* It’s a great gift for children - make some fun animal molds, or some molds for boys or girls - watch their eyes light up! * It’s a great gift from children - Teachers, bus drivers and babysitters - they all appreciate candy! * Got a lot of people to buy for? Homemade candy gifts are inexpensive - Give them candy made from your home instead. * Stay home, stay warm, stay together- Instead of buzzing the crowded shopping malls, stay home and make candy together as a family, or as a friends night out. You’ll get a lot more out of it than just some great Holiday presents. * Giving about giving from the heart. Nothing expresses that more clearly than a gift that you made yourself. * You can be unique. * Homemade candy for the person who has everything * Personalize your homemade candy even for the hard-to-buy for person - you can make their favorite chocolate dipped stuff, flavored with their favorite flavor, and drizzled over favorite treats.
November is National Fondue Month! Well we can’t miss that opportunity to celebrate with chocolate! To celebrate National Fondue Month we would like to encourage you to try new fondues!
We recommend a good quality Guittard chocolate. We recommend this specific name and type of chocolate because if its unique ability to melt and turn shiny. The taste is superior to all other brands.
CW 31 of Sacramento interviewed the owner of An Occasional Chocolate for their live morning TV show “Good Day Sacramento.”
The owner of An Occasional Chocolate, Cheryl Sandberg, showed viewers how to make truffles, dipped cookies, turtles and molds in two 4 minute segments of the show early morning on Saturday, January, 27, 2007. Kelly Chapman, the interviewer, was a chocolate candy making fanatic herself and enjoyed the interview just as much as Mrs. Sandberg did!
An Occasional Chocolate’s owner, Cheryl Sandberg, was interviewed along with other top chocolatiers for a special Christmas article in the Washington DC Times about candy making.
Every holiday, Falls Church resident B. Keith Ryder makes dozens of truffles to add to his gift boxes for family and friends “You can avoid preservatives manufacturers put in chocolate. If you care about a higher quality, you can make sure you use gourmet ingredients,” says Mr. Ryder, a chocolate and cake-decorating instructor for Fairfax County Public Schools Office of Adult and Community Education. “It lets you come up with your own flavor combinations, too.”
Mr. Ryder, owner of a home-based bakery, BCakes by BKeith, ventured into chocolate making to add chocolate work into his cakes and experiment with flavor ideas. Flavor, he says, is the most important decision when making chocolate, followed by presentation, shape and size.
“Then after that, it’s how many,” says Mr. Ryder, president of the International Cake Exploration Societe (ICES), a society of sugar artists based in Monroe, Mich.
Learning to make chocolate confections — such as truffles, solid chocolates, filled chocolates and chocolate-covered berries, pretzels, graham crackers and other edibles — at home is easier than it looks and requires just the basic kitchenware, say chocolatiers and chocolate-making instructors.
The kitchenware they recommend includes a saucepan, glass or plastic mixing bowl, thermometer and rubber spatula or wooden spoon, along with molds for making molded candies that can be purchased at craft and at cake and candy supply stores.
Molds come in hundreds of shapes and sizes, such as animals and holiday decorations, and can be used for different types of candies, including truffles, bonbons, mocha spoons and dessert cups.
Chocolate can be purchased in bulk in a variety of flavors, including dark, milk, white, semisweet and bittersweet.
“You can make such a wide variety of things. Your imagination can go crazy with it,” says Van Billington, executive director of Retail Confectioner’s International, a trade association of retail manufacturers in Glenview, Ill.
Two grades of chocolate are used in making chocolate candy. Couveture or real chocolate is made with cocoa butter and requires tempering, a process of melting chocolate into a liquid state and manipulating it so it can set hard and shiny. Confectioner’s coating, a lower-grade chocolate made of fats, does not need to be tempered, chocolatiers say.
Tempering can be done in a variety of ways, but the most common method is melting two-thirds of the chocolate and, after it is melted, adding the rest of the chocolate, Mr. Ryder says. As the chocolate is melting in both steps, the temperature is raised and lowered in intervals, giving the chocolate short exposures to heat, and the mixture is continuously stirred, he says.
The first heating is to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, says Peter Greweling, professor of baking and pastry arts for the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. He is the author of “Chocolates & Confections, Formula, Theory, and Technique for the Artisan Confectioner,” which is scheduled to be published in February.
After it is heated, the chocolate then is cooled to 80 degrees, stirred and rewarmed to 89 or 90 degrees, Mr. Greweling says.
The chocolate either can be heated in the microwave in short intervals or over a water bath, which consists of a heated pot of water used to heat a container on top of it, he says.
Mr. Greweling warns against using excessive heat and getting water on the chocolate. Overheating the chocolate thickens it and causes it to become grainy, while water causes it to thicken and prevents it from flowing and coating properly, he says.
As such, tempering chocolate can be challenging for a beginner and requires practice to perfect, says Sarah Tenaglia, senior food editor of Bon Appetit, a food and entertainment magazine in Los Angeles. Getting the right temperatures and working quickly are essential to the process, she says.
“There’s all of these variables that might prevent it from looking as pretty and shiny as a professional might get it to look,” Ms. Tenaglia says.
Mock or quick tempering is an alternative, a method of melting the chocolate to 110 to 115 degrees, then refrigerating it until 15 to 20 minutes before serving, she says. Chilling prevents the chocolate from blooming, or getting spots on top of the chocolate and streaks from cocoa butter coming to the surface, she says.
Once the chocolate is tempered, it can be used to make a variety of chocolate candies.
For truffles, the chocolate can be used to form the exterior shell and to make the filling or ganache with the addition of lukewarm heavy whipping cream and bourbon vanilla, says Cheryl Sandberg, owner of An Occasional Chocolate, a company in Roseville, Calif., that provides chocolate-making supplies and classes.
Purees, fruit creams, caramel and other liquids also can be used to flavor ganache, which is a mixture of chocolate and a liquid, Mr. Ryder says.
“Make sure anything that has chocolate give it a pinch of salt. It’s a flavor enhancer and makes the chocolate more chocolaty,” he says.
Truffles can be made in a variety of methods.
For instance, the ganache can be made with a truffle scoop to form the chocolate into balls of a uniform size, Mrs. Sandberg says. The balls then are dipped in real chocolate for 10 seconds until completely covered and are placed on waxed paper or another nonstick surface, she says.
Tempered chocolate can be poured into a mold shaped like a half-sphere and the remainder dumped out, Mr. Ryder says. After the chocolate firms, the ganache is poured into the shell, leaving enough room for a top coat of tempered chocolate that will seal the candy, he says.
The chocolate takes about 10 minutes to set during each step, he says.
Another candy that can be made out of chocolate is bark.
Melted or tempered chocolate is spread in a thin layer, about 1/8th- to 1/4th-inch thick, on a nonstick surface, says Theresa Souther, pastry instructor at L’Academie de Cuisine in Gaithersburg. While the chocolate is still wet, peppermint, coconut, dried fruit or nuts can be sprinkled on top, then it is put in the refrigerator to harden for breaking or cutting into pieces, she says.
“I would say start with truffles, bark and things you can do by hand and work your way up from there,” Mrs. Souther says, adding, “It’s always fun to have something you can share and show off all of your work.”
Cheryl and Her Chocolate Factory Yummy treats a big hit with customers
By: Brad Alexander, The Press-Tribune Wednesday, November 29, 2006 9:56 AM PST
Cheryl Sandberg has loved the yummy treat of chocolate since she was a child and started making a success of her sweet tooth earlier this year. Sandberg’s home-based chocolate decoration supply business, An Occasional Chocolate, is heating up for the holidays.
The best compliment Sandberg said she has received about her delicious talents is customers, relatives and friends asking: “You made this?”
Everyone from moms to restaurateurs to professional chefs knock on Sandberg’s digital door, asking for chocolate-making supplies.
The business supplies wannabe candy makers with everything they need to do the job right.
Sandberg said the best part for her is being able to share her talents with interested amateurs moonlighting as gourmet dessert chefs.
In April, Sandberg started supplying friends and family with anything chocolate. If it’s used to make chocolate look more delicious she’s got it, from molds, baking chips, bars and flavorings, to edible decorations and elaborate chocolate fountains that warm even the coldest of hearts during this holiday season.
But everything she sells on her Web site is available year-round.
Sandberg takes an old fashioned approach to building her delish business by watching others do it and improving on it.
“She’s really good,” said friend and customer Kathryn Christensen. “People are impressed when I show them what I’ve made with my supplies from her.”
Years after taking a do-it-yourself class on how to make chocolate treats, Sandberg is reveling and biting her nails this holiday season.
“I’m very nervous and excited at the same time. I started stocking like crazy about a month ago because I could feel the rush coming and now it’s here,” Sandberg said.
In her previous careers, which were heavily based in customer service, Sandberg gained an education in Web and graphic design. She created a Web site (www.chocolate-candy-recipe.com) making her home-based business a call center for chocoholics.
Much of Sandberg’s influx of business came from popular search engines like Google. She sends dozens of boxes all across the country every week.
“I try to make the business and the Web page as approachable as possible,” Sandberg said. “I aim for beginners.”
Sandberg uses Guittard Chocolate Company as her supplier for the majority of her baking goods. She said they cover the full range of chocolate quality, from high-end French chocolate to low-end chocolate designed for beginners.
“She’s great,” said Karen Clark. “Her products are awesome and her customer service is wonderful. She has really become a top-notch provider. She loves teaching the regular mom on how to make things that look like they came out of a candy store.”
Clark is Sandberg’s cousin and is a second- and third-grade teacher for the Sebastopol School District.
“I love to get my students and my own children involved whenever I’m doing something with chocolate. They are usually half helping and half eating it,” Clark said.
Recently the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition did a small study on dark chocolate. They wanted to see if it actually did lower your blood pressure. The other interesting study that went along with it was to see if it might help improve the blood’s ability to metabolize sugar, which could be really great news for people with diabetes!
The antioxidant called flavenol, found in dark chocolate only (not milk or white), is thought to cause this.
More clinically speaking, “Numerous studies indicate that flavanols may exert significant vascular protection because of their antioxidant properties and increased nitric oxide bioavailability. In turn, nitric oxide bioavailability deeply influences insulin-stimulated glucose uptake and vascular tone. Thus, flavanols may also exert positive metabolic and pressor effects.”
Umm… What? Basically they are saying ,”Dude, eat the stuff. It’s good for you!”
Diabetics have trouble controlling the insulin in their blood and in this small study they found dark chocolate helped control the insulin! It’s up for more debate of course, but hey, I’ll look for any excuse!
November is National Fondue Month! Well we can’t miss that opportunity to celebrate with chocolate! To celebrate National Fondue Month we would like to encourage you to try new fondues!
