Forum Activity for @Julie Ehrentraut

I am with you Maggie! I have been trying to temper dark chocolate as well and am having all kinds of problems. I bring my chocolate up to 115 then I add 25% seed chocolate and bring it down to 90 to work with it. I am wondering if leaving it out to harden on the counter is causing the problem. I have read that 55-60 is the best temp. to let it harden at. If I refrigerate it to hardenit looks great. What is the best method on bringing it back to room temperature as I know humidity will be an issue as well?

First thing to do is make sure your thermometer is reading correctly. You'll need to test that. Assumingthe range of your thermometeris large enoughyou can test it in boiling water (unless it is an IR thermometer). Then you should check your upper and lower temperatures you are working at with your chocolate. I personally don't have a concern about you starting to work with your chocolate at 89 degrees. I actually start at this temperature when I am molding and increase the temperatureslightly from there as the chocolate thickens up some.

All of that said, there are lots of things you might be doing that lead to your chocolate not tempering correctly. Generally speaking time, temperature and agitation are the factors in tempering. As a beginner it will take a lot of practice before you get it right and feel comfortable with it. When I started, I quickly figured out that before I was ready to mold or dip or whatever you plan to do I needed to get tempering down and then practice it a bunch of times before I even moved on to actually doing something with the chocolate. Keep practicing and you will figure it out.

Andrea

What high-low temperatures are you reaching? Also, 89 seems a little low for a working temp for dark chocolate. Try 91-92.

Just starting out and am having a Very Challenging experience trying to temper properly!

I bring the dark chocolate to 89 and it still does not have the beautiful glistening look

What on earth am I doing wrong?????

Please HELP

It's a great shop - love to visit it when I'm in Montreal.

Kerry -

My thoughts exactly with Qzina and D+R - I was going to suggest them. Didn't know about France Decor.

In Montreal you can buy from Chocolat-chocolat and Design and Realization. Qzina is doing online sales now and it's free delivery if over $100. They are out of Toronto. Also in Montreal there is France Decor.

Hello,

I'm about to begin the Ecole Chocolat course and I am beginning to look into the supplies and bulk chocolate that I need to buy for the course. I know that I have access to lots online, but I was wondering if anyone can point me towards Canadian suppliers. I'm in Montreal.

Thanks!

Isabella

Hi everyone, Thanks for this pointers. I had not thought of Jerry over at Chocosphere (duh, I've got an account with him). Clay, Thanks, I will look into that - I will try my local bakery supply house to see if they can get it. 35Lb isn't out of the realm of what I can start with. I've not heard of cocoasupply but will look into that too.

If I could get some Waialua Estates cocoa butter And 100% I would, but I don't think they make either.

Thanks again!

Have you tried cocoasupply? (.com)

I buy both deodorized and undeodorized from them. They do sell amounts as small as 5-lb bags for pretty decent prices.

Mark -

Having used it, I can say that Blommer's undeodorized cocoa butter is quite good. You have to order 1 tonne if you go through them, but if you call them you can find out the name of your local distributor. That's what I did when I needed some here in NYC - it was a restaurant/bakery ingredient company.

The price was quite good for what we got - only challenge for you going this route is that I believe the smallest size if a 35lb tub. That said, it will probably be one of the less expensive alternatives on a per-pound basis so it might not end up costing that much more than a more expensive cocoa butter in small quantities.

:: Clay

Try www.chocosphere.com . They carry Callebaut & Pacaricocoa butters. Just do a search and scroll down to the bottom of each page. I can't speak to your other requirements but they have smaller sizes.

Andrea

Hi All, I am looking for a good source of Cocoa Butter, small amounts <5kg, to start. Using it for my r&d for making my own bars.

I would prefer organic (whether certified or not). Single origin or blend, and not chemically deodorized.

I know this stuff is expensive, but I don't want to lose my shirt on buying cocoa butter...

Thanks, - Mark

For years and years people have challenged my idea about banana and cherry working well together in a recipe. I would say they would and my friends would disagree.

I never did anything to try to prove my point but now I have my very own chocolate website, I thought it was time to prove them all wrong.

So I did a bit of research and came up with my very delicious and healthy dark chocolate chip banana and cherry cake.

It's got all of the necessary cake ingredients self raising flour, butter, eggs, caster sugar, and vanilla to which I have also added LSA (linseed, sunflower and almond meal) bananas and Morello cherries.

The cake must have been quite a success as I've not received any complaints about the flavours at all.

Come and check the chocolate chip banana and cherry cake recipe for yourself, I'm very confident that you won't be disappointed.

Why not just make a wiki page with bean suppliers, origins, and quantities available for purchase? Wikis were created just for tasks like this.

Are Meridian Cacao's beans organic (if not certified, do they use pesticides, etc?). Also, are there discounts for TheChocolateLife members?

If you are going to facilitate transactions between people, rather than stock the product yourself such as what John Nanci does, there should be some type of membership fee charged for this section.

I could easily write the software for this at a reasonable price.

Cheers

Brad

"due to inflation and the penny being discontinued, my two cents has now been rounded up to a nickel."

Roger -

It is a good idea - and it belongs in the Classifieds section.

Doing it this way requires that I "police" every post where someone asks to buy or sell beans outside that single post, point them to the correct post, and close down the one where the question is asked (unless it's a blog in which case there's nothing I can do).

I mention that because we tried to create a single "official bean-to-bar chocolate maker" thread and in the end it turned out to be too much work to force all new entries into the single "official" thread.

Blog/discussion software is not the best tool to this. If anyone has some programming skills and wants to work on some useful database tools I would be happy to work on this.

Clay, perhaps it should be a "one way" list, that is, posting only for those who have beans or a source for beans for sale. The lisiing would be updated by the providers as needed.

More like a reference thread than a discussion. Take the bean discussions to the regular posting areas.

I think it would provide a great service for sellers and buyers, win win for all.

It is of interest to me - buying small lots of cocoa beans. I saved this thread for future reference, but having it in one spot that makes more sense would be good.

Roger:

Interesting idea ... and one that I will think about some more if/as people chime in on this.

A generic "Where to Buy" category makes sense to me in a general discussion area.

There is a whole Classifieds section where an "I want to buy/sell cocoa beans" makes a lot of sense and it would be highly specific. I could close this discussion and point to one there.

A "Where to Buy Cocoa Beans" in the main discussion are seems redundant to me.

Anyone have any strong opinions one way or the other?

Thank you all for your help!

Imho, I would suggest that the mods make a new category specifically for those of us looking for beans to buy or sell. It would make these transactions a bit easier for all.

We have trinitarian cacao beans from Costa Rica you can contact me at daniela@chocolate-nahua.com if you're interested!

You can also contact Tom Sharkey in Hawaii- Direct from the farmer. He does small orders.

(808) 895-6600

tshark@hawaii.rr.com

Hey, i can get you the 10 pounds of cocoa beans from Uganda ( East Africa) for 14 dollars. Stephen Sembuya

Thanks Clay, any others you can recommend? I would like to have several in my "arsenal", to get a variety of beans to choose from.

Roger:

There are many sources for cocoa beans. One I recommend is a new sponsor of TheChocolateLife - Meridian Cacao .

:: Clay

Hi Everyone,

I am looking for a source for small quantities (less than 10 pounds) of raw cocoa beans.

So far the only place I found any is Chocolate Alchemy. Does any one know of another place that is fair priced?

Thanks!

You can pipe any buttercream into a mold, have you never made buttercream icing for a cake? Tasty experiments!

Just google buttercream icing and have a go at it. Worst case is you have something which you can throw on some brownies or a quick cake hehe.

It's not shelf stable but they are good and creamy.

You can store your bag of buttercream in the fridge but will need to allocate some time for it to "thaw" before piping.

While this isn't our recipe I just grabbed this one off Foodnetwork as an example of the ingredient breakdown, not rocket science--

1 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup milk, room temperature
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla or other desired flavoring
2 pounds confectioners' sugar

The package is just one ingredient, fondant sugar. It's just pre-portioned and I'm new at this.
However, I agree that fondant is too sweet.

Any recipes for buttercreams I can pipe into molds?

Or don't use a package, just look up buttercream recipes. We sell the hell out of some straight up old fashion buttercream filled products during easter and use a slightly modified version for a bon bon year round. Fondant is just way too sweet and in the end a really neutral product.

It's all on the back of the package. I don't have a pack near me, but I think it's one package, 3 tbsp of butter, 1 tbsp of cream and only a drop of invertase.

http://www.shop.partyshopga.com/Dry-Fondant-for-Candy-Centers-76-5501.htm?gclid=CKHyuv38v7YCFe5xOgodlycA_Q

Would you share your porportions on the dry mix, water & invertase you use?

I use CK brand Dry Fondant Mix in a bag with some invertase. You can't get any easier than that and it's good. I was going to develop my own recipe, or do something from scratch, but everyone seems to like these.

Just use a cream fondant. 4 cups sugar, 1 cup cream, 1/2 water, 2 tablespoons corn syrup or honey, pinch salt. Cook to soft ball (238 sea level) Pour out to cool. Stir when about 115 degrees. For chocolate, add 3 oz cocoa mass when beating. A bit of vanilla if desired.

I am a University of Utah student doing Marketing research for a chocolate project. It is a fun chocolate survey I have released so if you are an American that loves chocolate, please take the 2 minutes out of your day to take this survey. If you feel uncomfortable answering any of the questions, feel free to skip the question and move on to the next. It is 100% anonymous. The link below will take you to the Survey!

http://eccles.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_37zDED8IezRSmoJ

Thank You,

Andrew

Clay,

If you go through the website of Warrell Corporation, I am sure you will understand what I am looking for. ( http://warrellcorp.com/ManufacturingProcesses/HotP )

I was there for PMCA chocolate panning class. For Hot panning you need Copper pan with burners below the pan to caramalise the sugar. Those you mentioned are definitely the ones I am looking for. But it seems they can`t produce big batches. I needPan with 15-20 kgs (i.e around 30-40lbs) capacity. Any insight? Thank you so much.

Raji from India.

I don't entirely understand what you are looking for. A hot pan for nuts to cover with chocolate? Roast? Caramelize (that is, make pralin)?

Panning is the process of covering a center with chocolate or sugar, or some other coating.

Here's a site for a US company that sells machines for cooking nuts in sugar . Here's the web site of the company that makes them (they're in Munich, Germany).

Here's a site for a German company that makes machines for roasting nuts and cooking them in sugar.