Polidori Chocolates

On "natural marshmallow flavor."

As mentioned in my last post, gourmet marshmallows are something of a food trend right now. I make them, as do a number of other confectioners, and some small companies specialize in nothing but fluff.

 Foodie blog The Nibble took a detailed look at marshmallows and even conducted a taste test of several brands. So far my own marketing study has been limited to one brand, because I saw on their website that they could be found at a high-end supermarket here in Portland. And, well, I was driving past there earlier today. I won't reveal the brand name, because I don't want it to seem like I'm ragging on a competitor -- if you Google "gourmet marshmallows" you'll find them easily enough.

To my surprise, the Vanilla Bean Marshmallows offered by Company X are ... well ... not great.

The size is fine -- 1" square, as opposed to my 1 1/2" size -- small enough to float atop a cup of cocoa, big enough to make two nibbley bites straight out of the bag. They're nicely light, with a pleasant chewiness. The problem is the flavor.

They taste, to be perfectly honest, like the marshmallows one finds in Lucky Charms cereal.

The package says that the marshmallows are "all natural," and if you look at the nutritional info on the company's site, it lists the following: Sugar, Honey, Corn Syrup, Water, Gelatin, Ground Vanilla Beans, Natural Vanilla Extract, Salt, Corn Starch, Powdered Sugar.

But, marshmallows in hand, a peek at the back of the bag tells a slightly different story: Sugar, Honey, Corn Syrup, Water, Gelatin, Ground Vanilla Beans, Natural Vanilla Extract, Natural Marshmallow Flavor, Salt, Corn Starch, Powdered Sugar. Hmm. Slight difference there. Yes, that was "natural marshmallow flavor" I tasted, all right. Blech.

Now, by FDA standards, I have no doubt that these marshmallows are, indeed, "all natural." But in reality, there's a bit of chicanery going on here. Because there's no such thing as natural marshmallow flavor. Unless this company has access to magical marshmallow trees that ooze marshmallow juice ... but I've never heard of them. And before some smarty-pants brings it up, marshmallows haven't been made from the actual mallow plant (Althaea officinalis) in a very, very long time.

There's a Code of Federal Regulations that defines, in painfully detailed terms, what can legally be called a "natural" flavor. It goes, in part, like this: "... a natural flavor is the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional."

All of which means that a natural flavor must be produced from a natural substance. If it's not -- if it's entirely created from chemicals in a lab -- it's artificial.

What it doesn't require is that the flavor actually be derived from the substance that it tastes like. "Natural apple flavor" doesn't have to come from apples, for example. It could be made from liver, or fermented eggs, or beet juice -- as long as the origin is something found in nature, it's "natural." Some flavors, like the "natural blue cheese flavor" added to cheese puffs, are derived from petroleum distillates. Vanillan, a cheap version of vanilla flavor, is extracted from the by-products of wood processing.

Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, explained it this way: "A natural flavor is not necessarily more healthful or purer than an artificial one. When almond flavor -- benzaldehyde -- is derived from natural sources, such as peach and apricot pits, it contains traces of hydrogen cyanide, a deadly poison. Benzaldehyde derived by mixing oil of clove and amyl acetate does not contain any cyanide. Nevertheless, it is legally considered an artificial flavor and sells at a much lower price. Natural and artificial flavors are now manufactured at the same chemical plants, places that few people would associate with Mother Nature."

Mmmm, tasty! And, in some cases, they can cause unpleasant allergic reactions because people have no idea what, exactly, theyre ingesting

I have to admit, it was disappointing to be assaulted by such a nasty, artificial taste when I bit into my "gourmet marshmallow." I fully expected to be disheartened by the superiority of this (apparently quite successful) competitor's product. The whole problem with their candy is that they use flavorings that are artificial, no matter what the FDA says. And you can taste 'em.

I use whole vanilla beans and real Tahitian vanilla extract in my marshmallows, because I honestly want them to taste good. I don't want to save money by adding wood-pulp-derived fake vanilla and "marshmallow flavor" and then turn out a product that's less than the best I can make. I also dip them in chocolate or roll them in toasted coconut rather than offer them plain, because the best way to keep naked marshmallows from sticking together is to coat them in corn starch, which creates a rather unpleasant dusty sensation on the lips -- another problem with these gourmet marshmallows that I purchased.

The reason for this diatribe isn't to thump my chest and claim that my marshmallows are the best on the market. I haven't tried any of the others, and some of them sound quite marvelous. It's really to point out something that's bothered me for a long time -- that "natural flavors" often aren't, and slapping the words "all natural" on a label when the makers know full well that they're spiking their product with fake flavors is unethical.

Something as simple and as fun as a marshmallow shouldn't be hiding any unpleasant secrets, you know?

My perfectionist tendencies, mini-brains on the way, and a contest!

 The first shipment of Gothic Weekend truffles and other sales from that announcement should be hitting the post office tomorrow. This will be for orders received within the first day or so of the sale, with more shipping on Monday/Tuesday. So there's that.

Everything's still taking too long to ship, and in the whirlwind of getting the last batch out the door, there were a few errors made. I was fretting about this yesterday, and a good friend told me that it's inevitable that mistakes will occur in this beta-testing phase (after all, that's the reason for doing it) and that I've had an over 90 percent success rate, etc. But every mistake, every shipment that goes astray -- whether through my fault or the postal service -- is like a big stab in my frontal lobe.

Yes, I'm an imperfect perfectionist control freak. I admit this.

In other news:

• I've had to make an adjustment on the Shelley truffle. It was planned as a rose geranium/almond flavor, but there have been unexpected complications with supplies. To fill the orders in a semi-timely fashion, Shelley will now be a less exotic lemon-almond truffle, and rose will be shelved for a future concoction. A slip explaining this will be included with each box. This does not make me happy, but it's unavoidable.

• Also, I'm going to have to change the look of the Wrath truffles. I love the way they look with the paprika sprinkled on top ... when it works. But it doesn't always. As best I can tell, sometimes the paprika sucks cocoa butter from the chocolate up to the surface, creating bloom. I haven't been able to figure out what the factor is that causes this to happen (heat? Cold? Humidity?) but it's a gamble I can't afford to take. So future Wrath truffles will have a little red lightning bolt on top, not paprika.

• The molds for mini-brains arrived! So at some point next week I'll be experimenting with molded chocolates, so that I can offer bags of bite-sized chocolate brains filled with either caramel or mint fondant. These were one of the first non-truffle ideas I had when fantasizing about this business a year ago, and now that I have the molds in hand, I'm itching to get started. Mmmmmm, brains.

• As part of the mini-brain development, I have to finesse making caramel. I've looked at commercial caramel that's available, but it's all either too chewy, too runny, or too full of chemical additives for my liking. (See: "Perfectionist control freak" above.)

• I also purchased some 6mm pink sugar pearls, because they're so cool. They'll be the decoration atop ... something. Perhaps the rose truffle, once I get this rose geranium oil problem straightened out.

• Within a 24-hour period, I ran across a website for a confectioner who makes nothing but marshmallows in a variety of flavors, and bags of gourmet marshmallows at Trader Joe's. I seem to be part of a marshmallow renaissance, which is ... interesting. Funny how these things come in waves.

• And finally, a selection of Polidori Chocolates will be the prize for the monthly contest over at Antisocial Networking! If you haven't checked out the latest venture by Internet legend The Slackmistress, it's a delightfully cheeky site which offers relationship advice for geeks, as well as daily updates on all things nerdy. The contest theme is "My Nerd Crush" -- share your story by June 20, and you might win a box of Seven Deadly Sins truffles!

And the cycle of life -- well, chocolate -- continues.

The orders for Sale #3 finally left the building last night, after a number of delays. There were printer-ink issues and Internet outages that slowed the shipping. There were shipments from suppliers that didn't arrive, and general dumbassery on my part. There was the pulling out of hair and e-mailed apologies.

And yet, it's done. With the exception of one large order of marshmallows that has to go to Everett, Wa., and is sitting here waiting to be ferried to the post office. And then on to getting the Gothic Weekend orders filled next week, so that they're timely, getting me back on a do-able work schedule.

The learning continues. The stress comes from the fact that unexpected problems are, not to put too fine a point on it, unexpected. Which means that when X happens, it comes as a big surprise, and I end up feeling stupid because I didn't plan for X in the first place. And there have been far more Xs than I thought there would be.

In other developments:

• I have graduated from plastic dipping tools (better than fingers) to brand-new stainless steel dipping tools (better than anything, save an enrobing machine). Will the chocolates be better because of it? How could they not be? Having good tools rocks.

• I've started picking up odd food items when I'm out shopping or buying stuff online, and then brainstorming what I can do with them. On the shelf at the moment: Chile-powder coated mango slices, partially dehydrated bananas, and coconut milk powder. No, I will not be using them all together. I don't think.

• Experimentally, I've been making "bark" by adding random ingredients to leftover tempered chocolate, letting it harden, then breaking it up. The best so far has been pistachios, almonds and currents added to dark chocolate, although the milk chocolate version is mighty tasty, too.

• And finally, if you've ever wondered what a double batch of marshmallow looks like as it's being whipped in a 5-quart mixing bowl, here's an action shot:

So much to share, so little time.

Notes and effluvia, for my own records as well as for anyone following this stuff with perverse interest:

• Local Portland deliveries still outstanding will be made this weekend -- if you're one of these people and don't hear from me tomorrow, drop me an email with your availability (polidorichocolates over at the Gmail.)

• Sale #3 will ship on Friday or Saturday. Recipients will get email with tracking numbers.

• The proceeds from the previous sales have gone far towards funding Polidori Chocolates. Equipment has been purchased, inventory replenished, experiments done. It's also kept the lights on and the water running, as money's been tight since my writing gig at the Portland Tribune ended. So, it's working. And the Honest-to-God-Official-Website should arrive just in time for the super-hot summer weather when I shouldn't be shipping anything. Because my timing is golden.

• Speaking of shipping, it's going to cost more from now on. I was already eating $1.45 on each order to keep shipping reasonable -- and then the post office raised the price of Priority Mail. Add in the cost of packing materials, the case of cold packs that ran me almost as much in shipping as the packs themselves ... and I'm going to have to raise the cost of shipping to $9. I hate to do it, but it's still a lot more reasonable than UPS, who now want 25 bucks to guarantee three-day delivery of a one pound package to the other coast.

• The new phone book is here! I have business cards!  I'm SOMEBODY!

• Improvements have been made to the Envy truffles, giving them more of a punch of lime (the secret was to cook down the key lime juice to a concentrated syrup) and to the marshmallows (bigger, stickier vanilla beans and a switch from Bourbon vanilla extract to Tahitian vanilla, which has a less harsh, more floral flavor). Both are currently rocking my proverbial socks.

• And in case you've wondered what keeps a chocolatier entertained while she's dipping truffles, the answer is: TV on DVD. My computer, with its lovely flat-screen monitor, is a few feet from the dining room table dipping station, and I've been catching up on The Shield and Big Love. Also, the Netflix movies-on-demand feature is a wonderful thing to have, even if they STILL insist that you use Internet Explorer.

• And also, if you've read this far ... there will be another sale announced tomorrow. Friday, May 30. I would have done so sooner, but it's taken me awhile to conceptualize the new flavors. I'll leave the details for the announcement, but here's a clue: 1986. Gabriel Byrne and Julian Sands. Mad, bad, and dangerous to know. Also: Because I've had so many requests, full boxes of each flavor will now be available.

• And now, off to more of Vic Mackey and melted chocolate.

In which I battle the Post Office and tape guns, yet still find joy.

 The second sale has shipped -- way behind schedule, but with cold packs included (with everything in Ziploc bags to battle condensation) for the hotter southern states. I still have a small stack of local deliveries to do, and need to send e-mail confirmations to that effect.

I was speaking to a friend on the phone yesterday, and I told her that I now understand why it takes six weeks to get an order from BPAL -- and they have a staff. I'm just one person, doing the candy making, the inventory and ordering, the shipping and receiving, the graphic design ... it's daunting. I'm enjoying the hell out of it, don't get me wrong. But it's time consuming and detail-intensive, and my inner perfectionist shrieks with rage every time something doesn't go just right, even though these are, in effect, dress rehearsals for the actual website. This is just one adorable way in which I'm insane, according to my infinitely patient husband.

And so, some things have been discovered and considered in recent days:

Dealing with the U.S. Postal Service is an exercise in frustration. Yeah, yeah, like I'm the first person to find this out. I opened a case of large flat-rate Priority Mail boxes and found that some of them were "APO/FPO Address Only" boxes. Not all of them, just some of them. And they were mixed in randomly, which begs the question of how they got in there in the first place (I suspect a warehouse employee who was told to pack X number of cases and just didn't give a damn.)  Also, after already charging my customers about $1.50 less for shipping than I was paying -- figuring I'd absorb the cost to be user friendly -- the USPS raised the Priority Rate price on the standard boxes from $8.95 to $9.80. Nice. Oh, and nowhere in either the PayPal shipping function or on the Stamps.com site is there an option for printing a label for the large shipping box -- in fact, PayPal says that the one rate will ship anything.

There is no such thing as a usable tape gun.  When I was helping my friend Mia pack up a house a few months ago, we battled with the expensive metal tape gun that she had bought, finding that the cheap Scotch plastic things from the drugstore actually worked better. I currently have three different plastic tape thingies, and the most functional of them will do about 8 boxes in a row before the tape slips out of the guide and glues to itself so thoroughly that it takes ten minutes to peel it back off. And the best of the lot is still the cheap red Scotch tape from the drugstore, except that it comes with about a foot-and-a-half of tape on it, and it's not refillable. Forget artisanal chocolates -- if I could invent a freaking tape dispenser that works, I'd be a gazillionaire.

Some things never change.  It's been a long time since I was a pastry chef, but I still hate some basic tasks associated with the job. De-skinning hazelnuts is one of them. After toasting the raw nuts in the oven, you drop them into a clean towel and, in theory, rub them so that all of the skins come off. But they never all come off, so you have to pick through them and scrape off the stubborn bits, and no matter how careful you are there are still millions of little bits of hazelnut skin that gets on the table, on your clothes, in your hair ... it's a testament to how much I love hazelnuts that I'm willing to do this. But I swear like a sailor every time.

I still find joy in making something.  I am, in many ways, what showman Jim Rose refers to as a "jaded fuck." But every day I discover that I still get a kick out of creating things, and I feel a great swell of pleasure with each completed box of chocolates. I love the way the truffles look, all lined up in there. I love the way the ribbon wraps around the box, and the font that I used for the logo. I love the heft of the finished package, and the whole process of packing and shipping something that I made myself. It's sort of sappy, I guess ... but it brings me joy. Okay, I get mad at the tape gun. A lot. But other than that? Bliss.

Bigger = Less Jumbly

I think I've solved the problem of the jumbly-tumbly truffles in the box -- make them larger! I originally scaled the size down because I thought they wouldn't fit. Instead, they slide around in the box. Obviously my thinking was, um, wrong.

They just need to be a little bit larger, and it won't have a big impact on my bottom line. And, hey, bigger truffles. We are, after all, Americans. We like our treats to be hefty. (Note the mega-marshmallows, right.)

I'm waiting to hear back from a chocolate supplier about a) setting up an account, and b) what they charge for shipping. I almost ordered 50 pounds of Callebaut milk and bittersweet from them, but their shopping cart just said that "shipping will be added to your order." Well, they aren't getting my order until I know how outrageous the shipping charges are -- kind of a Catch-22 there, retail-business-wise.

Thanks to popular demand, a third sale will be announced soon. I haven't decided what form it'll take yet -- more Seven Deadly Sins, or something completely. Or perhaps a "choose four flavors" option. I have to hunker down and figure out just how much  we can handle here at Polidori Mansion.

Sale 1 (Second Wave) is out the door

The second wave of Seven Deadly Sins truffles (i.e., the rest of the first sale) went to the post office yesterday, so today's been devoted to some much-needed down time. Because your friendly chocolate-maker is tired.

The hectic, seat-of-the-pants stressapalooza of the first sale was replaced this time around with more of a nose-to-the-grindstone sort of a vibe. Instead of interspersing the chocolate making with ordering supplies, driving around getting supplies, freaking out over the lack of mailing boxes, etc., I was able to concentrate on just making truffles and packaging them up.

Of course, this time I did it all on my own, without help from husband, friend and husband-of-friend. Which is how it should be because, hey, this was my crazy idea, and it's up to me to make it work. So I did. Despite sticky mailing labels that wouldn't peel, and packing tape that kept wadding up, and numerous other little annoyances** that have nothing to do with chocolate but still had to be finessed. (Stupid, stupid tape gun ...)

And after acting as chocolatier, office staff, assembly line and loading dock foreman, I'm whipped. Which is why today's involved a lot of surfing the 'net and petting the dog (who's been feeling a little neglected lately, since she's banished from the kitchen and that's where I've been spending all my time.)

But I look at that stack of wrapped boxes and, while there are still a LOT of things that need to be worked out -- better cushioning so that the truffles don't rattle around during shipping, issues with bloom on the chocolate, cold packs for shipping to warmer climates -- I feel like I'm accomplishing something pretty unique here. And the support from all of you who have placed orders has been awesome.

I've been thinking about running regular contests for blog readers, offering free stuff in exchange for ideas on themes and flavors. Let me know what you think -- would it be more trouble than it's worth, or would it be fun for customers to kick in their own ideas? Let me know in comments.

** Like, maybe I should have installed and figured out the USPS postage software during some earlier down time, rather than waiting until I was smack in the middle of getting everything together for the post office. That sort of thing.

Phase One completed.

Most of the Polidori Chocolate orders have shipped, with the rest soon to follow. A day later than I anticipated and within an acceptable timeframe but ... not perfect. And I'm a perfectionist. So, yeah, I'm a little jittery.

You know those stories you always hear about new business start-ups?  Like The day we opened the store, there was a power outage so we had no lights, or The seafood purveyor couldn't get us enough shrimp for our restaurant's opening night, or Our first shipment of computers ended up on the wrong truck and went to Boise?

I now know how those people feel. And, like those people, I'm sure I'll find it all hilarious some day in the future. Right now I'm just tired.


Things that went sideways:

• I had no idea that the post office wouldn't just, you know, stock Priority Shipping boxes to supply to businesses. Even the big central post office, where I had been told on the phone that I could "just come down and pick them up," didn't have more than 10 on hand when I got there. And -- I am not making this up --  the first employee I spoke to when I got there claimed that there was no such thing as an 8 x 11 flat-rate box, despite a display on the wall and Priority Mail brochures on the counter. (Oh yes, there will be a strongly worded letter to the postal authorities.) Nothing says fun like visiting four different post offices to scrounge boxes.
  

• I discovered the hard way that I can't use bits of candied orange peel to decorate the dipped Grand Marnier truffles. The sugar and/or moisture in the peel reacted poorly with the chocolate coating and ... yeah. They looked horrid. They tasted fabulous, mind you, but not a single one of the 50+ truffles could be shipped and the entire batch had to be remade. That was an expensive, and time-consuming, mistake.

• Also, an experimental "big batch" of marshmallows didn't set up properly and had to be discarded. And remade, in smaller batches. Again, money and time lost, which ratcheted up the stress a bit.

• When time got tight, we thought we might have to delay shipping one more day ... but we'd already printed (and paid for) the shipping labels, and the post office will only accept Priority Mail shipments on the date on the label. So, yeah. That was a jolt to the system.

• I couldn't remember precisely where the new Trader Joe's location was, so I ended up driving   around and around the same neighborhood for, like, 45 minutes while I grumbled that "it's here SOMEWHERE" until I'm sure she just wanted to haul off and punch me.

• Trays of undipped truffles + bowls of melted chocolate + trays of finished truffles + trays of marshmallow + candy boxes + shipping boxes = A whole lot of stuff crammed into any available space. If I lived in a tiny apartment, I could never have done this. As it was, it was far more chaos than I'm comfortable with. Yikes!
  

Things that went right:

• The U.S. Postal Service is happy to provide large amounts of flat-rate Priority Mail boxes at no charge, delivered to your home or business, and you can order them online. Sure, they take a week to 10 days to arrive, but I won't be upsetting their careful allocation of ten boxes per post office at any given time.

• The finished truffles and marshmallows look and taste terrific. The packaging is nice. I'm okay with the finished product, although I still want to tweak a few things.

• The Portland Airport post office is open until 10 p.m., and it's just 15 minutes from my house. So the boxes got to the post office ... five minutes before they closed, like something out of a bad sitcom. But they did get there.
  

• My husband and my friends are awesome, and indulge my psychosis with patience and humor. If you ever have to put together a last-minute assembly line to pack up chocolates, I know just the folks.

• I did not collapse into a heap of what-the-hell-am-I-doing sobs at any point in the process, no matter how hairy it got. I wanted to, once or twice. But I did not.

Some e-mails will go out later to a few people with an adjusted delivery date, but other than that today is a Day Off. Okay, I also ought to write a review of Iron Man, which I saw Tuesday night (in one word: awesome). And I need to wash a whole lot of dishes. And my living room looks like a chocolate-factory exploded in it. And ... oh, hell. I don't get a day off, I guess.

On Stabilizing Ganache

Baking and confectionery is, more than any other area of cooking, as much science as it is art. Leavening is affected by acids, for example, which means that adding sour cream to a cake recipe can make it go all sideways if you don't adjust measurements. And sugar is a bizarre, fascinating substance that has properties which can confound even a seasoned chef.

For example -- have you read the Kurt Vonnegut novel "Cat's Cradle?" In it, there's a substance called Ice-Nine, described in Wikipedia as "a more stable polymorph of water than common ice (Ice Ih) which instead of melting at 0° Celsius (32° Fahrenheit), melts at 45.8°C (114.4°F). When ice-nine comes into contact with liquid water below 45.8°C, it acts as a crystal 'seed', and causes the solidification (freezing) of the entire body of water which quickly crystallizes as ice-nine."

Crystal sugar behaves in a similar manner. I'll avoid going into scientific details that I'd probably get wrong in translation anyway, but if you've ever made candy (like, say, fudge) on the stovetop and read directions that tell you to wash down the sides of the pan as you go so that there are no sugar crystals remaining, that's because re-introducing crystallized sugar to the cooked sugar will cause the crystals to reform, like Ice-Nine. The result is gritty, grainy fudge.

In the case of ganache -- a combination of chocolate and heavy cream -- there's a whole lot of alchemical magic in the combination of sugars and fats that, when done correctly, results in a decadently smooth, rich mixture that can be used as truffle filling, beaten and then spread between cake layers, or melted and poured as a glaze. I've never had any problems with ganache until I tried using super-dark, 72 percent bittersweet chocolate. Suddenly, every batch separates -- instead of looking smooth and glossy, it looks congealed and grainy, and when it cools there's streaks of fat on the top. Ugh. (See bad ganache, right.)

What I have is emulsification gone wrong. If I wanted, I could try and repair it -- it can be done, sometimes, by melting half the ganache and chilling the other half,  then slowing introducing the warm ganache to the cold. But what I want is for it to not happen in the first place. Which means that I need to either a) give up on using super-dark chocolate, or b) figure out how to stabilize the mixture.

Research leads me to believe that the answer is invert sugar, which is sucrose that has been broken down into two simple sugars (glucose and fructose) by the introduction of acid like cream of tartar or lemon juice. It's used in fondant to maintain a creamy, non-grainy consistancy, so I think it'll do the trick here. By adding it to the ganache, the sugars in the chocolate won't crystallize and should remain suspended in such a way that the fats don't separate.

At least, that's the theory. We'll see what happens. Updates as the story develops.