One last thought on percentages of flavoring in the mix. I have found that TFA is one of the weaker food flavorings out there, of the half dozen or so brands that I've used, with perhaps LorAnn as the strongest. When I suggest using flavors of 20 - 30%, I'm talking about TFA flavorings, and not other brands which some can be overwhelming at 2% flavoring. Of course the weaker flavorings allow us to mix with greater "forgiveness" and far less "micro management," if you know what I mean. Also, if you're making a complex mix of say six/seven or more flavors, weaker is easier to work with than stronger, and, for me, at least, I can get to a final mix, or get on the right track much quicker as each flavoring is far less dominant. Also, less dominant flavorings tend to play nice with one another, again providing greater ease in mixing with complex mixes.
For example, let's say we want to make a complex fruit Danish recipe, perhaps something like cherry or lemon frosted Danish. I start by thinking about the individual flavorings that I might want to use to achieve the taste and flavorings I'm after. So, I might write down:
Lemon/cherry
Vanilla
Cream
Waffle (Belgian)
Butter
Brown sugar
Sweetener
Cream cheese icing
Using eight flavorings and trying to keep the mix under say 20% of flavoring is going to be tough, and will not lend itself easily to the 100DT method, unless we go to something like 30%. A recipe like this one may end up looking like this:
Lemon - 12% (lemon is not very strong and can be easily dominated)
Vanilla Custard - 4% (could use many different vanillas here)
Sweet Cream - 2% (Could use many different creams here)
Belgian Waffle - 2% (other choices are pie crust, graham cracker, etc.)
Butter - 2% (Can always taste a hint of butter in a Danish)
Brown Sugar - 3% (for flavoring)
Sweetener - 3% (for sweetness)
Cream Cheese Icing - 1 - 2% (frost to taste - LorAnn's)
I would have a hard time getting this complex flavoring into a 15 - 20% mix as I prefer the 100DT, and not the 1000DT!
You can actually make this recipe on paper, as we've done, and make many different variations on paper, as well. We have choices for vanillas, creams, sweeteners, frosted or not, the doughy flavoring, the fruit, etc. This is an example of a complex mix where it is possible to taste at least six of the flavorings distinctly, which is magical in a juice. After blending and sitting only 24 hours, you've got something here that 's going to be tasty, for sure, even if it's not your cup of tea. You would have enormous difficulty trying to make this recipe with LorAnn's as it's very hard to keep their flavorings in their "lanes" so to speak. You can't have a solid complex blend when five flavors are all trying to dominate one another. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying it's a lot easier with less powerful flavorings, like TFA, using HFM.
Could I cut each ingredient in half? Sure, but then you have to steep, and TFA lemon doesn't steep well, and you can't use citric acid here, as you need the weaker flavors to steep and break through. So, it's much easier to do a mix like this one with TFA flavorings and HFM. Hope that make some sense.
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