Sweeet Chocolate Christmas

Tempering chocolate

From Mary

Here is my hand, hard at work on Saturday.   

We dipped 4 batches of fondant, 2 batches of caramels, 2 batches of truffles and 1 batch of fondant left over from last year that was still in the freezer (mint, water fondant).   

The day seemed to breeze by with 2 dippers and 2 rollers.   

I can never go back to just 2 people trying to get everything done.

We even put a little sprinkle of red sea salt on top of half of the dipped caramels.  Mmmmm.

There was one hitch.  I turned up the heat in the frying pan and my colleague, not knowing it was turned up for a few seconds, scraped the bottom of the pan with her hand and was burned by it.  Ouch.  I wish it had been my hand and not hers.

Another hitch.  I have Arta's plastic and metal molds.  I wanted to finish up the melted chocolate, so I filled the metal molds, even putting a nut in the middle.  I couldn't get the candy to come out of the molds.  After Arta and I talked on the phone, I froze the chocolates that I couldn't get out of the molds, since I had tried every other way I could think of.  

 Later, Leo hit the back of the molds with a hard rubber hammer -- and voila.  The chocolates popped right out.  Now I don't have to discard those molds into the pile of things I am never going to use again, which is what Arta told me to do with them, seeing as she couldn't make them work either.

M