Monday, February 9, 2009

my new assistant

Say hello to my new favorite toy: the Revolation-1 chocolate tempering unit, or 'Margaret 2' as I have already christened it. This baby arrived last Thursday, and the inaugural run went down shortly after I brought it in the door. 45 minutes from start to stop for a half pound of chocolate! I didn't do anything fancy - just played with my new molds - but this thing is awesome. Notice that lovely pool of melted chocolate on the right. Throw the chocolate in one side, come back when it beeps and you're ready to go.

The original Margaret is naturally funnier and much more entertaining, but for speed and efficiency this baby can't be beat. And I can actually do candy with a little friend, which messy Kat would have no chance of pulling off using the old method. Max helped out, and I didn't even get any chocolate on him. I laid him down in the middle of the action, came back and finished. This is perhaps something only the original Margaret can appreciate, but normally when we dip candy it takes HOURS and you have to block out a good chunk of time because of the mess. AND there is next to no waste. This year we only did one pan of caramels, because it was just too tricky to work around my three amigos.

In a perfect world, Margaret 1 will come out (or just move here!) and help me and Margaret 2 dip candy.

This puppy works great, but was also a great deal. I searched online for a few months - it probably would have taken Rog about 10 minutes - and the best price I could find was $400. I finally found it through Dove Chocolate Discoveries for $200, and for hosting a party got one for 1/2 off! Using Kat-math (so dubbed by Rog) that's $300 that can now go towards . . . chocolate for playing with the machine!

It's too bad I don't get this excited about exercise. All ya'll will start to get on board when I need to have tasters for quality control. Alex can't be my only test subject.

5 comments:

The Stradling Family said...

oh my goodness. i may have to come and live with you and be your official chocolate taster! have fun!

Unknown said...

That is amazing!! I definetely will have to visit Boulder our next time to CO to taste some of this chocolate! Really, really great. Not to mention it's fabulous name. I did do the zig zag. Thanks for being nice about it! I have been such a lazy blogger lately!

Anonymous said...

Whenever you're ready with a batch send 'em out here to Maryland. Liz and I will give you our honest opinions.

Mia said...

Oh yes, I will taste test all you want! That looks like an amazing machine.

Disco Mom said...

I was wondering about the chocolate party - came on here today in fact just to search for it. That machine looks AMAZING. Hmm, can I justify the cost and space for another appliance? I've already decided I need a full-size food processor and not just the little one that goes on my mixer base. Hmmm... It's so pretty and compact! By the way Max looks adorably perfect in the sling, glad it's working out!