Marble square

On Fri 14 Jan 2005 03:51:36a, Michael tittered and giggled, and giggled and
tittered, and finally blurted out...

Quoted message said:

I've been playing with making chocolate truffles here
recently and I've had a lot of fun with them and the
family and people at work like them. I've been using
variations on the standard semisweet chocolate chips
and cream. I'd like to try a non-chocolate fondant
with a sugar base, but it says to pour it out on a
marble slab and work it. Do I really need a marble
top or something similar to do a sugar-based fondant?
If yes, where can I get one online? If no, what do I
do instead?

Thank you, Michael

Marble is recommended because it absorbs heat rapidly and is relatively
non-stick. The heat absorbtion qualities, for example, would not be the
same for a laminate countertop, baking pan, etc. Granite is also a good
choice.

If you have serious interests, you might go to a stone yard where you can
have a piece of either marble or granite cut to the size you want from a
"scrap" piece. It should be fairly inexpensive.

Wayne

Michael said:

I've been playing with making chocolate truffles here
recently and I've had a lot of fun with them and the
family and people at work like them. I've been using
variations on the standard semisweet chocolate chips
and cream. I'd like to try a non-chocolate fondant
with a sugar base, but it says to pour it out on a
marble slab and work it. Do I really need a marble
top or something similar to do a sugar-based fondant?
If yes, where can I get one online? If no, what do I
do instead?

You don't need marble. It'll work on a countertop, but it'll take
longer because the thermal properties are different. I've done it in
plastic bags where I kneaded it until it turned milky and solid. Then
smooshed it to soften and kneaded more. All in a bag on a kitchen
table. Do it a couple times first before deciding to go buy a proper slab.

Pastorio

Michael said:

I've been playing with making chocolate truffles here
recently and I've had a lot of fun with them and the
family and people at work like them. I've been using
variations on the standard semisweet chocolate chips
and cream. I'd like to try a non-chocolate fondant
with a sugar base, but it says to pour it out on a
marble slab and work it. Do I really need a marble
top or something similar to do a sugar-based fondant?
If yes, where can I get one online? If no, what do I
do instead?

Thank you, Michael

You don't want to order a marble slab online - the shipping cost will
bankrupt you.

Go to a local stonecutter (like someone who does grave markers - maybe
they'll have a broken or damaged piece that you could have for nothing,
or for cheap), quarry, kitchen/bath place (where you could order marble
countertops), an architectural salvage company, etc.

N.

Thanks to everybody for your advice. A friend at work told me I might
be able to use a stone pizza plate, maybe available at Kohl's or some-
where similar for not much. But tomorrow morning I'm going to give it
a shot, like Bob suggested was possible, with just the countertop.
I'll
let you know how it turns out. I stopped at a liquor store in town and
picked up some orange liqueur to try in it.

Thanks again, Michael

at Fri, 14 Jan 2005 10:51:36 GMT in <1105699896.889584.266050
@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, [email hidden] (Michael) wrote :

Quoted message said:

I've been playing with making chocolate truffles here
recently and I've had a lot of fun with them and the
family and people at work like them. I've been using
variations on the standard semisweet chocolate chips
and cream.

First thing I recommend is that you abandon the semisweet chocolate chips
and use some quality couverture chocolate. The term "couverture" sounds
fancy but really only means that it's got about 40% cocoa butter, and this
is typical of what you find in good eating chocolate bars, so in essence
it's another way of saying use good eating chocolate. Chocolate chips, by
contrast, have a lower cocoa butter content and aren't really designed for
truffles - they're designed to be put into something that's going to be
baked, and the low cocoa butter content ensures they'll keep their shape to
some extent and not lose temper to the same degree.

As for which chocolate to use, Ghirardelli's bittersweet chocolate is good
and widely available. Callebaut and Guittard are also widely available,
usually as break-up, i.e. large hunks of dark chocolate which may be either
in bulk bins or wrapped with plastic film. High-end companies like Michel
Cluizel, Domori, and Amedei also make superb chocolate, if you want to
spend about $15/lb or more.

Quoted message said:

I'd like to try a non-chocolate fondant
with a sugar base, but it says to pour it out on a
marble slab and work it. Do I really need a marble
top or something similar to do a sugar-based fondant?

Any nonporous surface will do but marble works best, and there is an
additional reason to get a marble slab. If your experimentation with
truffles goes any further you'll want to temper chocolate, and in order to
do this a marble slab will make it much easier. You need to temper
chocolate any time you melt it and are then going to use the melted
chocolate by itself to cover something or to be shaped into something (i.e.
it's not going to be mixed into other ingredients). If you don't temper it,
the cocoa butter will separate and you will have chocolate with a streaky
look and a coarse, dry texture. Anyway, to temper what you do is, pour 1/2
to 2/3 of the melted chocolate onto the aforementioned marble slab, spade
it around just as if you were making fondant until it just begins to
solidify, quickly stir it back into the rest of the melted chocolate, then
stir. At this point the chocolate is tempered and you should use it
immediately and quickly for whatever coating or shaping you're going to do.

So investing in a marble slab will serve a double purpose, and I doubt
you'll regret it.

Quoted message said:

Thank you, Michael

--
Alex Rast
[email hidden]
(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)

I've been busy! I made two small batches of fondant this morning,
and this was my first experience with it. The first was a sugar-
cream one. The recipe I started with was:

5 cup sugar
1 cup coffee rich or half and half
1 cup cream
4 Tb margarine
1/2 ts cream of tartar

I cut it in half, and substituted heavy whipping cream for the coffee
rich. I brought it to a boil, covered and boiled for 3 minutes, and
then boiled it uncovered without stirring until it hit 238 degrees. I
poured it on a very clean kitchen counter and about 15 minutes
later when it was just warm, I worked it with a plastic spatula. It
didn't seem like it was ever going to set up thick enough to where
I could knead it into a ball, so I shrugged my shoulders and put it
in a bowl in the fridge. About 15 minutes later I checked on it and
it seemed really hard but after pushing through the surface I could
see that it had merely thickened and had the crumby feel that the
recipe had said to knead out of it. I took it out of the fridge and
kneaded it, smashing it thin on the countertop to work out the
crumbs. Balled it up in Saran Wrap and it's sitting in the fridge
again. The recipe said to let it sit at least 24 hours before using
it.
I didn't like the color. I wanted pure white, and it's an off-white
bordering on yellow. The taste is wonderful, though. It seems a
bit greasy, but I figure that's probably from substituting the richer
cream for the half and half.

I did another one that was referred to as a water fondant:

2 cup sugar
dash of salt
2 Tb corn syrup
3/4 cup water
1/2 ts vanilla

Combined everything but the vanilla and boiled it same as
above, but to 241 instead of 238. Let it cool to warm and
worked it with the spatula, and it wouldn't stiffen up enough
to knead either, so it's sitting in the fridge now. I'll check
on it again shortly. I don't like its taste nearly as much as
the above one with the cream in it.

Well, just wanted to give a status on my first experience
with fondant. Tomorrow I ball them up, sit them in the freezer
for 20 minutes, and then dip them in melted chocolate.
Have a good weekend, all!

Michael

Reporting back on my first experience with making fondants.
I wrote earlier that I made a plain sugar fondant and then a
cream and sugar fondant. I wanted them to be the centers
for some candy. They both came out OK, but I liked the
cream one the best. Much richer. Here is how I did it:

2 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup cream
2 Tb margarine
1/4 ts cream of tartar

Brought it all to a boil, covered it for 3 minutes on low boil,
and then uncovered it and slowly brought it up to 238 F
without stirring. Poured it onto a clean countertop and
worked it till it thickened and stored for (at least) 24 hours
wrapped in plastic wrap in the fridge. For making the
candy, I took some of it out of the fridge, divided it up, and
kneaded orange flavor into one batch, walnut into another,
and mint into the last. Rolled them into sticky messy balls
diameter about matching a 25 cent piece, and stored them
in the freeze while I heated up white chocolate for dipping.
Takes about 6 oz dipping chocolate per dozen centers. I
add a tablespoon or two of shortening per 6 oz dip to make
the coating softer. Dip them, sit them on a cookie tray and
back in the fridge for a few minutes to set them.

For the walnut centers, I mixed toffee into the coating. Oh!
I bought some plastic molds for these and instead of dipping,
I poured the coating into the mold, let it set it a bit, made a
hole by sticking my thumb down in them, and then filling
them with the center and wrapping the coating that squished
out back over them.

I was really happy with the way they turned out. The biggest
problem I had was with two batches of dipping chocolate
seizing on me. Instead of using shortening, I was using
margarine to soften the chocolate, and I kinda decided that
the water in the margarine was to blame. No seizing problems
when I switched over to shortening.

Michael

Here's a picture of four different candies I made over the weekend.
The orange is orange flavored, the green is mint, the dark chocolate
is peanut butter, and the white is toffee-walnut. They are sitting on
top of my third (and possibly last) no-bake chocolate cheese cake.

http://www.zspider.com/3d/candy_cake2.jpg

Some of the candies are results of my experimenting with fondant
centers instead of the chocolate truffles that I've done several times.
As noted in an earlier post, the cream fondant was my favorite.

Michael

Alex Rast wrote <snipped>:

First thing I recommend is that you abandon the semisweet chocolate
chips
and use some quality couverture chocolate. The term "couverture" sounds

fancy but really only means that it's got about 40% cocoa butter, and
this
is typical of what you find in good eating chocolate bars, so in
essence
it's another way of saying use good eating chocolate.

********************
Thank you for the suggestions. If I ever get to the point where I feel
my skill level is worthy of a better grade of chocolate, then I might
try some fancier stuff. I note that even the white "chocolate" I use,
which I would assume to be mostly cocoa butter, has sugar listed
as the number one ingredient. Thank you for listing out several
recommended chocolates. $15 a pound for chocolate is not totally
out of the question if I can develop skills deserving of it.

As for tempering, I don't care for a really hard exterior, so I
generally
mix a bit of shortening in with the chocolate I use for dipping. This
generates a soft sheen in the finished product which I find pleasing,
both in looks and texture, and without the trouble of tempering. The
results can be seen in the dark chocolate candies in the picture.
Thanks again, Michael

"Michael" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Here's a picture of four different candies I made over the weekend.
The orange is orange flavored, the green is mint, the dark chocolate
is peanut butter, and the white is toffee-walnut. They are sitting on
top of my third (and possibly last) no-bake chocolate cheese cake.

http://www.zspider.com/3d/candy_cake2.jpg

Some of the candies are results of my experimenting with fondant
centers instead of the chocolate truffles that I've done several times.
As noted in an earlier post, the cream fondant was my favorite.

Michael
============

Very nice Michael!

Cyndi

Glad you liked the candy picture, Cyndi. My thought on looking at it
was that the photo looked better than the candy tasted. Haha! But a
lot of it has been a learn-as-I-go experience, so I expect to have to
play around to find out what works best. You might note in the picture
that I finally broke down and bought some cheap plastic candy molds.
They are good for centers that are too soft to hold a shape during a
dipping process. The outer shell can be poured and hollowed and the
center simply plopped into place and sealed over.

Probably the best candy wasn't pictured. A 2-cup batch of semisweet
dipping chocolate seized on me while I was melting it, probably
because of water contamination. I was going to just pitch it but had
second thoughts so I added a little shortening, some cream, sugar,
vanilla, and mixed in some walnut chunks. I poured it out on a plate
and sprinkled the top with toffee. The family and folks at work loved
it.

Michael

Glad you liked the candy picture, Cyndi. My thought on looking at it
was that the photo looked better than the candy tasted. Haha! But a
lot of it has been a learn-as-I-go experience, so I expect to have to
play around to find out what works best. You might note in the picture
that I finally broke down and bought some cheap plastic candy molds.
They are good for centers that are too soft to hold a shape during a
dipping process. The outer shell can be poured and hollowed and the
center simply plopped into place and sealed over.

Probably the best candy wasn't pictured. A 2-cup batch of semisweet
dipping chocolate seized on me while I was melting it, probably
because of water contamination. I was going to just pitch it but had
second thoughts so I added a little shortening, some cream, sugar,
vanilla, and mixed in some walnut chunks. I poured it out on a plate
and sprinkled the top with toffee. The family and folks at work loved
it.

Michael