Observations from this Round of Truffle Testing

Still finishing up some things on the great truffling and carameling sessions today—which was anticipated, so there’s no cause for alarm, at least not yet. As expected, I continue to learn a lot:

Couverture chocolate is the domestic cat of the food world. Every kind is a little bit different, and even after one has familiarized oneself with one kind's idiosyncrasies and tried to accommodate them, it’ll still do unpredictable shit just to drive us humans batty. White chocolate is the pampered princess puss of the litter. And the kind that I’m working with is the queen of princesses. ‘Nuff said.

It does not bode well for extended candy-making sessions when one’s opposable thumbs suddenly aren’t. One was just a minor nuisance—some kind of cuticle injury that was tender—but the slash on the other thumb, obtained when working with the gorram coconut on Thursday, has been an ongoing challenge. Just this morning, I pushed a little too hard on it and got the cut seeping again. Thankfully, neither the coconut nor anything else has a suspicious pink tint to it. But the injury has slowed my work considerably.

Even though my tempering and molding skills have languished since the summer, and despite my injury slowing me down, the work is going well. I’m also getting better with each round of molding. I do believe that, with a bit better planning and organization, I can make a successful go of this business, and still have time to enjoy other important areas of my life.

Despite what I thought was ample advance planning and ordering, adventures in online commerce continue to give me fits. A large chocolate order was apparently eaten by the site’s daemons, necessitating an emergency order from another company, which thankfully came through splendidly. I have two orders for candy cups apparently still in some netherworld ... last I heard from one, my order “will be shipped when your payment clears”—that occurred days ago, however, and I’ve seen nary a peep nor a candy cup since then. If I can build an inventory, that will help my flow of work tremendously—but I’ve yet to find good e-tailers for all my packaging needs.

And speaking of packaging ... I’m beginning to despair of finding a good packaging solution for my caramels. The cellophane wrap kinda-sorta works well; it’s attractive, but the caramel sometimes insinuates itself around the edges of the wrappers. And it’s difficult to neatly remove all the caramel from it, I know ... I could cook the caramel longer, to make it firmer, which would help the packaging problem; but the feedback I hear is that the softer texture is very enjoyable, and I’d hate to mess with something my customers like so well.

The new recipe for caramels turned out the best batch yet. Y’all are lucky MAL and I didn’t gobble up the whole batch. And as I suspected, the Ghanan milk chocolate on boy caramels is divine. Gotta order more of that chocolate pronto. They do an exquisite bittersweet as well ... still haven’t tempered it to see how cooperative a kitty it is; that’s on today’s list.

I adore experimenting with flavors and combinations for truffle flavors. My mind swirls with possibilities at the slightest provocation (MAL helped over the weekend by proposing a line of “prank” truffle flavors ... akin to sending one’s former love a box of dead roses, I suppose; trotter truffles, anyone?); and with minimal encouragement from folks who’d be willing to help support the endeavor (i.e., by suggesting flavors/combinations, buying them, and providing critical feedback), I can easily see working flavor experiments in to the regular lineup.

Decorating is also great fun. Using colored cocoa butters to create all kinds of chocolate art is a blast ... but it’s also kind of pricey. That work also requires a fair amount of extra time, so I am undecided about what to do on that front.

Okay, more than enough blather for today ... back into the kitchen I go! And with any luck, by the time I’m done with the last flavor, I’ll have some pretty cups to start packaging orders in, in plenty of time for shipping out this afternoon (don’t want them sitting in a warm building or truck for hours before they start their journeys).