What you need to participate

What you need to participate in Pralinarium

Basic equipment

 

 

Hello, everyone! I am glad to welcome you at my own course called Pralinarium. This course is devoted to chocolates, my favourite and original techniques and favourite designs. In this material I would give you a full list of equipment we will use on the course.

 

  1. Marble or granite slab for tempering chocolate (a free tutorial on tempering chocolate).
  2. Pyrometer (infrared thermometer), example.
  3. Scrapers for chocolate, confectionery or scrapers from a hardware store, stainless steel.
  4. Hand (immersion) blender (to blend ganaches and chocolate), no special requirements.
  5. Airbrush, nozzle diameter 0.35–0.5 mm, example.
  6. Air compressor, oil free, with a 3 L (or more) receiver tank. Small or desktop compressors are not suitable. We will talk about it in our first lesson.
  7. Hairdryer (an ordinary hairdryer or a heat gun).
  8. Synthetic paintbrushes.
  9. Polycarbonate moulds. We will use various moulds Cacao Barry, Chocolate World, Pavoni, Chocolat Form. Namely: Chocolate World (CW) 1558, CW 1754, CW 2295 (Spheres and Domes), CW 1673 (Quenelle, Frank Haasnoot), CW 5018 (a double magnetic mould), half spheres Ø 30 mm, Chocolat Form (CF) 0101, Pavoni (PC) 46 (Antonio Bachour). The most frequently used is a half sphere mould. Also we will use a silicone half sphere mould, D 26 mm.
  10. Microwave oven (any).
  11. Plastic bowls, glass (or metallic) bowls.
  12. Food colourings, dry (!), fat-soluble. I work with CondiPRO (Russia, Saint Petersburg). All basic colours. Gel colourings are not suitable.
  13. Chocolate. In this course we will work with different chocolate manufacturers. We mainly use dark chocolate. We use milk and white chocolate for ganaches. We will talk about chocolate in the first lesson.
  14. Cocoa butter. You can use any cocoa butter, but it shouldn’t be too aromatic.

 

What ingredients do I need for fillings?

Our course is mainly devoted to the design of pralines, work with chocolate and cocoa butter. Your task as a student of this course is to learn how to make chocolate designs I give you during the course. After that you will be able to experiment and use the techniques learned as you wish. The course doesn’t include a theory of ganaches. I don’t focus on chocolate fillings a lot. We shared our 10 favourite fillings, so you will be able to cook them in any order, use for any designs at your own pleasure. That’s why you don’t need an ingredient list for all the fillings.

Do you give advice regarding the choice of an airbrush, an air compressor, a hairdryer, chocolate, etc.

Yes, I do. A detailed description of each tool I use for work is provided in the first lesson of the course which is devoted to a review of the tools used. I will tell you what I am working with, what I worked with and will share my personal experience in the choice of an airbrush, an air compressor and other tools. I will tell you how to take care of polycarbonate moulds, etc.

That is basically everything we need for the course. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in comments.

 

Contents

31 thoughts on “What you need to participate”

  1. Hi,

    I’m interested in signing up for this course but I unfortunately don’t have the equipment with me right now. That is to say I will not be able to complete the homework assignments. Would you mind if I just signed up for just the theory and practice later on my own time.

    1. Hello, you may skip task submission. In this case you won’t receive a certificate on a course completion but you’ll be able to work with all the materials on your free time.

  2. Two questions about equipment: (1) Are the listed molds necessary for participation? I have two of them, including half-spheres, but by no means all (I do not have any silicone molds). (2) Are the dry food colorings required? I have many already-mixed bottles of various colored cocoa butter.

    And a more general question about the course: I am not clear about a start date. Are there specific dates when a student can begin the course? Or can one start any time, as long as the course is completed within the time frame specified?

    1. Hello,

      1) you may skip one or few of the designs but complete the course anyway. I understand that you can lack, for example, a magnetic mould (1754, quenelle, etc.) or a desire to make a particular type of chocolates with its help. But you will need to inform me about this before the end of the course. The techniques showed have to be done with the help of other moulds. Silicone mould you mentioned is needed to complete design #19. So in general my answer is no, you don’t need to have all the moulds. Main things can be done with half-spheres.

      2) in general – yes, because we will need to create specific colours (saturated, oversaturated, translucent). If you have a lot it’s good, but you will need dry colourants anyway.

      3) yes, and the next group starts on May 28. You can enroll before, in that case for you will be available ‘Equipment’ tutorial about all these things we need to work. But the full access will be from May 28 and from that date you should start to work with designs 1 by 1. To complete the course you are supposed to study two designs of chocolates starting from the first lesson on basics. I expect you to send me two test works every week (i.e. two designs). The deadline for every task is 24:00 Sunday (CET), i.e. the end of every week.

      So that’s it :). I’ll be glad to see you on my course ✊?

  3. Thanks for those replies. Do you know future dates for the course? The summer is the time when I would be able to set aside enough time from my chocolate-making business to take the course.

    1. Unfortunately no, it depends on number of online students and also on my schedule.

  4. One more question about material for the course: I have located a few U.S. sources for fat-soluble colorants. One has a selection of 7 colors (red, brown, orange, green, yellow, blue, black), each 3 grams. Would this be sufficient? Another source has 10 colors in jars of 10 or 50 grams.

    1. Hello, 3 grams – it seems to be too small, so the second option will be better. Also in general it’s good to try different brands from the beginning to find the best option.

  5. Sorry, but I have another question: I have been trying to locate the CW1558 and CW1754 molds (I see from the course photos that the cacao pod mold is used quite a lot). But the delivery time from Belgium to the U.S. is longer than ideal, and, in addition, Chocolate World shows the 1558 mold has a lead time for ordering it, so who knows how long it would take? Can you give me an approximate idea of when these two molds are used in the course? If I cannot obtain them in time, I will have to use something as close to them as I have. Thanks again for your help.

    1. Hello,

      1558 is the cacao pod mould (used in designs 07, 08/2. In general you can use any other oval shaped mould or even half spheres. Our main goal in these designs is to learn paint with gradients. 1754 is used in basic tutorial (02). It can be replaced with any other mould. I choose this one because the shape is difficult, so it’s more difficult to paint such mould with one colour as a background.

  6. I just watched the introductory video on equipment. The only item mentioned there that is not listed on this page is pearl dust. I have some “luster dust” in gold and a few colors, but is that the same thing as pearl dust? Do you have some specific recommendations as to what colors of dust might be useful in the course or does that matter?

    1. Hello, in general yes – it’s the same thing! We need gold. I will use pink, gray and some other pearl dust colours, but you can use simple colourings instead. As I say in video it’s hard to predict behavior of this dust, so I do not recommend to buy too much. If you have some gold, and others, it’s enough for the beginning!

  7. Hi. I have a couple of questions about the class
    1. I am on holidays for 2 weeks during the course. During those weeks, it won’t be possible for me to submit any work. Is it possible to do this ahead of time, or catch up when I return?

    2. Also, my air compressor is smaller than the size required. Will I need to upgrade to a larger one, or can I make it work?

    Thanks. (Your work is amazing so really want to sign up for the class!).

    1. Hello,

      1) yes, sure! It’s absolutely okay. Just notify me or Academy coordinator about your trip, before you go.
      2) of course you can try. For our purposes we need compressor ~20 L/min (it’s a minimum) and more. In your case you should be ready to upgrade when you start. There is some information about air compressor in introduction tutorial, you will get access to this information after you enroll.

      ✊?

  8. Hello again. I don’t know if you are familiar with the EZtemper machine (information found at http://www.eztemper.com). It partially melts plain cocoa butter to produce what is called “silk,” which can be used to temper chocolate (and cocoa butter) almost instantly. It is very much like Mycryo but is considerably easier to melt into the chocolate being tempered. This is what I ordinarily use to temper small amounts of chocolate. It is also handy for tempering colored cocoa butter that has been accidentally overheated in the melting process.

    1. I am used to using the EZtemper as well – much faster and accurate than traditional methods…assuming that won’t be an issue as long as we have perfectly tempered chocolate.

  9. Hi,

    I’m trying to get the equipment together to do the course but The links to the chocolate world moulds doesn’t work for me. Do you have another link?

    Thanks

    Duncan

    1. Hello, could you specify which links doesn’t work for you and which moulds you can’t see? I’ll try to help!
      In general: it’s okay if you don’t have all the moulds.

    1. Hello, no you can’t. Minimum diameter is 0.35 mm. Recommended range is from 0.35 to 0.5!

  11. Hello again,thanks for the last answear.I have a new question about Cocoa butter: It’s Ok if i buy 1,2 kg of Cocoa butter for the course,we will use a lot of Cocoa butter at every guide? If you can Tell me the best amount of Cocoa butter for entire course i want to start buy all things for the next sesion of course.Thanks

    1. Hello! We’ll use a lot of cocoa butter. I can’t say exactly what amount do we need, it would depend on your working progress. You can safely buy this amount: it’s not too much for sure.

    1. Also I am looking at the airbrushes as I would want to buy everything I need beforehand. What compressor do you use? As I can find one with a 0.25 litre receiver tank but not 3 litres- is 0.25 okay? If not which compressor? Also is Sparmax a good airbursh to use? Thanks

    2. I haven’t used these colorings, so can’t say anything for sure. But generally they are positioned as professional colorings, so you can freely try to work with them.

  13. Also I am looking at the airbrushes as I would want to buy everything I need beforehand. What compressor do you use? As I can find one with a 0.25 litre receiver tank but not 3 litres- is 0.25 okay? If not which compressor? Also is Sparmax a good airbursh to use? Thanks

    1. Hello,

      write an e-mail Dmitry to d@lililove.me and ask him to share a part about air compressor from full version of lesson about the equipment to understand what do we need better.

  14. Hello, please help me out to find and purchase the right compressor and spray gun so I can think and start over for the online course.

    1. Hi, write an e-mail Dmitry to d@lililove.me and ask him to share a part about air compressor from full version of lesson about the equipment to understand what do we need better. By default this material is available after you enroll for the course.

    1. Hello, no, there is no accredited certificate after the course.

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