Week 12: Truffles and Filled Chocolates

Hello class!

Today’s Chef was Sarah and the Steward was Jessica. I would like to first thank everybody for coming in on time and working diligently on their assignments. I would also like to thank my steward, Jessica for helping me out and the other teams. For today’s production, we worked a lot with tempering, pipping, molding and filling chocolates. It was a long a tedious process but, as a class, we got through it and made the most beautiful truffles and bonbons. For the filled chocolates we had several demos to show how we can fill the molds and how to use the transfer sheets to give the bonbons a pop of color.

After all that hard work, our class produced the most beautiful chocolates. Even though this is our last chocolate production, I am glad we were able to make such amazing products.

Tempering milk chocolate.

Pouring the white chocolate into the mold.

Scrapping off the excess chocolate.

Taping the mold to release the air bubbles.

Using the back of the offset to tap out the rest of the chocolate.

Scrapping off the excess chocolate.

Flipping the mold over on parchment to let the shells set.

Scoping the Gianduja Truffles.

Piping filling into the chocolate shells.

Rolling Truffles.

Coating the Truffles.

Team A: Gingerbread Truffles and Filled Hazelnut Praline

Team B: Caribbean Cocktail and Filled dark chocolate.

Bittersweet Chocolates

Team C: Black Forest truffles and Red Rose white filled truffles.

Team D: Gianduja truffles and Milk chocolate filled with dark chocolate ganache.

 

Week 11 Production

Hello all, today’s chefs are Maria and Hannah. First of all, we would like to thank you all of you did a perfect job today and the products were coming out good. We also thanks to our steward, Sarah, for helping out teams. Even though it was a long and tedious process today with dipping and cutting; everyone gave their all and to the products were very delicious too. Today production consisted mostly of either cutting and dipping the products the teams made the week prior or making the Mozart Kugeln bonbons or Grand Marnier chocolate all today.

The teams cut and dipped close to 100 or more pieces of their candy and to make sure during that their chocolate didn’t get too cold or thicken was good and I was happy to see no one gave up with that. The chocolate had a great shine so I knew it was tempered correctly. Though the white chocolate give teams some trouble today they still worked past it and strived through. Today we as chefs believe that all the products came out delicious and well worth the hassle to make it perfect and are happy today came out that way and hopefully continues more and more great.

Kneading the Mozart Kugeln dough

Wrapping the nougat up with the pistachio marzipan to make the known layers.

The almond Joy Candies

 

the final products of Mozart Kugeln

the Hazelnut Marzipan Balls

Bittersweet Dark Chocolate

Grand Marnier dipping

dipping and topping the almond joys carefully.

Team A production

Team B Production

 

Team C production

Team D production

have fancy packages for today’s products

 

Week 10: Rochers, Clusters, Peanut Butter Cup and Gianduja Swirls

Hello everybody!

My name is CeiKar and I was today’s Chef. First of all, I would like to thank everybody that was on class today. I would also like to thank Chef Hoffman for sharing all her knowledge about chocolates and candies to this class this semester. Last, but not least, I would like to thank Maria for helping us get the necessary ingredients on the requisition for today’s production.

On today’s class, we were a little tight because there were three classmates that were absent. Although, we were able to complete today’s production list without a problem and get out on time for club hours. I would like to thank each classmate for its effort and focus on today’s production because without each of you, these chocolates creations would not have existed.

Thanks to Dao and Hannah, we are going to be able to make Mozartkuglen next week because they prepared successful chocolate nougat. Moreover, we were able to get adorable rocher treats.

Adding hot syrup to start the meringue

Adding hot syrup to start the meringue

Whipping meringue

Whipping meringue

Adding melted chocolate to meringue

Adding melted chocolate to meringue

Chocolate Nougat

Chocolate Nougat

Toasting almonds for Rocher

Tossing almonds for Rocher

Rocher's Final Product

Rocher’s Final Product

With the help of Sarah and Michelle, we were able to have a ganache ready for next week’s production. Also, we were able to get delicious gianduja swirls.

Spreading Ganache

Spreading Ganache

Cooled Ganache

Cooled Ganache

Pipped Gianduja Swirls

Pipped Gianduja Swirls

Gianduja Swirls

Gianduja Swirls

With the assistance of Matt and Jodian, we are going to be able to prepare Almond Joy’s next week. Besides, we got Orange and Almond Clusters as treats today.

Cooked base for Almond Joy's

Cooked base for Almond Joy’s

Finished base for Almond Joy's

Finished base for Almond Joy’s

Getting ready to shape it

Getting ready to shape it

Scooped clusters

Scooped clusters

Orange and Almond Clusters

Orange and Almond Clusters

With the focus of Eylin and Cambria, we were able to get Peanut Butter Cups home. In addition, we are going to be able to finish up with the Hazelnut Marzipan Balls next week.

Peanut Butter Filling

Peanut Butter Filling

Tempered Milk and Dark Chocolate

Tempered Milk and Dark Chocolate

Hazelnut Marzipan Balls

Hazelnut Marzipan Balls

Peanut Butter Cups

Peanut Butter Cups

Final Product

Final Product

Lastly, I would like to thank everybody for all the help provided. Because without you, I would not have made these White Peanut Butter Clusters.

White Peanut butter mixture

White Peanut butter mixture

Scooped out Clusters

Scooped out Clusters

Final Products

Final Products

White Peanut Butter Clusters

White Peanut Butter Clusters

 

Week 9: Chocolate; Tempering, Dipping, and Pipping

Hello all,

October 25, 2018, Dao and Michelle were chef.  We like to thank CeiKar, steward of the day, for making sure the class had the necessary ingredients for production. As well as the class for making beautiful decorations on chocolate covered strawberries, creative and uniform mendiants and chocolate dipped candied fruits. Lastly, we appreciate Professor Hoffman for the detailed demonstration on tempering chocolate and making chocolate bonbons.

Professor Hoffman demos on filling molds with chocolate.

Bowl of tempered chocolate and final result of chocolate bonbons.

 

 

 

Strawberries ready to be dipped in chocolate.

Removing the excess chocolate after the dip.

Chocolate setting up and adding decorations on strawberries.

  

Candied Ginger, Orange rinds and grapefruit rinds.

After tossing the candied orange rinds in sugar.

 

 

Candied ginger in a bowl of sugar and resting on the tray, ready to be dipped in chocolate.

 

Candied grapefruit, half dipped in dark chocolate.

 

Dark chocolate mendiant with crushed toasted almonds (left) and crushed pistachios (right)

White chocolate mendiants with crushed pistachios and chopped dried cranberries.

 

Class presentation of Week 9’s production.

Assorted chocolate covered goodies and mendiants ready to be taken.

 

– Hope everybody enjoyed the class’s productions and photos. See you next class!

Dao Tran & Michelle Mak

 

 

 

 

 

Week #8: Intro to Chocolate by Gloria Garcia and Matt Tobjy

Hello everyone!

Thank you all for your cooperation and effort during yesterday’s production. Everyone worked as teams and were able to get production and clean up down effectively and in a timely manner. Student Chef Matt and I really appreciate all the hard work that all of you put into our productions, and we enjoyed working together with you.

Our production consisted of making: White Chocolate Cranberry and Pistachio Bark, Chocolate Crispy Rice and Fruit Bark, Spicy Milk Chocolate with Cherries Bark, Dark Chocolate Ginger Bark, Chocolate Dipped Candied Pineapple and Chocolate Dipped Candied Orange Peels. Each team did a very good job at getting their products made even though it was our first time doing this. We learned how to properly temper chocolate through different methods such as tabling and seeding. We saw a demo of how to temper chocolate on the marble slab from Professor Hoffman and the teams successfully followed what she did.

While the teams were making their products, Matt was dipping our candied pineapples from last week in tempered dark chocolate. According to Matt, once the pineapples started to dry they began to look like they were blooming. Which the Professor said could have been due to the moisture from the fruit. 

I, on the other hand, went around the lab going to the teams and seeing if they needed anything. As I went around I observed how each team worked in tempering their chocolate and creating their assigned bark. Later on, I began to dip the orange peels in dark chocolate and at the end of class with the help of Shenice we cleaned the marble table with the torch.

Shout-out to:

  • Team A for their amazing teamwork and delivering an amazing product
  • Team B for patiently working with the white chocolate and not giving up on it.
  • Team C for making an extra batch of bark with modifications
  • Team D for thinking outside the box for cutting your bark

Thank you for a great class and enjoy your week!

– Student Chef Gloria & Student Chef Matt

ENJOY THE PICTURES.

 

Demo From Professor Hoffman – Dark Chocolate

 

White Chocolate Cranberry & Pistachio Bark Production

 

Spicy Milk Chocolate Cherry Bark Production

 

Dark Chocolate Cranberry & Ginger Bark Production

 

Crispy Rice & Fruit Bark Production

 

Candied Fruit Dipped in Dark Chocolate Production

 

Our Final Products

 

Candies and Bonbons: week 7 production

Grapefruits.

Candied grapefruit from start to finish. Cutting, peeling, blanching, simmering, storing.

Water for production

Bringing water from room 208.

Dishes

Bringing back cleaned dishes from room 208.

Dishes

Washing dishes in room 208.

 

Oranges

Candied oranges from start to finish. Cutting, peeling, blanching, simmering, storing.

Ginger

Candied ginger from start to finish. Peeling, cutting, simmering, storing.

Marshmallow production

Marshmallow process. Sugar syrup, egg whites whipping, pouring gelatin into syrup mixture, pouring syrup/gelatin mixture into egg whites.

Orange marshmallow

Orange marshmallow

Rose marshmallow

Rose marshmallow

Peppermint marshmallow

Peppermint marshmallow

Cassis marshmallow

Cassis marshmallow

All marshmallows

The finished product. All marshmellows looked great.

Pineapple

Candied pineapple from start to finish. peeling, cutting, simmering, storing.

Good Evening,

Today I was chef and I just want to thank all of you showing up and being prepared. We had a good class and finished every task.

In today’s class we made candied fruit and marshmallows. I think you guys did very well with today’s production. Team A (Jessica, Michelle, and Hannah) you guys had orange marshmallow and candied ginger. Team B (Ashlie, CeiKar, and Eylin) you guys made rose water marshmallow and candied orange rind. Team C ( Jodian, Dao, and Matt) you guys made the peppermint marshmallow and candied grapefruit. Team D ( Shenice, Sarah, and Maria) you guys made the cassis marshmallow and candied pineapple. Considering we had no sink today that did not slow us down. Thank you to my steward Gloria and other students that pitched in and helped run dishes down to room 208 and get them done. You guys rock! Pictures of today’s production will be posted below. Also we will finish our candied fruits next week.

Candies and Bonbons: Week 6

Hello class!

Just wanted to start off by saying thank you for showing up to class today! We had a full house so we were all able to have enough team members on each group. So today we took on the making of Nougats and Torrones. These recipes although very simple were still very difficult to handle control over. Our production day consisted of making Pistachio Almond Nougats (Team A), Soft Chocolate Nougats (Team B), Chocolate Cherry Nougats (Team D), Torrones (Team C) and Chef Jacque John Torrones (Team E), which was added today in the morning. Although we are in October, the weather was higher than normal today making it more humid inside the kitchen which were not good for the Nougats. We were introduced to new ingredients such as the Rice Paper, Cocoa butter chips and Glucose; plus new equipment such as the blow torch.

Today we had a series of trial and error. Two groups, unfortunately had to restart their recipes due to complications. That is why making sure we have our mise en place and we have scaled out the ingredients correctly plus read the recipe in advance is crucial to avoid mishaps like what happened today. On the bright side, we learned from our mistakes, adjusted and the outcome was beautiful. Also, the teams who didn’t have any problems with their recipe and procedures, were able to finish early and thankfully they jumped on to other groups to lend a hand and also helped clean around the kitchen. Thank you for helping us out!

The nougats and torrones were a hit, that even Professor Claude loved them! Great job today everyone and remember “in order to succeed you must fail, so you know not what to do the next time.”  See you all next week!

Mise en place for washing down the sides of the pots to avoid crystallizing

Attempt #1

Attempt #2: Success!

Blow torch required in the recipe

Flattening out the Chocolate Cherry Nougat

Close up of Torrone

 

Counting the total amount of products

Wrapping Soft Chocolate Nougats

Dipping the Chocolate Cherry Nougat into tempered chocolate

Chocolate Cherry Nougat, final product

Production Presentation

Week 5

Hello everyone, i would like to take the time to thank everyone for our wonderful production this week. Despite having a few students missing, production was successful nonetheless.

For this weeks production we explored the wonderful world of brittle and toffee. As we know there is a fine line between brittle and toffee, so much that they are almost the same. All of the recipes that were made this week had similar procedures and cooking temperatures, all of the sugars needed to be cooked wit

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. box of all all candies

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. plating of brittle

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. plating of toffee

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. plating of all the cnady

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. sesame candy, after they were cut into bars

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. spreading the sesame seed candy

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. cooking the sesame seeds and honey

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. cracked honeycomb candy

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. spreading the coconut brittle

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. cracked coconut brittle

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. layering the butter almond crunch

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. stretching of pumpkin seed candy

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. pouring out the pumpkin seed brittle to cool

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. combining the pumpkin seeds in the sugar base

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. closeup of the honeycomb candy

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. pouring the honeycomb mixture to cool

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. honeycomb mixture before it is poured out

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. english toffee before it is cracked

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. stretching of coca nib brittle

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. cooling the hazelnut butter crunch

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. cooling the cocoa nib brittle

hin the 290-311 degree stage. Each of the recipes turned out really well, there were no major problems like overcooking the sugar or any miscalculations with measuring. The types of brittles that were made were, cocoa nib brittle, pumpkin seed brittle, and coconut brittle. The types of toffee that were made were english toffee with pecans, butter almond churn, and hazelnut butter crunch. In the miscellaneous category we have the golden honeycombs, and sesame seed candies. They all turned out beautiful and were aesthetically pleasing to look at.

Week 4

Good morning guys! I hope everyone is having a great start to their weekend.

In yesterdays class we made three different types of candies, however they were similar in terms of ingredients and procedure. The candies were fudges, caramels and pralines. These candies all start off by cooking sugar to specific temperatures and then mixing in some sort of cream or milk.

The class went pretty well. I think everything turned out great especially the fudges. I truly think everyone did greatly on the fudges. However, one of the caramels turned out a bit harder than the usual soft and chewy texture caramels have. This caramel still tasted good and softened after having it in your mouth for a while. The Halavahs from the week prior truly did set up nice in the fridge and had a great crumbly texture. I liked seeing everyone work together and when they finished their tasks they would go over to another team. We were making good time but excitement sometimes gets the best of us. We were doing so well that i think we all forgot we had a certain time to leave and we just got comfortable and started losing track of the time. It happens. I was pleased to see how quickly everyone started jumping on tasks without hesitation once they saw how late we were running. We should all use this to be better by staying on task and learning time control and i know we can do it in the classes to come. Overall the class went great, everything tasted great and if it wasn’t for the time and running late we would have an all around successful class.

Finish and packed box of all of this weeks products.

Team A working together to mold their pralines.

Team B waiting for softball stage (238 degrees).

Marble Havalah. Such a great texture.

Unintentional chocolate swirl in the air.

Professors demonstration of incorporating air into the fudge to cool it.

Our steward Shenice cutting up the vanilla havalah.

Ginger bread fudge from team C cooling on marble.

2 Members of team A working together.

Products labeled.

Products labeled.

 

Candies and BonBons Week 3

Hello everyone!  I want to take this time to thank everyone for their hard work and pushing through this heat.  I know it is not the greatest, working in such a hot classroom but we made the best of it.  We did experience a few bumps along the way but don’t look at that as a negative thing but more of a positive learning experience.

Production for today consisted of different flavors of Turkish Delights, Halvah and Meltaways.  The Turkish Delights were produced by teams A and D; one team made the rose water delights while the other made orange flavored delights.  The Halvah was made by teams B and C.  We did have a small hiccup with the first batch of Halvah made.  It was just overmixed which resulted in a stiff/crumbly batch but the taste was still very delicious.  All teams produced different varieties of Meltaways.  The heat was not too kind to our chocolates but they all still came out tasting amazing!  Team A made the mint Meltaways, Team B made the peanut butter Meltaways, Team C made the green tea Meltaways and finally Team D made the Praline Meltaways.

Plating for Rose Water Turkish Delights with Pistachios

Plating for Green Tea Meltaways

Plating for Peanut Butter Meltaways

Plating for Praline Meltaways

Plating for Mint Meltaways

Plating for Orange Turkish Delights

Mixing in the food coloring and flavor for the Rose Water Turkish Delights

Turkish Delights after panning

Dusting the Turkish Delights

Assembly line for the Meltaways (scoring, cutting, dusting)

Panning the Marble Halvah

The Marble Halvah panned

Green Tea Meltaways (while setting)

Scored/Cut Green Tea Meltaways

The Meltaways after dusting with sugar

The finished Orange Turkish Delights