Hey everyone I'm looking to test out some new whole milk powders!
I was sourcing some from a farm in Fresno, CA but now I'm looking for some other recommendations...
Any suggestions on the tastiest???
Thaaaannksss
Hi, we do co-packing. If interested let me know and I will tell you more.
I was about to ship out some samples and I saw this on my raspberry filling, and my honey almond....
please see attached pic
1st issue
chocolate, callebaut c811 with 5% coco butter
filling, oragnic rasp, glucose, vodka, waxy maize and carrageenan.
2nd issue
honey almond filling, its a sugar sweating through...why?
Im thinking the shell thickness was to thin....
thoughts?
cheers!
Alan
Hi Ben, I congratulate you on your project, I wanted to consult you because you are much more experienced than me. I saw a photo that you use the champion juicer to break the seed and thus separate the shell. as you do for the champion does that work?
Ben, if successful you after I pass the level. soory for my english
H Beni, I really have a plan, I'm doing copying other!
Hi Mariano,
Most of the melangers go around 120-140 rpm, but I'd include speed control if I was building one. How are you making it? Care to share your design?
-Ben
I'm making a melangeur 24 inches and need to know to how many revolutions per minute tour!
I make compound based chocolate,dark chocolate heating at 45c n cooling till 33c..but when I take out the chocolate has patches in polycarbonate moulds.kindly suggest a possible reason for such a happening plz.
Hey Guys,
I have a question regarding flavored oils in chocolate.
Does anyone know the threshold of flavored oils in chocolate? Currently, I am using a vanilla extract in my chocolate but I'm not getting a strong enough vanilla flavor. The ratio I'm using is 1/2 table spoon per pound of chocolate. Can I just up my oil to a tablespoon per pound or will that compromise the chocolate?
Thanks!!!
It's a bittersweet that is one drop (i.e. viscous) so would be better for making ganache than for use in moulding etc.
I just ran across this product.
https://www.qzina.com/content/l6040nv-intense-bitter-sweet-ganache-chocolate-usa-only
Not sure what it is supposed to be used for--is it a ready-made ganache that just needs to be melted and poured into a truffle, or is it the chocolate that you temper and make ganache truffle with?
Thanks!
Thank you very much, Kerry!
You can - as long as you don't somehow manage to throw the chocolate out of temper by using coloured cocoa butter that is too warm.
Alternately you could simply put a dab of coloured cocoa butter on the bottom of the mold.
I just need to add one dab of a color to each piece of white chocolate truffle at the bottom of the mold. Can I just mix colored coacoa butter with my tempered white chocolate and then dab the mixture at the bottom of my mold? I literally just need one little dab but I want to make sure that it's ok to use this mix--and that 1)my tempered white chocolate won't break and 2)the colored dab comes out of the mould together with the rest of the truffle.
Thanks!
Greetings,
Promain Ltd. is a Colombian company ( www.ingesecltda.com ), leader in agro-industrial technology and processes. We are currently working with international cooperation and support jointly with Tetra Tech ARD in developing new technologies for processing coffee and cocoa.
Under the framework of this project we are working with five types of top quality Colombian products:
1. Green Coffee,
2. Roasted whole bean coffee,
3. Roasted ground coffee,
4. Gold fermented dry cocoa. Characterized by technical fermentation and drying processes which applies technology and science in a controlled environment to produce an extremely clean cocoa bean free of fungus and contaminants,
5. Premium cocoa. Selected cocoa fermented and processed in the traditional-artisan way.
We would like to share some samples at no cost of any of the products mentioned above. In return we only ask to return a short questionnaire that should take less than ten minutes to complete. This feedback will be very helpful to producers.
If you are interested, please respond to cacaoycafe@ingesecltda.com and let us know which products you would like to receive and your mailing address. Please keep in mind that samples are limited.
Thanks!
In many places in the world where cocoa is grown, water security is still a major challenge. Small solar purification plants are one solution to the problem but they tend to be very expensive and many can't be used in places where brackish - salty - water is a problem.
There's an Indiegogo campaign going on right now for an innovative small-scale solar water purifier. Called the Desolenator , this award-winning project has been under development for several years and is calling for support to move it from the prototype phase into production.
We can help the campaign in several ways:
1) Tell your friends about the project and ask them to tell their friends and go to the campaign page and pledge a perk.
2) Buy a Desolenator at $650 each (pays for delivery, installation, and training). I don't think that many people reading this need one, and many of the rest of us don't have the resources, especially at this time of year, to go out and buy one to give one away.
3) #1 + #2 - This is where the power of our global community comes in. Tell your friends to tell their friends to help TheChocolateLife purchase at least one
I am happy to collect donations (through PayPal) from members of the community and then purchase a Desolenator on behalf of the worldwide ChocolateLife membership. If I receive enough to purchase two Desolenators then I will purchase two of them for the community. (Any monies below/above evenly divisible multiples of $650 will be donated for other perks in the name of TheChocolateLife community.
Once I make the pledge we will have a discussion about where to deliver the Desolenator to a location in India and Africa.
To make a donation, please send it via PayPal to paypal@discoverchocolate.com. PLEASE earmark your donation as a donation or personal payment. PayPal does not charge transaction fees for donations. If you want to mail a check, please contact me privately. I will keep track, here on this post, of the amount collected, plus provide updates on the campaign.
There campaign closes on January 14th, so please help me in supporting this extremely worthwhile campaign.
:: Clay
Hi! Just opened a store a couple of months ago. We make caramel apples, chocolate-dipped everything.... We have a Savage Bros. commercial stove and copper kettle top and would like to use it to make fudge. I am having the devil's own time trying to find a basic recipe for chocolate fudge and for white fudge for commercial copper kettles. Does anyone out there have a couple of good ones to share please???
Once we have the two basics we know how to make about 20 different kinds of fudge. Our store manager is used to a Calico Cottage kettle and mix, but I do not want the extra equipment or to use mix, since we make everything else from scratch.... HELP!!! :
Is it possible to get your recipe amounts for the peanut butter meltaways?
Thanks
What Ruth said!
There is a eutectic effect of one fat on another. So if you combine chocolate and coconut oil the cocoa butter and the coconut fat interact. Ditto with the peanut butter fat. The melting point of the new fat produced is different from the melting point of the starting fats and it will not necessarily be a temperature half way between the two - it can be higher or lower than either alone.
The tempering allows that fat to crystallize in a stable form.
Meltaways need to be tempered. You may have lucked out in the past. Combine tempered chocolate and cooled coconut oil. stir in peanut butter and place over a bowl of ice. Keep stirring until mixture thickens. Pour into frame. That should get the correct crystals forming. You can always remelt the grainy batch and retemper.
I've been making a peanut butter meltaway using peanut butter, milk chocolate and coconut oil. There are times when that meltaway center develops a...texture. It's not quite gritty, because the little lumps melt away, but it's not as smooth as I'd like it.
I'm not sure if this has something to do with the temps of each item in the meltaway, or the order in which they are put together.
Can anyone shed light on this? Most often they are perfect.
thanks - since water and alcohol turns melted down chocolate into flaky hard mud . ... how could extracts with water or alcohol be used if at all?
We use LorAnn oils.Several stores sell them, or you could get them online. http://shop.lorannoils.com/chocolates/super-strength-flavors/1-dram...
They are much, much cheaper than the "Super Healthy, Super Duper, Super Commissioned" essential oils.
I couldn't speak to if one is better than the other.
Note: some are oils, some are flavors with water & alcohol.
I haven't gotten a level where I am producing the chocolate in my kitchen.... rather my homemade chocolates are just melted down dark chocolate blends.So I am a definite beginner.
My question is how do I add almond or peppermint to my melted chocolate? Most extracts I have seen (clubhouse etc) have water and alcohol. Unfortunately, I already learned what that does to cooking chocolate! 
I did a search for peppermint oil or almond oil and all I could find is essential oil for aromatherapy! hehe What do I do / buy?
Thank you
Merry Christmas / Joyeux Noel
Even in my very-limited-production chocolatiering, I have an idea of what the Christmas insanity is like for someone who is actually in the business, so I appreciate that you took the time to respond. I will give your suggestions a try. Thanks very much.
Jim
Working with chocolate in small batches (by hand) is like shooting at a moving target; you always have to be making minor adjustments in order to keep the viscosity consistent.
Here are a couple of hints that may help:
1. White chocolate takes longer for the beta crystals to propogate appropriately, as there are more "non-cocoa" particles in it. You need to have more patience.
2. When you see your chocolate start to get thicker than you would ideally like, hit it for a moment or two with a blow dryer, and stir like crazy.
3. Don't wait until the chocolate is unbearably thick (over tempered). Make constant adjustments as you go, but keep in mind that you need to stir it very well.
I'd type more, but I'm on hour 16 of today's version of Christmas insanity and I desperately need food. Hope that helps.
Brad
...PS.... When you think you've stirred enough, Well... You haven't. 
Brad,
Very helpful document. You mention that one should not let the tempered (dark) chocolate go above 95F. How low can it go while one is working with it?
In connection with another post about over-tempered chocolate you wrote about melting additional chocolate then bringing it down to the working temperature to add to the bowl of chocolate that is thickening too much, and I asked a question: I was using Valrhona white chocolate and (as usual) it began to thicken as I filled molds. So I added some of the chocolate I had melted (untempered) and then cooled to 84-86 F., and it successfully thinned out the chocolate in the bowl. But it lasted only a short time, and when I added more untempered chocolate, it did no good. In my work this problem occurs mostly with white chocolate, and I am not sure what more I can do. Any ideas?
All chocolate works under the same principles, whether milk, dark, or white. You just need to keep in mind that in the case of white chocolate, there are more "tiny bits" separating the cocoa butter crystals, so it takes longer to crystalize. That's all.
Thank you all for your input. Really appreciate it.
Have a wonderful holiday season!
Hello Brad:
Thank you for the info sheet. Really helpful. Does your dog give tempering lessons on white chocolate by any chance?
Have a wonderful holiday season!
Callebaut's reasons are self serving to say the least.
At no time do I advocate adding cocoa butter during the tempering process, whether it's properly crystalized or not. For the most part, the viscosity of a good couverture can be controlled by temperature and crystalization.
My philosophy is simple: You wanna work with chocolate? Learn to temper chocolate.
Having said that, I have attached to this post an EXCELLENT document I have written on tempering chocolate. Why is it excellent? Because it makes tempering chocolate simple, and tells you all the things that online posts don't tell you.
This document makes tempering chocolate so simple that I taught my dog, and he how holds courses on chocolate tempering! LOL
DON'T CHEAT. LEARN TO TEMPER CHOCOLATE!
There is a difference between adding cocoa butter and adding Mycryo. With Mycryo you are adding beta crystals, not just cocoa butter. Of course the cocoa butter is the beta 5 crystals, but just plain cocoa butter isn't the same thing.
Brad - Callebaut has been pushing this idea. Not surprisingly, they suggest using their "Mycryo" brand of cocoa butter. It probably works, and for a home hobbyist it might very well be an easier method. I don't know; I haven't tried it myself.
I wouldn't imagine too many professionals would go this direction however. And chocolate makers would probably be dead set against it, since they have already made their chocolate with whatever cocoa butter content they think it should have.
Personally, I don't think it's a good idea at all, and it certainly won't improve taste. In fact, adding cocoa butter in most cases will MUTE the taste of the chocolate.
Hello:
I am new to chocolate and just read that it's possible to add cocoa butter when tempering to make the chocolate more shiny and improve taste. Can anyone comment on whether this is a good idea? I would like to know before starting to do this in case it's wont' turn out.
Thanks and have a wonderful holiday season!
Julie
Hi, I'm mostly a lurker here, now it's my time to post. I'm a hobby chocolate dipper for few years, I've fairly experienced at what I do, but have probably pick up all sorts of bad habits since I know almost no one with experience handling chocolate.
I occasionally make meltaways and have been using oil based flavors, but I just read a recipe at serious eats that calls for alcohol based flavor OR oil based. The recipe supposedly is based on Greweling's, but his book only lists oil. So the question is, does alcohol seize or affect chocolate or not? Does the added fat content make the alcohol less harmful to the texture? Anyone here with experience with using both oil and alcohol based flavors for meltaways?
Thanks for any help.
