More on chocolate molds, fudge

Well, my interview went pretty well – I’m about 65% thinking they’ll want to bring me back in for a second round.  I’ll know more next week.

And my interview turned out to be less than a block away from Douglas & Sturgess, so I stopped in and (in a moment of weakness) bought 8 pounds of silicone mold-making material.  It’s in a bucket that’s about 2-3 quarts.  I’m sure I’ll find a use for it.  🙂

The lovely folks at Douglas & Sturgess explained to me that one of the problems I was having with my dragon mold was that since I was pressing the jade *into* the moldmaking compound rather than putting it on the bottom and pouring the moldmaking compound over it, the bubbles were naturally accumulating underneath the jade with no way to get out.  They recommended half-burying the jade in clay, then pouring the moldmaking compound over the clay.  They were out of the clean clay, though, so they suggested wax instead.  I have now half-buried the jade thingamabob in wax and have poured some of that 3-quart silicone compound over it.  Tomorrow, once it finishes setting up, we’ll see how it looks.

I have also made a batch of coconut fudge, using coconut milk, sugar, and vanilla.  It seems to be setting up pretty nicely, but I’ll have to wait ’til the morning to see how it is once everything’s cooled.

Tomorrow I plan to cook the Meyer lemon – lavender – white chocolate fudge (a double-batch – B. has been after me to make that one, as it’s one of his favorites), and the coconut-lime fudge.  I may see if I can concentrate some tequila and add a tablespoon or two of the boiled-down tequila to the fudge; I think that would be kinda fun.  I’m also going to flip through my confectioners’ books to see what else I can do with 15 pounds of sugar.  Surely there must be something I havne’t yet tried that would be fun to do…

Saturday and Sunday B. and I are going to do a jewelry workshop at The Crucible, then on Monday it’s back to chocolatiering.  Somewhere in there I hope to be able to make a gang-mold (multiple molds of the same item) of the jade dragon.   Monday starts the trufflemaking…Monday morning I will temper chocolate to cast the molds with, and then Tues-Wed-Thurs I will make and pipe ganaches into the molds.  Friday I plan to pack and ship.