March 5, 2010
Oyster holders allow one of the economical methods, which ensures a visible spot for your company or brand and allows for many large chances to publicize your company. It is a stylishly fashioned promotional ware, which makes an excellent publicizing platform for your society and supplies a solid platform for your business organisation. Oyster card holders enable you to fit the need as well as the sample of your prospective customers. It is a perfect token of utility, which allows an fresh, functional and a dependable way of promoting your trade name. It gives a great choice for gift making, assisting you to display or advertize your line of work among your valued clients, disregarding of the character of your line of work.
1) Your clients will be able to journey in vogue and protect their precious oyster card or ID at the same time and thinking of who gave them such an deluxe present. It can be published in full gloss with a assortment of unique coatings. By employing your party logotype, you can suddenly transform this plain object into an attractive impressive promotional tool. This item can aid you to prompt your customers of your company name, over and over again.
2) It is a outstanding value promotional item for your targeted audience and arrives in a huge range of extraordinary colourings and conceptions. It is anti-fade and made up of wet repellent and water immune textiles. Card holders will make a great impact, when passed out to your work fellow workers, customers, relations or even champions on their special occasions.
3) This item is also crucial for preserving membership cards. It is a high quality product and ordinarily comes with a cash back warranty. It will assist to gain the profile and perception of your brand name in a unique and up-to-date way. This item will genuinely help you to deliver your society subject matters all year long.
4) Your clients will be able to journey in style and protect their valued travel card or identification at the same time and thinking of who gave them such an exquisite present. It can be printed in full gloss with a assortment of unique finishes. By employing your business logotype, you can suddenly shape this simple object into an cute effective promotional instrument. This item can assist you to remind your customers of your society brand, time and again.
5) These Oyster card holders are double-sided and made from operational PVC plastic. They will keep the oyster card or picture from getting scratched or damaged. These items can also be printed up to full colour with a assortment of unique colours, designs and patterns.
March 3, 2010
Chocolates are not really glossy, rich and creamy naturally; chocolatiers have to
do chocolate tempering to be able to get the best features of the finest quality chocolate. Even though chocolates go through the process of conching it is still not enough to make the cocoa liquor particles real fine. Tempering turns the texture of chocolate very fine that it could not even be detected by the tongue.
Chocolates that did not achieve the right tempering will be prone to blooming, a chocolate condition where whitish spots appear over its surface. Chocolates also feel flaky and gritty, embarrassing qualities when you’re selling them.
When you try to melt chocolates coming from the manufacturers, it would lose temper immediately. A chocolate with a temperature of 90F and above will require tempering.
Since today is the time of automation, most chocolatiers tend to focus on becoming productive at the quickest possible time so they choose to use chocolate tempering machines. However, there are still some advantages in knowing chocolate tempering by hand.
One way in which you could temper is through tabliering. It is also called the marble slab method, a method from France, which includes constantly working on the melted chocolate on the surface of the marble slab to cool down to its exact temperature.
In this procedure you will need one pound of chocolate, bread knife, chopping board, mixing bowl, rubber spatula and a double boiler. Cut the chocolate into strips and place in the double boiler to melt. Afterward, pour over the marble slab and fold using the spatula. Perform this continuously until it cools down to its exact temperature and thickened consistency.
Afterwards, you are now ready to dip your fruits and other confectioneries. While you are busy with your dipping and molding, make sure that you monitor the chocolate’s temperature using your thermometer as it can lose temper quickly. If it does, you’ll have to re-temper the chocolate again.
Another way you could manually temper chocolate is through the seeding method, somewhat similar to tabliering. The object is to coax the loose crystals to copy the crystals that are already in the pre-tempered chocolate.
Gather the same materials as in the tabliering method, heat three-fourths part of the chocolate strips. Once done, pour the chocolate into a bowl and mix using a spatula. Mix in the remaining chocolate strips until the whole mush has reached precise temperatures and consistency. Regularly check on the temperature to make sure that the chocolate is in its right temperatures. Always keep your calibrated thermometer ready.
Tempering is really a difficult task because it involves a lot of work. It also takes a lot of your time that you may not have a chance to be artistic.
If you are thinking of making chocolates either for selling or simply for gift giving, acquiring a chocolate tempering machine could really be helpful. It will make chocolate tempering much easier and the chocolate candy making procedure more enjoyable.
January 13, 2010
Tempering used to be uppermost in the worries of chocolatiers earlier on because manual tempering was such a difficult step. Once the tempering machine was invented, most of the chocolatiers have willingly shifted to using it. If chocolates are tempered with a tempering machine, they remain tempered for an extended time, and if need be, even throughout the night.
But there are still some chocolate lovers who go gaga over handmade confectioneries and there are artisanal chocolatiers who cater to this market niche by using a method called tabliering in tempering their chocolate confections. It was in France that tabliering was invented and you’ll use a marble slab to cool the melted chocolate in this method.
Tabliering may go to waste if moisture finds its way into your chocolate so the surfaces and the equipment used must be free of any liquid. “Seizing” results in this case, turning chocolates into a congealed, worthless lump. Seizing may also occur if you heat the chocolate rapidly as well as freeze it.
To start work, prepare a pound of chocolate and such other kitchen paraphernalia as a knife, chopping board, spatula, mixing bowl, double boiler, a cookie sheet, and a thermometer that can read temperatures upwards of 80F. Again, take steps that all these equipment are moisture-free.
Thin strips cut from the chocolate are placed on the upper pan of the double boiler and water for boiling on the lower pan, heating this on low to medium heat so that the temperatures reach 108-115F to melt the chocolate. While pouring the molten chocolate into a mixing bowl, you must be sure that the chocolate flows freely and doesn’t have lumps anymore.
Out of this melted chocolate, otherwise called mush, 2/3 is first worked on a marble slab with a spatula to cool to a temperature of 80-82F. The remaining 1/3 chocolate should continue to stay at 100F else it’ll harden.
After the first 2/3 has cooled, you should mix in the remaining third and work it the same way until the entire lot has reached its necessary cooling temperature. Heat up the mush thus: for dark chocolates, to a temperature of 86-90F; semi-sweet chocolate to 86-88F; and white chocolate to 82-84F. If you dip a part of the spatula in the chocolate and set aside for five minutes, you’ll find your tempering has succeeded if you find that the chocolate is glossy and has hardened. You can then do your dipping and molding routine after this.
Tempering by hand can be labor-intensive and tricky because you’ll need to monitor and maintain accurate temperatures from the time you start melting chocolates to the time you’ve finished crafting them. If there’s even a slight lapse in this, you could repeat the tempering process again until you get it right. For more time to work on your dipping and molding, you can keep tempers longer by setting the chocolate on a bain-marie, being careful about moisture as seizing is still a potential threat.
November 5, 2009
Eating chocolates or fatty foods like sweets stimulates the release of serotonin, the regulatory hormone managing your intestinal functions. Any excess serotonin is utilized by your brain to control your appetites, your moods and emotions of anger. When “addicts” eat chocolates, their mood swings from happiness to verve quickly.
Scientists do not name it as an “addiction” but instead, they point their fingers at the flavor and nutrients of the chocolates as responsible for tickling your senses and shifting your moods. You can enjoy more of chocolates because you yourself can make them if you learn the process. A time may come when you may want to exhibit to others the chocolate candy recipes you’ve created. You should start with learning the glossary of terms used in the process.
- Cocoa liquor that contains about 53% of cocoa butter, which is the major ingredient of chocolates, comes from roasting and grinding cocoa beans.
- Chocolate liquor is bound to harden after cooling and molding and this unsweetened hard chocolate is the baking chocolate.
- Cocoa butter is said to be the natural fat of cocoa beans and you can extract it from chocolate liquor. Possessing the quality of giving texture and flavor to chocolates, this is the basic ingredient for making chocolates.
- Couverture, that contains 35% of cocoa butter, lends shine to chocolate candies and truffles.
- Cocoa powder that is used in the instant chocolate drinks we enjoy is nothing but dehydrated chocolate liquid devoid of cocoa butter.
- Bitter or dark chocolate also has 35% chocolate liquor.
- Semi-sweet chocolate can be made by adding sugar to chocolate liquor of 15% strength.
- Chocolate candy bars are made using milk chocolate containing chocolate liquor, sugar and milk.
- Shine, smoothness and long shelf life can be got only by the tempering process.
Before venturing into chocolate candy making, keep ready, a double boiler, a mixing bowl, candy molds or baking sheet and a spatula or wooden spoon as well as the basic ingredient, white or dark chocolate, and optionally fruit.
Chocolate making commences with melting the chocolate on a double boiler. During heating, you must continuously stir the mixture with your spatula or wooden spoon. Pouring this melted chocolate on a baking sheet or into candy molds or holding it in the freezer, dries and sets the candies. Proportionate quantity of fruit is mixed in if you wish to make fruit-filled candies. Air bubbles must be gently eliminated.
Preventing blotches or crystal formations, evenly distributing the crystals and making the chocolates shiny and smooth can be achieved only by
tempering the chocolates after heating and while you are working on them. The prime concern in tempering is in maintaining specific temperatures at all times. Tempering machines are the secret behind overcoming such difficulties.
Once you gain confidence in making your products, you can sell them to “chocolate addicts” and earn sizeable revenues.
July 8, 2009
Tools are needed to make a craft or a piece of art worth looking at and giving it its true value. I think that it’s the creator’s mind which gives a craft its true worth. The supplies used in making any craft are usually additions to the original creativity displayed by the craftsman/woman and are not as central to the beauty or utility of the craft itself.
Creativity is probably the best supply one can have for creating a master craft. Crafts made by inspired, creative individuals (like Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo or even a villager in rural Thailand) continue to amaze us even if their genius materialized centuries ago. Human expression in crafts does not stop there and there will be crafts built today which will continue to inspire in the future. One question does come to mind, which is what makes a craft more and more appealing through the times? The answer lies in the makers’ hands themselves, there were fewer resources available in the olden days, the amusement and expression came out by building crafts using craft supplies (like wood, stone, chisels etc) which were rudimentary and basic in nature. And the more inspired the genius became, the better the end result.
It becomes easy to lose creativity over time but with the addition of different forms of tools and artifacts, better and better crafts can be made.
Nature has given us tools around us to use so now it’s in our own hands and hard work to use that tool to create better crafts. We all can make crafts we just need right scenes to make a different and unique one.
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