60 replies to this topic

[Jim D.]

I am a beginner at molding chocolates (have made about 10 batches) and have some questions on technique. I realize that practice is required, and I think I am getting a bit better at the process, but am still having some issues and so seeking advice from those with more experience. I apologize for the length of the questions and will appreciate any help at this busy time of year for confectioners.

I find cleaning off the mold (both when initially filling the mold and especially when capping the chocolates) a problem. I have a long flat spatula as well as a broad scraper (a drywall tool actually), and with one of those I can usually get most of the chocolate off the top and sides of the mold, but find that as time passes, the chocolate thickens (a sign that it is tempered, I suppose) and sticks to the scraper, which therefore removes less chocolate, tending to make a mess of the mold that I had mostly cleaned off. So I placed a heavy pot nearby and scraped the blade on the edge of that, but still the chocolate built up too much on the blade. If I stop to put down the scraper and clean it off, the chocolate hardens too rapidly in the mold. So do others have any technique for cleaning off the blade quickly and thoroughly? I have watched several videos that show experts doing this, and they appear to have no trouble at all. I have added cocoa butter (around 7%) to the chocolate (Callebaut, which I know tends to be rather viscous), and that helps keep the chocolate liquid longer, but still have the problem. I should add that I have succeeded in making some nice and thin shells (the cocoa butter helped with that), but with the chocolate left on the top of the mold, I am getting "feet" on the pralines (which does not bother me too much, since I have a little knife that trims them off easily, but sometimes they make unmolding difficult).

Leveling the bottoms of the chocolates is the most difficult part of the job. As I try to scrape the extra chocolate off the mold, the blade drags chocolate with it, making the bottoms rough in texture. If I keep trying to smooth them, the situation gets worse since some of the filling can be dragged out of the cavities. I end up patching the places where the chocolate is gone, and that makes it worse. I left the chocolate on the mold in one case, and the bottoms were smoother, but unmolding was a nightmare. I am wondering if the chocolate is too thin and I need to wait a few minutes. The problem is that there isn't a lot of time to think and try different techniques as the couverture is hardening quickly.

Which brings me to the unmolding issue. I have read many threads on this forum and elsewhere about this problem and realize that it is quite common. When I don't do any decorating of the mold with cocoa butter, the pralines often release without a problem, but the batches where I used cocoa butter were a different story: some chocolates came out of the molds with no difficulty, others required much effort. All of them did finally come out without any damage, but what a job it was! I am fairly certain the chocolate is in temper. I leave the molds at room temp. for about 15 minutes, then put them in the refrigerator for 15-20 minutes. If they stick after repeated refrigeration, I put them in the freezer for a few minutes and that often helps. Eventually I get them all out, but it is a major issue.

The last problem has to do with decorating the molds. I like the simple look of lines of cocoa butter (or chocolate) crisscrossing the praline. I watched a video from a British source named Keylink (excellent series of videos on every aspect of chocolate making), and the instructor just waved a cone of cocoa butter over the mold and all went well. When I did it, the cocoa butter came out sporadically with some good lines, others interrupted by little blobs and spaces with no cocoa butter. Considering that the cavities have sides, I think making lines is a challenge, but it is one that others have conquered. Any ideas what I could be doing wrong?

As I said earlier, I will be very grateful for any suggestions.

Jim D.

[Kerry Beal]

Backing off plates - the chocolate should be as warm as possible for the working temperature. I give one or two quick scrapes with my ateco flat spatula, then one scrape with the drywall knife. I heat the spatula and drywall knife with my heat gun and clean off the excess with a paper towel when they need cleaning.

So warm chocolate and working fast will give you the smoothest, thinnest bottoms without any excess chocolate.

Leave the shells at room temperature until you see them starting to firm up around the edges - that is the time to pop them in the fridge. I usually leave then in for 10 to 15 minutes - often I will take them out and see if I can see some indication that the chocolate is starting to separate from the mold before I take them out. Then I fill, back off and put them back into the fridge when I see the chocolate on the back starting to firm up. I'll leave the in until I see the shells have clearly separated. If I'm having trouble - 3 minutes max in the freezer.

Making lines is indeed difficult in some molds because of the shape.

What temperature is the cocoa butter when you are drizzling it in? It needs to be in temper if you are using it for lines. You can either temper on a marble slab or half melt the bottle so that it is not too warm.

[pastrygirl]

Lacking a heat gun, I scrape the build-up off my scraper between every few molds. If you try to keep the blade vertical (or perpendicular to the mold) that helps too, because then you are only scraping the edge against the mold, and not dragging all the excess built-up chocolate through your bottoms.

[Jim D.]

Leave the shells at room temperature until you see them starting to firm up around the edges - that is the time to pop them in the fridge. I usually leave then in for 10 to 15 minutes - often I will take them out and see if I can see some indication that the chocolate is starting to separate from the mold before I take them out. Then I fill, back off and put them back into the fridge when I see the chocolate on the back starting to firm up. I'll leave the in until I see the shells have clearly separated. If I'm having trouble - 3 minutes max in the freezer.
*****
What temperature is the cocoa butter when you are drizzling it in? It needs to be in temper if you are using it for lines. You can either temper on a marble slab or half melt the bottle so that it is not too warm.

Thanks for those tips. I knew you would have some good ideas. Responses to the two paragraphs above:

So you put the molds with the choc. shells in the refrigerator before you fill them? I had thought that shells and filling were supposed to be at room temp. Greweling even calls for warming the shells a bit before filling them--so that the bottoms will stick to the sides, he says.

For the cocoa butter: Using the microwave I partially melted the CB in the plastic bottle, then shook it (as many people advise), then poured out the melted portion into a small plastic cup, which I use to store it. When I am ready to use it, I melt the CB gently over warm water and use it to decorate. I think it is still in temper as it begins to harden quite soon. I got a heating pad to keep it fluid, and I am sure the heating pad is not warm enough to take the CB out of temper (it's barely warm enough to keep it fluid).

After last night's bad experience with unmolding, I am now fairly sure that the CB decoration is not the issue since I had the worst experience yet with unmolding undecorated chocolates. Again, they all eventually came out, but I think it's fair to say I have now given polycarbonate molds the ultimate test of sturdiness. And yes, I did clean the molds and polish them with a cotton cloth before I began. I think next I am going to try using a little CB to polish them before starting.

I must say this process is very discouraging. There are so many variables and a lot of guesswork involved.

Jim

[Jim D.]

Lacking a heat gun, I scrape the build-up off my scraper between every few molds. If you try to keep the blade vertical (or perpendicular to the mold) that helps too, because then you are only scraping the edge against the mold, and not dragging all the excess built-up chocolate through your bottoms.

Thanks for the perpendicular suggestion. I think that may help. Could you estimate how clean your molds are when you finish scraping? I've seen videos where the molds are almost as clean as they were before use (as in: http://www.youtube.c...feature=related), others where there is some thin covering of chocolate.

[Kerry Beal]

Leave the shells at room temperature until you see them starting to firm up around the edges - that is the time to pop them in the fridge. I usually leave then in for 10 to 15 minutes - often I will take them out and see if I can see some indication that the chocolate is starting to separate from the mold before I take them out. Then I fill, back off and put them back into the fridge when I see the chocolate on the back starting to firm up. I'll leave the in until I see the shells have clearly separated. If I'm having trouble - 3 minutes max in the freezer.
*****
What temperature is the cocoa butter when you are drizzling it in? It needs to be in temper if you are using it for lines. You can either temper on a marble slab or half melt the bottle so that it is not too warm.

Thanks for those tips. I knew you would have some good ideas. Responses to the two paragraphs above:

So you put the molds with the choc. shells in the refrigerator before you fill them? I had thought that shells and filling were supposed to be at room temp. Greweling even calls for warming the shells a bit before filling them--so that the bottoms will stick to the sides, he says.

For the cocoa butter: Using the microwave I partially melted the CB in the plastic bottle, then shook it (as many people advise), then poured out the melted portion into a small plastic cup, which I use to store it. When I am ready to use it, I melt the CB gently over warm water and use it to decorate. I think it is still in temper as it begins to harden quite soon. I got a heating pad to keep it fluid, and I am sure the heating pad is not warm enough to take the CB out of temper (it's barely warm enough to keep it fluid).

After last night's bad experience with unmolding, I am now fairly sure that the CB decoration is not the issue since I had the worst experience yet with unmolding undecorated chocolates. Again, they all eventually came out, but I think it's fair to say I have now given polycarbonate molds the ultimate test of sturdiness. And yes, I did clean the molds and polish them with a cotton cloth before I began. I think next I am going to try using a little CB to polish them before starting.

I must say this process is very discouraging. There are so many variables and a lot of guesswork involved.

Jim

I do put them in the fridge before I fill them. They are back to room temperature before I fill them usually. I have not found it necessary to heat the edges before putting on the backs.

I usually scrape with my spatula and scrapers angled towards me at about 45 degrees. If you angle them forward you over fill, perpendicular fairly flat, 45 degrees back then a bit more chocolate gets scraped out.

Frustration is all part of the process - remember it's only chocolate! People will still eat it.

[curls]

Theses videos may be of help, Chef Derrick Tu Tan Pho giving a chocolate molding demo and a chocolate dipping demo. We were lucky enough to learn from him at our eGullet 2011 Chocolate Workshop at Niagara-On-The-Lake.
http://www.derrickph...io/vstc3=videos

If your going to fill larger molds (bunnies, santas, etc.) here is a demo by Chef Peter Greweling.
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=6Uqe_b9NbFY

(edited to correct link)

Edited by curls, 08 December 2012 - 09:00 AM.

[keychris]

It really is all about practice and technique!

I'll address your points slightly randomly, as that's how my brain works ;)

Cocoa butter:
Tempering cocoa butter is so ridiculously easy. I usually work with colours in 50-75g batches. I put the cocoa butter in a small (1 cup) plastic measuring cup and melt it to 45C (I have a dehydrator, so I just put it in there the night before I plan to work). Then take it out and stir it until it reaches 31-32C and it's tempered and ready to use. This will only take 5 minutes or so as the volume you're using is so small. Downside is, you have to work fast once it's ready, unless you have it kept warm. When you're finished, either leave it in the container to solidify, or pour it out in a thin layer over some clingwrap or nonstick baking paper, then store in ziplock bags (I do the latter). A side point: be so careful heating your cocoa butter in the microwave, it is incredibly easy to overheat and cause it to burn.

Thickening chocolate:
Chocolate will thicken naturally, as you've mentioned, even when held at the working temperature. This thickening is a multiplication of the beta crystals that are the "good" crystals that cause your chocolate to contract away from the mold. By adding pure cocoa butter, you do increase the fluidity however, you do increase the number of beta crystals that will end up being formed too! You can regularly zap it with a heat gun or hair drier, just a few seconds, to remelt the crystals that are forming at the cooler surface of the chocolate. If you're getting your chocolate thickening too much between adding it to the mold and scraping it clean, you've got far too many beta crystals in there - it's overcrystallised. You only need 1-2% of the liquid chocolate to be in the beta crystal state at working temperature for the chocolate to be "in temper". So it's easy to overcrystallise, too! Don't stress out about watching that thermometer though - heat the chocolate for a few seconds with a heat gun / hair drier, take a test. Rely on the test, not the thermometer - in the more advanced classes I've attended, the teacher doesn't allow the students to use a thermometer, it's all done by touch and test. Practice makes perfect!

Scraping:
Work one mold at a time. Don't fill 6 molds and scrape them after the sixth. Of course the chocolate will be thickening, if you do that (and I realise you never said you DID do that ;)). Always work clean - if you've got chocolate on your scraper, use a spatula or another scraper to clean it off. I hold the mold over the bowl, scrape the mold, wipe the scraper over the side of the bowl to get the bulk of the chocolate back into the bowl, then rescrape the top and then the sides, cleaning the scraper back into the bowl after every stroke.
Scraping the cooling chocolate back into your bowl does cool your bowl chocolate down and thicken it, as you're adding more beta crystals back into the bowl. So after each mold, you might need to just wave the heat gun over the bowl for a few seconds, whilst stirring. If you don't want to scrape back into your working chocolate, scrape into a second bowl, or even on the side of the bench, if it's clean ;)

Demolding:
Sometimes the darned things just stick. You have a whole mold except two come out easily. Sounds like you're on top of this, but just to say it for the sake of saying it - make sure chocolate is in temper :) If the molds are quite cool before you add the chocolate - warm them up with the heat gun, not so they're hot, just so they're not cold. Otherwise the chocolate that hits the mold first will likely stick to it and you'll have a hard time getting them out, even if the chocolate was in temper!

I'll just add - it's *really* hard to do things without the right equipment - I spent 5 months after my first class without a melt tank, just doing it all on the bench and with the microwave, and keeping chocolate in temper without something to hold it at the working temperature is practically impossible. So if you don't have a melt tank (if you're starting out, I can understand why you wouldn't as they are damned expensive, here in Australia at least), don't get discouraged, you just have to work fast and in small batches! I literally would only get 2 or 3 molds done before the chocolate had cooled too far for even the hair drier to help!

HTH
Chris

[DianaM]

Hi Jim D.,

All your questions have been very thoroughly addressed above by people much more skilled than me, but I just had one nagging question in reference to your bonbons-stuck-in-the-moulds issue. Do you wash your moulds between moulding sessions? I am asking because I had some issues with bonbons sticking when my moulds were brand new, but in time, they got "primed" meaning that now they have a very thin cocoa butter residue that makes unmoulding much easier. When I get stuff stuck in the moulds, and I have to wash them, I again get some sticking.

This is a bit of a controversy, as some people wash their moulds all the time, and still have no sticking issues, but for myself, I found that just cleaning moulds with a heat gun works best. Derrick Pho (Curls links to his video above) said to never wash moulds. Once I started following his advice, I no longer had that issue.

[pastrygirl]

Lacking a heat gun, I scrape the build-up off my scraper between every few molds. If you try to keep the blade vertical (or perpendicular to the mold) that helps too, because then you are only scraping the edge against the mold, and not dragging all the excess built-up chocolate through your bottoms.

Thanks for the perpendicular suggestion. I think that may help. Could you estimate how clean your molds are when you finish scraping? I've seen videos where the molds are almost as clean as they were before use, others where there is some thin covering of chocolate.

Pretty clean? I try to scrape as well as possible to get nice sharp bottom edges, except sometimes when I overfill the molds and try to compensate for extra-thin bottoms by not scraping very well.

I don't generally refrigerate molds unless the kitchen is particularly warm, I'm in a big hurry, or doing thicker bars (really fun when all 3 conditions apply ). I do wash my molds because, I don't know, I'm an OCD Virgo and it just seems wrong not to? I keep trying to tell myself I don't need to, but I won't listen....maybe someday!

Kerry is right, it's just chocolate. My co-workers have never failed to make a plate of rejects disappear in lightening time, you have to scorch it or do something really unfortunate before most people will turn their nose up at chocolate, and only French guys and chocolatiers look at the bottoms. If you have a lot of "seconds", often you can melt the whole things down with a little extra liquid and recycle them as filling for the next batch, so all is not lost. Chocolate can be extremely frustrating, but when you get the batches with the showroom finish it is so rewarding. I have days when I feel like a pro and days when I feel like a beginner. Hang in there!

[Jim D.]

Hi Jim D.,

All your questions have been very thoroughly addressed above by people much more skilled than me, but I just had one nagging question in reference to your bonbons-stuck-in-the-moulds issue. Do you wash your moulds between moulding sessions? I am asking because I had some issues with bonbons sticking when my moulds were brand new, but in time, they got "primed" meaning that now they have a very thin cocoa butter residue that makes unmoulding much easier. When I get stuff stuck in the moulds, and I have to wash them, I again get some sticking.

This is a bit of a controversy, as some people wash their moulds all the time, and still have no sticking issues, but for myself, I found that just cleaning moulds with a heat gun works best. Derrick Pho (Curls links to his video above) said to never wash moulds. Once I started following his advice, I no longer had that issue.

Yes, I have read about that argument over whether or not to wash. I must confess that I can't yet clean enough of the chocolate off (in the process of making the chocolates) and must wash them. I use hot water, usually no soap. I did plan to try a version of what you describe, however, the next time I do some work, namely, "greasing" the molds with a little melted cocoa butter. A number of people recommend this. Just to make the whole situation more ridiculous: Today I unmolded some plain chocolates (no decoration, but a fairly intricate mold), and they came out without a hitch. As far as I know, I did nothing different from yesterday, when a batch were the most difficult I have ever unmolded. Go figure! Thanks for your suggestions.

[Jim D.]

It really is all about practice and technique!

I'll address your points slightly randomly, as that's how my brain works ;)

Chris,
Thanks for all your suggestions. I appreciated the insight that adding cocoa butter might be causing my chocolate to thicken sooner. I just watched the video of Greweling making rabbits. Unless it was a video timing trick, he seems to be using the same bowl of quite fluid chocolate the whole time. Mine starts thickening as soon as it hits the mold, sticking to the scraper immediately. Maybe I should return to using the Callebaut without adding cocoa butter to see what happens. But I am getting very nice and thin shells at present.

I do work on one mold at a time, but your idea about heating the molds is also worth trying. Sometimes my chocolate acts as if you had dropped a frozen truffle center into it (which I actually did, with the result being probably the thickest truffle coating the world has ever seen).

Jim

[Jim D.]

Pastrygirl,
Thanks for the encouragement. Since I promised my sister three different chocolates for her party next week, I have no choice but to press on. And if there is an undertaking that brings out one's OCD tendencies more than chocolatiering, I don't want to know what it is. I guess what bothers me the most is that when something unusual happens with chocolate, you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there is some reason for it, but there are so many variables and so many unknowns that it is sometimes impossible to figure it out. I have done a lot of computer programming, and in that field, unusual things go wrong, but you can be confident that if you work hard enough, you will figure it out. With chocolate, maybe yes, maybe no.

Jim

[Kerry Beal]

Nothing makes your chocolate making skill go south faster than a deadline!

[Beth Wilson]

Nothing makes your chocolate making skill go south faster than a deadline!

You can say that again! I also find it happens when you have an audience!

[pastrygirl]

Yeah, the chocolate is in control, there is no pretending otherwise. I think the immediate thickening must be due to over-crystallization. I get better results when my seed is mostly melted at 95, much more frustrating results when I still have significant unmelted seed at 92 and am trying frantically to melt it out and stirring a lot, inducing even more crystallization. Nothing like tempering several pounds of chocolate to do big production, filling 3 molds, then having to re-temper. A drafty room doesn't seem to help either.

[keychris]

I'm definitely with pastrygirl on this one - sounds like overcrystallization. How much seed are you adding to your 45C chocolate? (I assume you're not tabling ;))

Can you describe your tempering technique? If you're seeding, there's absolutely no need to do the 45-27-32 temperature profile, simply add the seed and stir until it reaches working temp (I know a lot of people on here don't do the stirring, but it works for me, and I am quite OCD about things when they work :P)

cheers
Chris

[Jim D.]

I'm definitely with pastrygirl on this one - sounds like overcrystallization. How much seed are you adding to your 45C chocolate? (I assume you're not tabling ;))

Can you describe your tempering technique? If you're seeding, there's absolutely no need to do the 45-27-32 temperature profile, simply add the seed and stir until it reaches working temp (I know a lot of people on here don't do the stirring, but it works for me, and I am quite OCD about things when they work :P)

cheers
Chris

Most of the time I am using a Chocovison machine for tempering. I followed Peter Greweling's suggestion for adding cocoa butter to thin out chocolate that is too viscous--so I don't think the mere addition of cocoa butter should make the choc. tend toward overcrystallization. The machine calls for putting in the seed choc. after all the choc. has melted; it lowers the temp. to 90 degrees F., then tells you to take out the seed, then continues to lower the temp depending on the type of choc. I would estimate that only a few ounces of seed melt. The machine allows for the possibility of raising the final working temp of the choc., and I plan to try getting dark choc. up to 90 degrees F. (Callebaut recommends higher working temps on the extra bittersweet package). Yesterday I tempered some dark choc. by hand, using the partial melting procedure that Greweling also mentions--removing the choc. from over the hot water before all was melted, then stirring to melt the rest. I did, however, find one glitch in tempering choc. by hand: by the time you test the choc. for tempering, its temp has lowered. In any case, that batch of choc. was like the machine-tempered choc. The viscosity is fine when I am spreading it on the mold; it's just that it coats the scraper rather rapidly and becomes firm so that it's practically impossible to clean off as quickly as one has to operate. I don't know what is causing this problem, though I agree it sounds like overcrystallization. It's certainly not that it is sitting too long in the machine because I make one mold at a time, and as soon as the choc. is ready, I pour it into the mold. As a temporary solution to the utensil mess, I am going to have several scrapers ready. And Pastrygirl's suggestion that the scraper be positioned perpendicular to the mold (although not what most people say) seemed to help. Also helpful was the idea I found somewhere of scraping half of the mold, then reversing it and scraping the other half; in that way you don't drag the choc. across so many cavities.

[Kerry Beal]

After it's been in temper for a while - dark chocolate can go as high as 34.5º C (94 in american).

[Chocolot]

How cold is your room?

[Jim D.]

How cold is your room?

It's about 70 degrees F.

[Chocolot]

How long does it take your test strip to set up? When I bottom mine, I like to have my chocolate a bit warmer than usual. If your molds are not "clean" when you bottom them, they will bump and drag all over the place. I like my molds to be very clean and free of chocolate when I go to close. I put a lot of chocolate on the tray, slant it over the bowl, and do as Derrick does in the video--slide off half and then drag the top half over the same shells. I then clean off the sides of the molds. If they look a little rough, I tap them on the counter to level the chocolate. I use two scrapers, cleaning one with the other constantly.
As has been said previously, chocolate is always in charge. It lets you have success sometimes, but not always. I guess that is what keeps us interested. If it was easy, there is no challenge and anyone can do it:-)

[Jim D.]

How long does it take your test strip to set up? When I bottom mine, I like to have my chocolate a bit warmer than usual. If your molds are not "clean" when you bottom them, they will bump and drag all over the place. I like my molds to be very clean and free of chocolate when I go to close. I put a lot of chocolate on the tray, slant it over the bowl, and do as Derrick does in the video--slide off half and then drag the top half over the same shells. I then clean off the sides of the molds. If they look a little rough, I tap them on the counter to level the chocolate. I use two scrapers, cleaning one with the other constantly.
As has been said previously, chocolate is always in charge. It lets you have success sometimes, but not always. I guess that is what keeps us interested. If it was easy, there is no challenge and anyone can do it:-)

With dark choc., the test firms up in ca. 2 minutes (starts to look "right" in about a minute, getting that matte look as opposed to untempered, which stays shiny and liquid); with milk, it takes several minutes, maybe as much as 4-5. In your procedure, about how long does it take before your choc. gets too thick to work with? I realize that you are undoubtedly much quicker than I am. I have to reach a balance between continuing to clean off the mold on one hand and, on the other hand, having the choc. get thick enough to become a hindrance to further cleaning (in other words, it makes more of a mess than is worth the effort).

Jim

[Chocolot]

I'm fortunate to have tempering melters to work with. I up the temp on the tank, and just scrape back into the pot. I can do it all day. I don't see why it is such a problem to get it scraped off. It should only take a few seconds, certainly not enough time to cause problems. You should plan on coming to the gathering in Niagara on the Lake in April:-)

[Jim D.]

I'm fortunate to have tempering melters to work with. I up the temp on the tank, and just scrape back into the pot. I can do it all day. I don't see why it is such a problem to get it scraped off. It should only take a few seconds, certainly not enough time to cause problems. You should plan on coming to the gathering in Niagara on the Lake in April:-)

I guess I don't yet have your skill (or your equipment). The problem occurs more in the second scraping--that is, after the mold is filled, tapped, turned upside down, emptied, then turned right side up. By then the chocolate has begun to harden and the mess tends to occur. That procedure certainly takes more than a few seconds.

[Kerry Beal]

I tap and scrape with my straight spatula while the mold is still upside down over the bowl. Then turn it back over and give it the final scrape with the drywall knife.

[Chocolot]

OK, I thought your problem was more when you were closing. I do like Kerry, fill, rattle on the counter, dump and tap. Scrap while still inverted. Place on counter and scrape the top again and clean sides. It truly takes less than a minute. I clean off spatula with other spatula between each mold.

[ElainaA]

Something I learned from Notter's Art of the Chocolatier and have found very helpful is to use a small triangular spatula to clean around the edges of the cavities. I got mine at J.B Prince.

[Jim D.]

Something I learned from Notter's Art of the Chocolatier and have found very helpful is to use a small triangular spatula to clean around the edges of the cavities. I got mine at J.B Prince.

Thanks for that tip. That area is a real problem for me.

[Jim D.]

OK, I thought your problem was more when you were closing. I do like Kerry, fill, rattle on the counter, dump and tap. Scrap while still inverted. Place on counter and scrape the top again and clean sides. It truly takes less than a minute. I clean off spatula with other spatula between each mold.

You are right that closing is a larger problem for me. Today I did some more work, and the filling of molds is going better. I tempered by hand and got the temp higher than in the past, so that helped. Closing is still an issue--rough edges, not always a pretty sight on the bottom of the chocolate. One interesting insight, however: I did the Notter mint praline with a chocolate "cracker" on the bottom. It's a fantastic recipe, but it's quite a production, especially since the crackers have to be just the right size to fit in the mold. Having that cracker on the bottom made closing even worse than usual since the cavities were probably more full than they should have been. But after the scraper took too much chocolate off the bottoms and left holes, I added another layer to patch what I had done (my language was not very polite at that point), then gave up, and put the mold in the refrigerator. Twenty minutes later, most of the chocolates popped out of the mold without any effort (the rest came out with a few bangs). So having extra chocolate on the bottom doesn't keep the pralines from unmolding. It does make a terrible mess.