This was sent to me today by a friend... names have been taken out... not much to say - just made me feel good!
*...I am willing to provide the truffles, if you are still interested. However, I feel an obligation to point you to [a friend of a] friend, who's card I can't seem to locate and name I can't recall, who actually is a chocolatier, has a more refined, professional product, and is much more established as a business, ... I can do a fine job, but honestly, this woman I would love to learn from. Her product is impeccable and I'm embarrassed I can't find her card.*
That's all for now!
Oh! And my online store is now up and running... has been for a couple of months!
www.amabellachocolats.etsy.com
Tell your friends!
I know I haven't posted in a while, but I've been busy making truffles! I found a recipe that I am quite fond of, as well as a chocolate that is quality. It's not organic, like I had originally planned, but I figure I can upgrade once my chocolates are making some moola. The flavor oils I found, however, are organic - and they are both tasty and efficient! I only used one drop of the oil in each batch I made and they were plenty flavorful.
Here are some pics of my latest works. As well as playing with more of the colors of pearl dust for the artwork on the squares of chocolate, I coated the truffles in it. I'm not sure that it shows up on the pictures very well, but it gives it a really neat shine.
This is a closeup of the coconut design for the squares. I'm pretty pleased with the way it came out. And you can sort of see the gleam of red on the truffle beside it. It's an orange-cinnamon truffle, hence the red pearl dust!
And this is a closeup of the cinnamon design. The pictures came out a little better this time around. The white plate in the background really makes them pop. And I was a little more patient with letting the chocolate set before poking it... so there are less fingerprints this time too!
And here's a line-up of the truffles... I also tried some milk chocolate coating this time. It turned out to be a really great combo. The red dust is a little bit harder to see on the dark chocolate than on the milk, but it really does look better in person.
So... I already have a few orders coming in, from friends, of course... but it's still exciting! And I've come up with some make-shift business cards for now. I wanted to wait until the Etsy store is up and running so I can have that address on it as well.
That's all for now!
Hmmm... well I haven't done too much since last week, sadly. Partly because I was fighting some sort of exhaustion/cold, and partly because of my theatre company's show closing this weekend, as well as having callbacks for our Spring show. So, needless to say, I had my plate full.
I did, however, finish three more stencils for the chocolate! I'm quite excited, as they were giving me some trouble in the beginning. But I seem to have figured out a technique that works well for cutting curves into the plastic and I'm quite happy with how they've turned out. I'll have to load some pictures of them on here sometime soon.
I was also getting a little discouraged because my first chocolate-making attempt seemed to have bombed. But I moped for a few days, and received some encouraging words from my sister today, and that seems to have put me back in the "I can do this" train of thought. I may not be able to save the first batch, but I'll try again.... (It tasted great, but didn't turn into something I could melt down on the stove, and now it's a big lump of hard hard chocolate in my fridge.)
So, bottom line, now that I have the time again, I'll give it another shot, and another after that, and another...until I make my chocolate! *sigh*
When I decided that I was going to become an at-home chocolatier, I knew it was going to be a long, involved process. I knew that not only learning how to make chocolate from scratch, but also creating artwork to be put on the chocolate was probably biting off more than I could chew - especially when I have a full-time day job and a theatre career nights and weekends. So when I originally came up with upwards of 20 different themes for chocolate boxes, and 30 different flavors that I want to work with, I knew there was going to have to be some scaling back.
Boy, has there been! I have been running around for the past two months gathering supplies, researching (since I've worked with chocolate plenty, but never made it from scratch), and learning how to make stencils for the art that I want to place on the chocolate. I wanted to experiment with flower essences...but I have had to make myself narrow it down to just one until after I have perfected my chocolate recipe. My signature flavor will be vanilla - hence the vanilla flower in the logo.
So, I finally have one, count it, ONE stencil done. And I will start experimenting with chocolate tomorrow! I can't wait to finally be playing with the chocolate. While the art has been great fun, as well as completely frustrating (ask anyone who was around while I was trying to draw), I have always had a love for working with ganaches and chocolates. So I can't wait to dig in!
