March 20th, 2008
My dear partner Penelope put this together, noting that so far there is not one single page outlining the entire chocolate making procedure start to finish. Well, now there is.
Chocolate Making at Home 101
It won’t give you everything you need in detail (hence the ‘101′) but gives a great overview. For all the detailed […]
Filed under: Products, Cocoa Beans, Roasting, Refining & Conching, Grinding, Cracking & Winnowing, Alchemist's Mussings, Tempering | 3 Comments »
March 18th, 2008
Every week I field questions about the necessity of the Melanger and whether the sugar can dissolved in “just a little” water to eliminate a step. Basically, you can’t do that. Or more to the point, if you do, what you will end up with is not classic chocolate. This Water and […]
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March 7th, 2008
The new Melangers are in and all back orders have been filled. Also, all the larger units (Spectra 20 and 40) have been sold. There will be more in around May. If you would like to reserve a unit (or more), please contact me via email. The Spectra 20 is $1000 […]
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February 21st, 2008
For some reason, there have been a few spats of difficulties lately with too thick or thin chocolate in the Melangers.
One person reported only being able to get 4 lbs of chocolate into the Melanger before it spun itself out. The culprit was 3 times the cocoa butter the recipe called for. I […]
Filed under: Refining & Conching, What's new & Updates, Alchemist's Mussings, Tempering | 4 Comments »
February 6th, 2008
I have put together an article on tempering. In it you will find one I wrote some time ago about some of the theory behind all those temperatures you have to worry about during tempering. New now is an illustrated explanation to tempering.
My hope in both of those is that it will make […]
Filed under: Alchemist's Mussings, Tempering | No Comments »
January 7th, 2008
How’s that for a title?
I celebrated 12th night last night (secular form actually) and for dessert I prepared a fresh Tabasco (bean of course) based flourless torte - just to die for. I thought I would share both parts.
69% Dark Tabasco chocolate - 6.25 lbs
5 lbs of Tabasco cocoa
5 oz Natural cocoa butter
30 oz […]
Filed under: Products, Cocoa Beans, Roasting, Refining & Conching, What's new & Updates, Grinding, Cracking & Winnowing, Alchemist's Mussings | 1 Comment »
