party. One should definitely try to do something new and different from the others. There are various recipes available that can be tried so as to entertain guests and family members with something new. Almond rocks chocolate recipe is one of them!!! It is very easy to make without any extra sweat and is very tasty too.

Excited to surprise your family with this recipe then get ready and collect all the ingredients mentioned below. Ready!!! Get set go!!!

Ingredients

• cups of almonds chopped into big cubes
• cup cooking chocolate, plain
• milk cooking chocolate, chopped

Preparation time 5 min

Cooking time 3 min

Steps to be followed

The steps mentioned for the recipe are again very simple to be followed.

Step 1: spread the slices of almonds in a plate and fry or microwave them until they are light pink to see. Keep them aside to cool down.

Step 2: take the chocolate in a bowl and keep it in the microwave or gas as per the availability until it melts, stirring a bit in between.

Step 3: remove the chocolate and stir it on a continuous basis until it cools down.

Step 4: now add almonds to it and mix it well.

Step 5: take those almonds coated in chocolate and place them on a tray having aluminum foil on it.

Step 6: keep it in the refrigerator to set for at least 2 hours.

Step 7: wrap those almond rocks in colorful wrapping paper and keep them in the refrigerator.

Almond rocks are ready to be eaten. Give them to your children when they come from school. They would definitely enjoy them a lot!!!

Hi,

I am looking at getting my chocolates co packed her, and was wondering if you have any information re agreements to protect recipes etc?

Anjali

Hi All,

I'm working with a potential client, and am starting to do research for contract manufacturing help with fulfilling molded chocolate orders. It potentially could be a sizable volume of chocolate (and multiple orders). Anyone here know of anyone or do contract manufacturing? If so I'd love to chat with you etc.

Thanks in advance.

Possibly you could look into taking the online course from www.ecolechocolat.com called: Quality Assurance and Keeping Limits of Chocolate.

Best wishes on your new venture.

John,

You're welcome to use/revise as you like.

Best wishes,

Dale

Excellent Dale. Would it be too close to plagerizing if I paraphrase this for my store? John