Archive for the 'Arts + Artisans' Category

The Intricacies of Tempering Chocolates by Hand

Posted in Arts + Artisans, Best Food, Enterprise on February 18th, 2010

Tempering can never be ignored because it’s the only one that can turn chocolates glossy, silken, crisp and velvety because chocolates do not have these great qualities on their own. It is true that conching makes the particles of the chocolate liquor fine but if you do not temper chocolates, these particles cannot acquire the minute fineness with which high-quality chocolates come with.

Blooming is prevented only because of tempering. It spoils your whole chocolates by making them powdery and coarse; chocolate also turns blotchy because the crystals in cocoa butter rise to the top and becomes visible, making chocolates unpalatable to consumers.

Chocolates are heated at temperatures above 90 Fahrenheit to prepare them for candy making. At this temperature, they get distempered so they should necessarily be re-tempered.

Manual tempering will be a practical skill for every chocolatier to have even if they own a tempering machine; particularly because there will be unforeseen occasions when these machines won’t be available for use.

The twin methods of manual tempering, tabliering and seeding, are almost similar to each other. Tabliering is a French treasure; they call it the marble-slab technique since a marble slab is used to cool down the chocolate once its melted.

Tabliering requires working on two batches of one pound of chocolate, melted for preparation, separately. The first one is cooled across the marble surface until its consistency and appearance is thickened and matted, respectively. The second portion is then mixed in to achieve a homogeneous quality overall.

The same procedure is followed in the technique called “seeding”; tempered chocolate act as seeds to the non-tempered mush. The first melted three-fourths of the chocolate strips and the second non-melted one-fourth are mixed together in a bowl until they’re of the same appearance and consistency, too.

The essential rule in both is that you must maintain correct temperatures throughout the tempering cycle, for which a calibrated thermometer will be useful. You can make either fruit-filled chocolates or chocolates of interesting designs with this tempered chocolate. You should ensure the chocolates still retain temper all the while that you’re dipping and molding.

Manual tempering being tedious will consume most of your time so it might not be a pleasurable experience, making chocolate candy. Using a tempering machine will give you ample time to have fun and evolve strategies in developing your chocolate confectionery enterprise.

Chocolate Tempering: Critical Aspects in Making Chocolates

Posted in Arts + Artisans, Best Food, Enterprise on January 2nd, 2010

If you always come across white spots on your chocolate, or it feels crumbly and rough to the tongue you probably skipped one important stage in chocolate candy making and that is tempering. Chocolates should be creamy, glossy and rich in texture, and these features could be attained only once proper tempering is done as these aren’t original attributes of chocolate.

Chocolate professionals are very careful in tempering their chocolates; they make sure that it’s done before they cater their chocolates to the market to make them luscious and tempting. Since chocolates are really not that creamy and shiny, it has to undergo several processes to make it real. Before tempering could be done, chocolate also goes through conching, whereby the chocolate liquor passes through several rollers to even out the particles, preventing large crystal formations.

Real chocolate must have cocoa butter. This is the ingredient that lends itself to making chocolates velvety-textured. The chocolate paste that is used to manufacture chocolate has 50 to 60% cocoa butter in it. If the chocolate didn’t undergo tempering, the cocoa butter will fall apart and show as whitish spots on chocolates, what is called blooming.

Tempering is also considered as the most decisive aspect of creating chocolate confectionery but because the fatty acids in cocoa butter melt and solidify at different temperatures, it’s also the most intricate, most labor-intensive part of the craft. The very objective of chocolate tempering is to make desirable crystals stable enough to be tightly bound to each other to prevent blooming from occurring.

Tempering can be done a number of ways. The first method is a type of tempering manually, which involves melting chocolate then working 2/3 of it until it becomes thick and achieves the right temperature of 80-82F. Once done, you now combine it with the rest of the melted chocolate with the same objectives of lowering temperatures and thickening consistencies.

Another easier way to temper manually is through seeding, the second method. This is done by melting 2/3 part of your base chocolate and mixing in the other un-melted 1/3 part, slowly integrating both until the while has completely melted, cooled and thickened to the appropriate temperatures. Seeding allows the crystals in the un-melted part to lead the way in crystallizing for the melted chocolates.

If you want to temper without worrying about temperatures, then the way to go is by using a chocolate tempering machine. Since chocolate tempering is a complicated process, this machine is so-programmed so that it does the whole process of tempering for you. You do not have to worry about anything, especially maintaining the correct temperature levels; you can just concentrate on molding your chocolate candies.

The Success of Wish Lanterns

Posted in Arts + Artisans, Enterprise, Promoting Stuff on June 21st, 2009

What makes a reputable business organisation? Alan sugar will no doubt have a thing to say on the topic. He’d in all likelihoodsay that it’s all about having a strong item to sell in the first instance, and being able to persuade people into buying into your item by using all the clever sales strategies at your disposal. This is all all right, except that it’s not the first thing to count when working a commercial enterprise. The Wish Lantern team has a different take on things to the infamous Mr business brain God forbid. The principal reason for the success of sky lanterns is not only the fact that the lantern is original so, sells itself. The triumph of the squad behind them, actually is found in the fact that they are really dedicated to their clients, and thus have raised a loyal following. I repossess what I said earlier. There is no such thing as a product that sells itself. However splendid or special something is, it is worthless if it has failed to register with people. It is the responsibility of the company who promotes it, to get the message out to the public and then win over them with an professional and speedy service. One of the best things about the sky lantern business, is that they are adjustable and are able to improvise in order to meet a customers specific demands. It may be hard to believe, but this is really very rare for companies to flex their conventions so easily. Wish Lantern understands that everyone is different and that they are the service suppliers so must consequently serve up what the customer requires (within reason though). Herein lies the triumph of the wish lantern business.