KerryCan is a frequent commenter on Suzanne’s Mom’s Blog and, as I keep learning, a woman of varied talents. She has been a college English professor, she blogs regularly, and she pursues numerous traditional crafts in a deep way
But what you need to know now is that she make chocolates and sells them at Etsy in time for Valentine’s Day.
Here’s what KerryCan says on her blog about a day in the life of a chocolatier, “I don’t make candy to make a living. I make candy because I like to make candy, just as I like to quilt and I like to weave. But, unlike quilting and weaving, candy piles up fast and that can cause its own dilemmas. I sell candy so I can justify making more, to experiment and try new things, without having to eat it all myself. …
“Almost every candy I make is a multi-stage process so, when I’m making a lot of candies, my days will be organized around the steps. Some days will be focused on making the ‘innards,’ as I think of them, and other days will focus on enrobing, or dipping, the candy innards in chocolate. When I make the innards, I work in small batches, and usually produce 50 to 200 candies at a time. …
“Making any of the innards depends on paying careful attention to temperature, so using a candy thermometer is essential. And, since I’ve never met a candy thermometer that I felt I could really, really trust, I also use the old tried-and-true cold-water test. …
“Once the candy is cooked and has cooled, I have to cut it. … The next step is the critical one that makes me a chocolatier—tempering chocolate. … Anyone who wants to make really good candy learns to temper chocolate. … Tempering chocolate means melting quality, real chocolate and then cooling it in a controlled way to bring about a transformation of the chocolate. …
“I spend a lot of time tempering chocolate by hand. I may temper 3 pounds at a time. I melt the chocolate to specific temperatures, depending on whether it’s dark, milk, or white chocolate, and then bring those temperatures down again. It takes about 30 minutes of constant stirring to temper chocolate, and it can’t be rushed.” More here.
I think you could learn to make chocolate yourself just from KerryCan’s one post. She concludes, “I weigh out the candies, then I put them in little candy paper cups. I arrange them in the glossy white box and make sure they look pretty. I label the box. I seal the box with my little ‘KerryCan’ sticker. I move on to the next box. The boxes pile up in a most satisfying way.”
The chocolates and other candies may be found at Etsy, here.
Photo: KerryCan
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