chocolate making/tempering

[wanye]

Originally Posted by wanye

*edit*
i just googled callebaut, thanks for the info, i think ill put an order in to try it

*edit2*
ive ordered a free 150g sample pack to try, although i wish they did sample packs of the whole range. just a few nuggets of each to try the different ones, i'd even pay for it if they did one!

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so following on from this, my sample pack never arrived

but the other week i contacted them explaining why i may not be a professional (yet) but how i've recently got through 2 2.5kg bags of the callebaut 70-30-38 vegan friendly chocolates in just over a month because i'd been selling chocolates and brownies to friends (they make great presents!) so was looking to try some of their other products.

after a week or so, a large box arrived in a UPS truck...

thats SIX 300g tubs. which is enough to make a whole tray of hearts with to test!

callebaut have now got all of my future business. it's gestures like this that create loyal customers

i may dabble with other brands if theres a particularly special chocolate they do, but unless its *really* special, i'll be sticking with callebaut for everything else.

so far, i've made 4 trays of these brownies, and sold half to friends, which covers my costs (at ~£30 a 2.5kg bag, good chocolate isnt cheap!)... at this rate, i'm gonna consider actually going into business doing it!

[Jedi Princess]

Your chocolates and brownies look amazing.

[wanye]

wanna know what nearly £250 of chocolate looks like?!

i got through 3* 2.5kg bags (milk, vegan dark, ecuarorian dark) in 2 months, so figured i'd ramp it up a bit... hopefully this little lot should last me until at least christmas!

[Apricota]

I find Callebault the best, end up with many different types and often add on of 80% to a 45.5 to get different mouth feel. Love your chocs Wayne. I was making lots of honeycomb and dipping into different types. Also some chocs in moulds like yourself. Did get fed up with bloom. Also I lust after a Thermomix but would this do the trick, your Sous Vide seems to work.

[wanye]

Originally Posted by Apricota

your Sous Vide seems to work.

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it really does! and you can pick up cheap SV sticks now for under £50, and all you need is a vessel (i use a polycarbonate tub with a lid (and a hole cut out for the stick to go)

i've had a couple of batches of chocs that had weird textures... one batch had a sort of gritty texture to it, and another came out kinda dry!

since then, i think i figured out the causes... when squishing the chocolate around in the bag, i over vigorously mixed it, and i think incorporated too much air. also, when tempering, i changed the temperature too quickly (going from 115f to 80f then slowly up to 90f) - the last couple of batches, i've done much slower to let the liquid choc in the bags come to the correct temperatures... so melt the choc at 115f, take out half the water and replace with cold to drop it quickly to 80f... then give it *at least* half an hour at 80 before slowly raising to 90 (the last lot i dropped to 80, left for an hour, then raised to 83/87/90 incrementally over the course of another hour.

the chocolates came out silky smooth and creamy like the original batches did, so i'm sticking with that!

i also bought some empty truffle shells to try... so im planning on hopefully expanding my range to include chocolate mousse filled and ganache filled chocs... probably involving whisky/brandy/etc too

i made 120 chocolates 2 weeks ago. i'm down to my last 20 already... as soon as i post that i've made a batch, friends are messaging me to buy a bunch for presents!

i just need to sort out my presentation skills now and get some nice selection/presentation boxes made up or something, at the moment, they are going into small clear bags with a ribbon on, and its too easy to squish them in transit

i bought some small flat pack decorative boxes from the range a while back, but they were like 10 for a fiver, which seems excessive and they were a complete ballache to build!

(so yeah, any suggestions for nice (yet cheap) boxes to buy, let me know!

[MariaLynda]

callebaut chocolate is great, i've used it in baking. Really wish it was a bit cheaper though and you could get smaller amounts without paying shipping!

[Libby29]

Calebaut is thee best to work with. My go to chocolate when cooking, baking or just moulding chocolate

Hobby craft have a good selection of packaging for chocs .

Also have you tried the chocolate transfer sheets to make them look glam..

[wanye]

Originally Posted by Libby29

Calebaut is thee best to work with. My go to chocolate when cooking, baking or just moulding chocolate

Hobby craft have a good selection of packaging for chocs .

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i got a selection pack of michel cluizel dark chocs to try, but unless they are *really* special, im sticking with callebaut

and thanks, i knew somewhere had to have some. hopefully they will be better quality and cheaper than the ones from the range. i should probably look on amazon or somewhere too...

[Libby29]

Yes, check for the transfer sheets too. They make the chocs look really extravagant 🥰🎁

[wanye]

Originally Posted by Libby29

Yes, check for the transfer sheets too. They make the chocs look really extravagant 🥰🎁

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i've actually been watching some youtube stuff about making holographic chocolate using a similar technique!

i bought a sheet of diffraction grating a while back, and im gonna play with making a mold with that as the base to see if i can make shiny bars of chocolate