Picked up my granite today

It was neat – they took me to the back, where they had thirty or forty remnant slabs of granite, and I got to pick the one I wanted!  There were lots of colors and thicknesses – I fell absolutely in love with a black granite with green-gold flecks, but it was 1.5″ thick and would have weighed about 300 lbs in the size I wanted, so I reluctantly had to pass.  Finally I picked out a nice piece, tan and white with black/purple spots (it looks nicer than it sounds, really!), and had them cut it to size – 32×56″, exactly the size of my current marble slab.

It’s 3/4″ thick, which is a trifle thinner than I would have liked – the current slab of marble is the same thickness and can only temper about 18 lbs of chocolate before it warms up too much to use.  (I realize that sounds like a lot, but I can easily go through 18 lbs in three hours when I’m working fast, and having to sit around and wait for five hours for the marble to cool is extremely frustrating.)  1-1.5″ would have been really nice, but of course the thicker the granite the more it weighs.  I eventually decided on the better part of valor and took a thinner piece that won’t require four people to help every time I move.  So the slab will weigh about the same as my marble slab, about 150 lbs (best guess), and I’ll still have to wait between temperings.  It’s okay.

To get people to help me move the slab, I offered free chocolates, so it’s looking like I’ll be doing an inaugural batch of chocolates in the not too distant future.  This sounds like fun!  I think I will probably make some chocolate covered macadamia nuts and some of the vanilla-jasmine tea-orange blossom honey caramels.  I love the chocolate covered macadamia nuts, and my bribe-ees like the caramels (so do I!).  If I make a double batch I’ll even have plenty to share with my new coworkers!