Beluga

Lazy morning.  Farmburger for breakfast.  Aquarium.  Hot dog stand lunch.  Swimming.  La Fonda Latina dinner.  Dr. Bombay's Underwater Tea Party dessert.  

The pictures tell it all.

Farmburger.

Aquarium.

La Fonda Latina.

Began reading a new book on chocolate.  Borrowed it from the wonderful Sawyer family.  It covers the history of chocolate.  I'll do a write-up once I'm farther in.  

SCR today!

What'll ya have?

Got up early this morning to go to the Atlanta Botanical Garden attached to Piedmont Park.  Didn't want to be walking around in the heat.  Saw plants and what-not.

Found a Theobroma cacao.  There weren't any cacao pods - if there were, I would have stolen them.  

Hooray for chocolate and plants!  Our two favorite things!  The cacao tree is native to Mesoamerica and is currently grown in :

Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia, Nigeria, Brazil, Cameroon, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Dominican Republic, Peru, Venezuela, Sierra Leone, Togo, India, Philippines, Republic of the Congo, and the Solomon Islands

...and Atlanta?

Had lunch with Lilly and Alex - Holla!

Stayed out of the sun for the afternoon.

Watched "Everything Must Go" in Midtown - I didn't like it.  Ted did.

And had dinner at the Varsity!

Artlantis

Spent a good portion of the day at the Artlantis Festival on the corner of Ponce and Highland.  Our caramels started to melt and we didn't sell out as originally expected.  I learned a few important things: 1.  people don't like candy in the morning - obvious, I know  2.  don't get a booth beside music  3.  don't get a booth in the food section - everyone passes over the food section.

Only grabbed one picture - and it isn't even of candy.  Famous Cuban communist propaganda posters that say something along the lines of, "better not to be, than not to be revolutionary."

I also enrobed a good amount of chocolate - I didn't do the tempering though.

AND, I left the festival early and spent the afternoon at the pool with my roommate.

AND, a special visitor arrived - TED

I was excited.  Scary excited.  Ate at the Majestic (Food that Pleases) on Ponce.  We both have an affinity for diners.

Botanical gardens tomorrow, might do a write-up just for kicks.

Cheers!

Lollis

I didn't temper today - what a relief.  I did wrap and label some lollipops, make lollipops, find a miniature cotton candy machine at toys-r-us, make grapefruit cotton candy, and wrapped more lollipops and fudge.

Late night tonight, early morning tomorrow - thusly short blog.

Only got one picture.

Chocolate Message from the West Coast

Just received an email from some good family friends, David and Christine Johnson.  They are currently traveling in San Francisco and are about to embark on a chocolate tour.  Here's a picture they sent me!

Posting again tomorrow.  Wish me luck with tempering!

Tempering...

Yesterday was pretty terrible.  It isn't that I don't enjoy tempering by hand - I'm actually glad that the machine is broken so that I can really learn how to do it - it's when I spend an entire day trying to temper and it doesn't.

I was working with dark and milk chocolate.  Most of the day was spent standing in front of the microwave putting the chocolate in on defrost for one minute increments and then stirring and checking the temperature.  You can get cancer if you stand too close to the microwave?  Right?

Chopped milk chocolate, waiting to be melted.

I melted the chocolate and brought each up to it's respective high temperature.  For dark it is 114˚f and for milk it 111˚f.  Then I let the temperature drop and seed the chocolate.  Seeding the chocolate involves either throwing in more unmelted chocolate or shaving in cocoa butter.  This allows the chocolate to have a stable crystal base - the whole point of tempering is to make sure the crystallization process is at the correct point.  My chemist friends are probably laughing at my description, cough, Molly Matty.

Once the chocolate has been seeded you wait for it to drop in temperature even more.  For the dark I got down to 86˚f and for the milk it was 84˚f.  Then you raise the temperature back up to: dark - 88˚f and milk 86˚f.

Then it is in temper, supposedly.  But, every time I enrobed my first chocolate looked just as fresh as my last and didn't set it all.  They just sat there covered in shiny melted chocolate.

I tempered the dark three times and the milk once - and that was my entire day.

It's frustrating and stressful.  I know it isn't my fault that it didn't come to temper, but I can't help but feel that I am holding everyone else up.  How do you make chocolate bars without tempered chocolate?  Or how does any new product come out if all of the ganache sits there ready to be enrobed?

And, I get to try again today.  Deep breath.

Although yesterday seemed all together ruined, my cousin Lilly Lampe and her friend Elizabeth Stice came by the shop to record their podcast Out There Atlanta.  Who doesn't like to be interviewed after their first week of work?

From left to right:  Elizabeth Stice, Lilly Lampe, and Taria Camerino (my boss and chocolate superhuman).

Out There Atlanta is a new podcast that covers a wide range of topics - SCR, Steady Hand Pour House, Oakwood Cemetery, etc. - that all fit under the umbrella of all things Atlanta.

You can listen to their podcast on iTunes and check out their page at www.outthereatlanta.tumblr.com.

I'm interviewed, along with everyone else at SCR and it is worth a listen.  Particularly if you miss hearing my voice.

Lilly also snagged a picture of me in my daily uniform behind the counter - this one's for you Mom and Dad.

Yes.  There is a little chocolate on my face.  This was pre-tempering disaster.  Notice the smile.

Tempering Tempering Tempering

The tempering machine is still kaputt - which make me the new tempering machine.  The process involves me constantly stirring, microwaving, and checking the temperature of big glass bowls of chocolate.  I was working on two bowls simultaneously.



I realize that this picture is terrible.  I just got a new camera and haven't learned how to take a good picture with it yet.

My goal for today, besides actually tempering the chocolate, was to keep the bowls and spatulas clean.  And not just clean after I was finished using them, but clean for the entire time.  It sounds easy, but takes a lot of practice.  I've gotten better at it - my spatula skills are coming along nicely - but I could do much better.


Once the white reached temper, I got to enrobe!

Yes.  This picture is terrible as well.  The top, dark squares are banana caramels.  The middle are banana caramels enrobed in white chocolate.  And the bottom are a meyer lemon ganache enrobed in white with a candied parsley leaf on top.  What is terrible is that all of the banana caramels that I enrobed weren't in temper and will likely have to be thrown/given away.  They looked like they were setting correctly, but were soft to the touch.



Got to help with these guys - mini mendiants.  I helped to make bigger one's as well.  The one's in the picture are covered in almonds, sea salt, and dried pomegranate seeds.  The big boy versions of these have coconut, mango, pistachios, currants, cranberries, pecans, and almonds on them.


I'm still working on my tasting skills.  I tried a piece of white chocolate and used a flavor wheel to see what it reminded me of.  I came up with orange, but that was a blind guess.  Here's an example of a flavor wheel:

Tempering Tired.