The Lure Guide Center

The shine, smoothness, crispness and the creamy texture are imparted to chocolates by the process called tempering since these are not their natural traits. Conching will give a small amount of fineness to the particles of cocoa liquor but it is when you temper chocolates that these particles become perfectly finer.

With tempering, chocolates get a shiny patina, crispness, firmness, smoothness, a creamy texture and a long shelf life and are protected from blooming. When blooming occurs, the chocolates become crumbly and gritty and the crystals of the cocoa butter appear as grayish-white spots on the chocolates. Such chocolates will be ignored by consumers.

Melting of chocolates takes place at temperatures higher than 90 degrees Fahrenheit so the temper that comes from the manufacturer is completely lost, necessitating re-tempering.

Even if chocolatiers use a tempering machine to temper their chocolates comfortably, they should train in manual chocolate tempering because they may face situations and emergencies which will require it.

One of the manual tempering methods, tabliering, is from France. It is with a valid reason tabliering is otherwise called as marble slab method because in this method, you temper chocolate by cooling melted chocolate on a marble slab.

In addition to a chocolate bar (one pound), you’ll also require a knife, a moisture-free bowl and a chopping board, a double boiler and a rubber spatula. The chocolate bar is sliced thinly then melted on a double boiler with sufficient care not to scorch the contents. Once the chocolate strips are melted, one half is transferred onto a marble slab and worked. Once the consistency thickens, the other half is also blended in on the marble slab to the same cooled temperature and consistency.

“Seeding” is another similar method with a few differences. The first difference is that you use already-tempered chocolate chips as “seeds” while tempering chocolate. The second difference is you melt only three-fourths of the chocolate mush; once this melting is over, you mix the unmelted portion with the melted part in a mixing bowl, until the whole chocolate has liquefied and cooled.

The main rule in manual tempering is that specific temperatures should be strictly adhered to, for which you can use a good thermometer. Fruit-filled chocolates and confections of various shapes and sizes can be tried with this tempered chocolate. While doing dipping and molding, your chocolate should remain tempered during these processes.

Since you will be fully engrossed in the process, manual tempering does not offer any reprieve for enjoyment. But it is different with a tempering machine in which you get a lot of free time with which you can have fun while creating and also plan to make major improvements to your business.

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Chocolate candy making involves eagle-eye focus and hence it’s not an easy thing to do. Especially with manual tempering, an important aspect of crafting chocolate candies; it turns something as straightforward as melting chocolates a difficult process because it involves maintaining specific temperatures accurately. Considering the propensity of human errors in such things, chocolate candy making can be quite challenging.

With the chocolate (any type), you melt it on a double boiler, keeping it from burning by stirring with a spatula continually. You can either pour the chocolate melt onto candy molds or cookie cutters for interesting shapes, or dip your favorite fruits for interesting flavors. You can keep the candy in the chiller a while to set or let it air dry before serving. The complexity starts when you take into consideration the fact that you need to temper the chocolate to make your candies attractive.

Manufacturers temper the chocolate they sell wholesale but this temper is lost as soon as you start melting chocolates. It’s the difficulty you may encounter in maintaining specific temperatures accurately that snatches the enthusiasm for chocolatiers. But that should not be the reason for not pursuing tempering because it’s responsible for making chocolates shiny and crisp as well as checking blooming that turns chocolate candies unattractive with white blotches appearing on the surfaces of chocolates. The only time you can do without tempering is if the chocolate candies you make are for your own consumption but if it’s intended for retail, then you’ll have to temper.

This is because of the fact that the fatty acids in cocoa butter can bond into six types of crystals formations, and each formation exhibit a dominating behavior at a specific temperature. This phenomenon isn’t good for the formation of type V crystals that play the major role in making chocolates shiny and crisp. In each chocolate type– dark, semi-sweet or white–there are different temperatures at which these type V crystals bond. The type IV crystals that also form with the type Vs have the same shine and crispness but it melts way too fast that’s why you need to keep temperatures at certain levels so that only the type V crystals dominate tempering.

A thermometer that can measure temperatures accurately and as low as 82F will be useful for keeping temperatures on an even keel. Any slip in this step will lead to re-tempering. If you want to escape this ordeal, you could start using tempering machines, which has microprocessors that direct temperature levels and automate the production of just the type V crystals. During the free time that is made available to you by the use of tempering machines, you can pursue different options for improving your business and the quality of your products.

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The meat must be wrapped very tightly before placing it in the fire pit for the cooking process. Once your decision has been made to what item or product you will use then you will follow these steps carefully. After flavoring the meat, you will wrap the meat with several layers of aluminum foil or the other product you decided to use. The meat in the foil must be wrapped thoroughly with lots of wet burlap material this is done to preserve the juices, flavors, and the heat. Finally you will need to wrap the meat package with a heavy wire. When wrapping the meat package with heave wire be sure to wrap it very securely and tie it off extremely tight. This process will not only preserve the juices, heat, and flavors but it will also give you something to hold onto securely when placing into the fire pit.

A tip to remember when you are cooking a whole hog on a fire pit is sure to prop the mouth open because this will allow the heat to thoroughly cook the entire hog. Once the meat is in the fire pit you will need to cover it all with dirt. By covering the meat package with dirt ensure that the burlap material will not burn because no oxygen will get inside the pit. The hot coals is what allows the meat to cook for up to several days if needed. Once the meat is fully cooked to time it will be time for everyone to enjoy the wonderful feast.

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Cheer Your Team On In Comfort with Stadium Seat Cushions

Is there anything more fun than a Saturday afternoon spent rooting for your favorite sports team? The passion, the excitement, the… backache from those hard stadium seats. If you’re looking for the perfect gift for a diehard sports fan, take a look at some of the choices for stadium seat cushions that will take their mind off their sore bottoms and put it back where it belongs - on the game.

Foam Cell Stadium Seat Cushions

Stadium seat cushions are designed for using on bleachers - but many of them work just as well on molded and formed stadium seats. The least expensive are made from thick, foam cell that molds to the shape of your bottom to keep you comfy. Many sports teams order these in bulk imprinted with the team name and logo. Make your favorite sports fan a happy camper by picking up a stadium seat cushion in his team’s colors.

Stadium Seat Cushions with Handles

Want to make that seat cushion a bit easier to tote along? You can find stadium seat cushions with built in handles. Some even have backpack style straps so that they can just be slung over a shoulder and carried along.

Stadium Seat Cushions with Back Support

One of the things that makes bleacher seats so uncomfortable is that they have no backs! You can remedy that with a specially made stadium seat cushion with a back. It uses side straps to adjust the back to a comfortable position and keep it in place.

Warmed Stadium Seat Cushions

What better way to warm the cockles of your sports fans’ heart than to help him keep his bottom warm? Sitting on icy bleacher seats is a sure way to cast a chill over a sporting Saturday - but a stadium seat cushion with a heater can help keep your whole body toasty warm.

Personalized Stadium Seat Cushions

How about a gift for that very special person - say, the Coach? Some custom imprinters will make single seat cushions with your choice of imprint. So pamper your coach or favorite fan with a stadium seat cushion personalized with his or her own name and the team logo.

Inflatable Stadium Seat Cushions

While most stadium seat cushions are made of vinyl-covered foam, one of my personal favorites is an inflatable donut. Similar to the kind that they give you in the hospital to ease your bottom after surgery, these donut shaped inflatable stadium seat cushions are guaranteed to make even the hardest bleachers comfy enough for a long day of cheering on your favorite team.

http://cushionshq.com
All about cushions - from Meditation cushions to sofa cushions, cushion covers to gel cushions.

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Family tree maker software lets you find your relatives and ancestors, contact them and share information with no trouble at all. Read on to find out more about this impressive program and learn how to advantage of it.

How to use family tree makers

With family tree maker software, you can instantly and accurately create various trees, charts and organizational diagrams based on the data that you encode. Its connectivity is superb - you can very easily ‘copy and paste’ individuals, family tree sections or entire trees from one file to another without any hassle. Best of all, you can merge identical persons in the combined file for greater accuracy.

Most family tree makers can store an unlimited amount of information for everyone you put in your file. You have the freedom to create ‘fact sheets’ to include important data like birthdates, deaths, marriages, etc. With Tree Maker, each person can have their own digital scrapbook. You can even create a digital scrapbook for each person - putting in images, video and text files and access them to share easily.

Important features

Family tree software can typically allow you to view more than one family file simultaneously, so that you can put side them by side and edit more effectively. This makes checking correspondences and disparities between the two files very easy as well.

Most family tree maker software is completely customizable. You can tweak preferences functions to make it easier for you to find useful tools. It also lets you access online databases of other family trees, so that you can find related lineage and possibly make a connection.

What’s more, most family tree maker software can do auto backups, so that you never lose your hard work. You can also protect your files from harmful intruders such as viruses and data corruption floppy disks.

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Night Sea Gulls over the Bow
[The Galapagos/Dedicated to Cody, lover of animals]

The ship-danced alongside the sea-gulls, so

Proud they were, they could keep up;

Not far away, an Island of sea lions, awaited

… (On top of land, and under the sea).
At day break, they followed us with intently.

At night, darkness fell upon our ship, gulls

And all; sailing from island to island
Density prevailed: complete beauties befell.

Love: that, which we give, by looking back:

Above and straight ahead, we weaved
This dark and strange beauty, into our heads…!

#1119 1/29/06

Parting

And how does one accept the end

To yield a life with reason,
To go with the flow of things

Even, if only, for a season.
Can one call this: death with grace?
To let his heart, part with fate.
To let go slowly, of everything!

#1140 2/1/2006

Blistering in Haiti

There was no well to fetch water

And so we got it from the creek
With pail, and tin-can, in hand

We caught the water as it ran…

and humped that water back, slowly

Five gallons in each pail and can
Drained it for the cement, and shower

We were building a clinic in the
mountains.
And boiled some to drink later on;

In the hot-blistering sun, of Haiti….

Note: In l986, the author flew into Haiti, drove by jeep-truck into the mountains of Haiti with 19-others to build the walls of a clinic for the inhabitants of a village (medical clinic); a first group had come in (before them) and set a cement foundation floor; the doctor had refused to return until the clinic was finished. Thus, he was there two weeks, and had built its basic wall foundation, and a third group followed after he left and finish the job by doing the roof.#1139 1/31/06

See Dennis’ web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com

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