Chocolate!!!

[mrs767er]

I am going to use a new source for my holiday chocolate. After years of dipping caramels in hand-tempered chocolate (which is a physics/chemistry challenge in itself) I have decided to buy from this company.
Gourmet chocolate ingredients, supplies and equipment
I rpeviously used some high end choc--this one is derived from a Belgian source and I am quite excited (yeah, I know--that "excites" me??!!) about
the change. I get mixed results with hand-tempering, so I also invested a few $$ in a machine to control the process. BUT they offer a no temper chocolate called BadaBing...and it is well-priced and gets good reviews.
I am gearing up (well, waiting for my machine to arrive) for dipping about 20# of caramels in 4 # of choc, as well as making several hundred giant marshmallows!!
10 # spiced nuts--sweet/hot and smoky/hot are on the work list, too.
I may toss in some English toffee (with choc/nuts on top, of course!!), so I'm almost ready to get started.
Just some inspiration for those who like homemade gifts...
PS--this place is in Alpharetta, GA--I know who lives there....

[spotty4]

Originally Posted by mrs767er

Just some inspiration for those who like homemade gifts...

Oh! See ... I thought you started this thread to take orders.

I'll have some caramels and marshmallows, please!!!

[Hokuspocus]

Ohhh marshmallows...yum!

[mrs767er]

Originally Posted by spotty4

Oh! See ... I thought you started this thread to take orders.

I'll have some caramels and marshmallows, please!!!

My husband would be totally thrilled if I turned my treats into a business.
I'd likely kill myself cleaning the kitchen before I made any $$.
With all the love and time it takes me, no one would pay the price I'd have to ask!!
PS--that stands for powdered sugar and after 3-400 giant marshmallows, you can imagine hwo much of that stuff has been used, breathed and washed off...I used to go the grocery looking like a coke head!! PS all over!

[Melissa]

I live there!

[Kristie]

soooo....inquiring minds...but what is tempered chocolate? I do some chocolate dipping myself (buckeye ball & choc covered pretzel fanatic during the holidays) but always just use bark chocolate.

i'd love to try my hand at marshmellows cuz i love to eatz them...but not sure how they stay unmelted.

[mrs767er]

coating chocolate, with fillers, parafin etc are the ones you can use to cover centers. truffles etc but with re-heating, fine chocolate requires tempering--raising/lowering temps to maximize the textrue /life of the product.
I pulled this out of my documents for tempering-yeah--I keep several on file! (retentive!)

"The fats in cocoa butter can crystallize in six different forms (polymorphous crystallization). The primary purpose of tempering is to assure that only the best form is present. The six different crystal forms have different properties.
Crystal Melting Temp. Notes
I 17 ?C (63 ?F) Soft, crumbly, melts too easily.
II 21 ?C (70 ?F) Soft, crumbly, melts too easily.
III 26 ?C (78 ?F) Firm, poor snap, melts too easily.
IV 28 ?C (82 ?F) Firm, good snap, melts too easily.
V 34 ?C (94 ?F) Glossy, firm, best snap, melts near body temperature (37 ?C).
VI 36 ?C (97 ?F) Hard, takes weeks to form.

Making good chocolate is about forming the most of the type V crystals. This provides the best appearance and mouth feel and creates the most stable crystals so the texture and appearance will not degrade over time. To accomplish this, the temperature is carefully manipulated during the crystallization.

Generally, the chocolate is first heated to 45 ?C (113 ?F) to melt all six forms of crystals. Then the chocolate is cooled to about 27 ?C (80 ?F), which will allow crystal types IV and V to form (VI takes too long to form). At this temperature, the chocolate is agitated to create many small crystal "seeds" which will serve as nuclei to create small crystals in the chocolate. The chocolate is then heated to about 31 ?C (88 ?F) to eliminate any type IV crystals, leaving just the type V. After this point, any excessive heating of the chocolate will destroy the temper and this process will have to be repeated. However, there are other methods of chocolate tempering used-- the most common variant is introducing already tempered, solid "seed" chocolate."
Learning how to do this with a digital thermometer is a b!!!tch--so I bought a proper tempering machine to take careof the ups and downs of chocolate control

marshmallows are not tough to make--gooey messy and time consuming--good stand mixer is a MUST unless you have a great portable and an arm to hold it for a LONG time--but OMG--YUM to the NTH degree