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Chocolate Tempering How-To
Gepost door admin op 13/11/2009
Toegevoegd onder: Beaux Arts, Cookery, Making Money
If you do tempering of your chocolates, you are on a safer ground and you can boldly gift them to friends and family because your chocolates will be smooth and shiny. If you have not done tempering, your chocolates will have a coarse bite and their appearance will be unsightly with whitish-gray blotches all over their shell.
If you decide to skip tempering, it will be unsettling expert chocolate makers because the fact is chocolates have to be imparted smoothness and shine since they do not have these qualities on their own. Conching smoothes out the particles of chocolate but tempering alone can prevent the formation of detectable crystals which substantially damage the quality of chocolates.
For chocolate to be considered genuine you’ll need cocoa butter as the main ingredient; this component in chocolate gives it its unforgettable rich and creamy mouthfeel. Cocoa butter comes from chocolate liquor, which in turn is extracted as a paste from roasted and ground cocoa beans. Cocoa butter’s presence in cocoa beans is more than 53%. If you don’t temper your chocolates, white spots appear on the surface of your confectioneries due to the breaking up of cocoa butter, spoiling whatever enchanting appeal that your chocolates may have.
Cocoa butter has a unique quality of crystallizing fatty acids at different temperatures. This makes it necessary to maintain exact temperatures not only during tempering but while you’re working on your candies. During melting, these crystals get dispersed and tempering stabilizes and makes them hold together snugly just to prevent blooming, dull appearance and crumbly texture of the chocolates.
Chocolate tempering can be done using three methods: tabliering, seeding, and mechanized.
Tabliering is a difficult method but is preferred by chocolate artisans. Chocolate bars are melted and one third of it is poured and folded on a marble slab. Once this is done, you slowly fold in the rest of the melted chocolate until the whole mass is worked upon to render even distribution of specific temperature.
The next method, “seeding”, is done by using an already-tempered chocolate as a seed to trigger the crystallization of free-moving crystals; they “copy” the crystal structures of previously tempered crystals. You don’t melt the entire chocolate at once but only start with two-thirds of it. The remaining one-third is cut into small strips which will serve as “seeds”. These seeds are folded into the molten chocolate until a uniform specific temperature is achieved in the whole mass. The crucial point in both tabliering and seeding is maintaining specific temperatures.
You should be wise enough to accept that tempering takes away a lot of your time and hence you may not sufficiently concentrate on honing your chocolate making skills. The third method, mechanized tempering, allows you the use of a chocolate tempering machine so that you can focus on skills-improvement. Chocolate tempering machines have computer chips to manage your chocolates’ temperatures.
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Why Penmanship Is a Business Skill in 2009
Gepost door admin op 28/10/2009
Toegevoegd onder: Beaux Arts, Making Money
It can sometimes seem as though hand writing is becoming redundant, it’s one that is still today important in many areas of life. A handwritten missive imparts more importance than a typed missive, like an application for a job, an invitation or an apology.
You might conceive it’s a recent fashion of the masses eschewing hand-writing for the keyboard, but way back to the late 19th century, there were cries that hand writing was forgotten due to the invention of those times : the typwriter. Now in the 21st century, the fault is being corresponded to the usage of computers.
Nonetheless, there is still a strong demand for penmanship talent in in all walks of life. Hand written letters are considered as more honest, they demonstrate the author has carefully thought out his words, while demonstrating more respectfulness to the reader. In this modern age of canned responses, the hand-written missive has never been more noticeable.
I must admit to something. I’ve frequently been caught red-handed with my awful hand-writing - made worse due to years of reliance on the keyboard. In situations where I’ve had to put pen to paper, my writing’s been almost indecipherable at times. So how did I overcome this problem?How to solve such a problem? I handwrote whenever the chance came to do so, and my handwriting improved greatly. So it’s advisable to polish your hand-writing through sheer repitition.
Another point is to find a pen you are comfortable with, with refills. A good pen is the better-known mont blanc pen. This allows you to polish your hand-writing with a single pen.
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Not so Antisocial: Graffiti as Printed Canvas Art
Gepost door admin op 16/09/2009
Toegevoegd onder: Beaux Arts
The public has had a love/hate relationship with graffiti. On the plus side, graffiti artists like Banksy have made walls a place to put a political point across, using stencils to produce technically tricky artworks with a subtle meaning attached. This type of graffiti was bound to get popular with both the masses and the artworld : pleasing to the eye, and the intellect. This kind of graffiti is even acquired as printed canvas art, and placed on the walls of suburban homes and corporate reception areas.
Yet, what of the common or garden kind - the gangbanger, the tagger, the street urchin - this is just seen as hooliganism, an offence perpetrated by the untalented. But this is to misinterpret graffiti as purely an art form. To many individuals, it’s not only an artform, but a method to put your stamp on a district, or even a rejection of society altogether : anti-social, anti-art, anti-establishment.
Spraying has invariably been a covert activity, although the effects are public facing. The targeted audience is often unidentified. Is it for a rival crew? A communication to a single person? To the public? Or….possibly it’s just gratuitous and out of nothing else to do.
Whatever the reasons may be, there appears to be some kind of permanent need to spray graffiti on walls. Some towns have acknowledged that graffiti isn’t going to go away, so they’ve designated zones where graffiti is permitted - usually unoccupied areas, but from time to time busier zones like boarding that surrounds inner city construction sites.
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Four Large Must Have Musical Boxes for Music Box and Antique Collectors
Gepost door admin op 08/05/2008
Toegevoegd onder: Beaux Arts
Large musical boxes have been in existence since the 1820’s. For the music box and antique collector, there are four large musical boxes which are particularly unique and “a must have” for any collection. They are the mandolin music box, piccolo music box, orchestra music box, and the rare revolver music box.
Mandolin Music Boxes
Mandolin music boxes are strung with four strings, which are the same as those of a violin. The resulting sound is one of romance with the notes drifting softly in the air. These music boxes typically are not difficult to find since a large number were made. Finding a music box such as this would be a special addition to the music box and antique collector of inlaid music boxes, ballerina music boxes, musical jewelry boxes, and more.
Piccolo Music Box
While piccolo music boxes are an octave higher than most music boxes, if the music box and antique collector can withstand its rather shrill notes, it too can be a collectors jewel. Since some of these music boxes were made with a harmony arrangement that accompanied the high pitched notes, the sound becomes much more pleasing.
Orchestra Music Box
This music box is unique and has everything. The music box is an interchangeable one with bells, drums, and organ. Some even have dancing dolls inside which move in time to the music. It would be a fun music box to have for any antique or music box collector.
Revolver Music Box
The revolver music box is quite rare. It is much more unique and impressive than some of the ballerina music boxes, musical jewelry boxes, and wooden keepsake boxes seen today. David Tallis in ?Music Boxes: A Guide for Collectors states: “Perhaps the most impressive piece of machinery in the musical box field is the Revolver Music box. Invented by Amedee Paillard at St Croix in 1870, it consisted of a set of cylinders fixed on a rotating shaft so that any one could be brought into contact with the comb at time. There are three illustrations of revolver boxes in Nicole Graham Webb’s book, one being a fine mandolin box by Nicole Freres. It has six cylinders, each playing six airs; a repertoire of 36 airs without table or drawers. However, they were so difficult to make that very few are to be found.”
For the music box and antique collector, the mandolin music box, piccolo music box, orchestra music box, and revolver music box would be excellent collectible items. Why not add then to your collection today?
Copyright 2006 Monique Hawkins
Established in May of 2005, http://www.My-Music-Box.com is a music box gift store specializing in products such as inlaid ballerina music boxes for ballerina rooms décor, whimsical carousel music boxes, and musical jewelry boxes. The company provides interesting information for music lovers of all ages. Owner Monique Hawkins is also the author of the blog “What You Never Knew About Music” http://whatyouneverknewaboutmusic.blogspot.com, and owner of the eBay store “Monique’s Music Box” at: http://stores.ebay.com/moniquesmusicbox/ Monique can be contacted at (540) 858-2885.
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