David J.

Thanks for all the party type suggestions but I'm going to assume that it is purely a "vanilla" chocolate lesson. What I'm after are suggestions on what types of items you think would be good to demonstrate and what you think a novice might be capable of absorbing and reproducing on their own. Are there any normal stumbling blocks people have? Are there any steps I should take to ensure all goes well (like having aprons for everyone dipping)? How much should I attempt to put into the lesson? That sort of thing.

Ok, I just dug up my original thread on this mold: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=96102&hl= Check it out midway down for a discussion on filling and capping trays for premade shells.

How viscous was the chocolate when you put it in the mold? Did you heat the mold at all before filling it? (some folks hit it with a short blast of hot air to improve the shine) Did you let it sit at all before you drained it or did you just slap the top on and flip it over to drain right away? Did you slap it around to get the excess chocolate out? Did you use a vibrating table to do it? Were you filling the shells with ganache before pulling them from the mold? If so, how did you ensure that holes were open enough and the ganache didn't overflow up the stem of the hole? I have been demolding empty spheres in all my tests. If the mold is new you will probably see improved results as it seasons with cocoa butter. You might also want to refrigerate the mold for a time to ensure the chocolate shrinks sufficiently away from the mold.

You will want to use a soft spatula if you are going to pour chocolate over the top of the bottom half and scrape. I would be interested in the type of chocolate and temperature you are pouring at to get some idea of the viscosity. I'd like to record the starting parameters to determine the best settings for the variables to arrive at thin but strong shells. How long you let it set before pouring out and the room temperature are important variables too.

Mark, is this the mold you have? I haven't mastered it yet, but I have been experimenting and have had some success. I have filled the mold with a pastry bag, though it takes long enough to do that the first cavity filled has about a minute more to set than the last. I have thought about filling the bottom half (without the holes) like a normal mold, scrape and put on the top. The problem with that is the surface is not smooth like a normal mold. Each cavity has a slightly raised ridge around it which catches any stiff scraper. The time delay can make a big difference in wall thickness from the first cavity to the last depending on the viscosity of the chocolate. An alternative is to measure a small amount of chocolate into each cavity, slap on the top, put a cover over all the holes and spin the mold as you would one with no holes. Then while the chocolate is still a little fluid remove the cover put over a vibrating table and drain. That has the advantage of not having enough chocolate to create walls that are too thick, but you have to time it so you get hole cleared. I have used a drill bit to carefully open the holes in each cavity while the chocolate is just setting, but it's a bit messy. I have thought of trying to build a multi-funnel top for the mold that would let me pour chocolate in quickly, probably with the mold on top of a vibrating table, but I haven't figured out how to do it easily yet. Perhaps soldering a bunch of brass tubing onto a brass sheet with holes drilled for the tubes. It's all a bit much work for me right now and I'm behind in my guitar cutter project so that comes first. Something else you will notice is that surface tension on the chocolate will prevent it from just pouring nicely out of the holes. I found that I have to hold the mold inverted against a tray on top of a vibrating table to dislodge the exess chocolate. I need more experiments to determine the proper viscosity to use and how long to let it sit in the mold. If it's too thin, the spheres will break in half when you open the mold. If they are too thick they aren't usable and they may not even drain at all. My hope was to easily produce a large number of spheres so I could fill them with ganache for round truffles without having to roll messy balls of ganache. So far what I've used my few good results for are liquid filled liqour centers that don't have enough sugar to form a shell. I've used small disks with tempered chocolate as glue to seal them, then dipped the whole thing so it looks clean. They were a real hit.

My main purpose right now is to learn from this and see if it's fixable. Last night I remelted it, seeded with chunks left over from the Rev2 batch that appeared to be well tempered, and took several samples. My first sample was definately off temper with a spotted surface, so I added more seed and brought the temperature down further. I played with it from there, adding more chuncks and raising the temperature with a heat gun when they didn't want to melt out. It wanted to be somewhere around 92F to be the proper viscosity. Subsequent samples did not appear to be great temper as they did not have a perfect snap. However leaving them overnight fixed that. Even the first sample with the poor surface had a pretty good snap to it. I'm not sure why the overnight wait worked its wonder as I had the samples in the freezer for a few minutes for a complete chill (after a few minutes at 68F to start the setting) and then took them out for an hour before I tested them last night (to be sure they snapped at room temp). This morning the surface of the chocolate read 87.5F by the infrared thermometer, but it was an inch thick of stiff cap over something like a 1/4" of fluid chocolate on the bottom. It really wants to set up. I cranked up the thermostat a touch so it may melt out a bit more for tonight when I have more to dip. So it appears that I have a batch that loves to set up at what should be a working temperature that can never the less be tempered if I work it right and leave the result overnight.

I've been approached to give a little chocolate teaching party for several women as part of a bachelorette crawl and I was wondering how other people would structure something like this. Kerry mentioned just such an evening in her wine with chocolates thread but I didn't want to hijack it so I'm posting this as a seperate thead. The gathering wouldn't be until some time in July and I don't have specifics about how much time they would want to spend yet, but I figured that this would be a good time to start planning. I was told that the group would come over to our house for the demo/lesson so I won't have to lug my equipment anywhere which makes it much easier. My thought was to use only equipment that they would likely have at home, which would mean teaching microwave tempering. On the other hand I could also have a melter full of chocolate tempered and ready to go just to make it go smoothly. I figured the best way to run it would be along the lines of a cooking show where I would have someone make a ganache, then stick it in the fridge and pull out a pre-set ganache and have them scoop and roll. Then set those aside and pull out a tray of dried ganache centers for dipping. I could also show molding as a technique even if they wouldn't likely have the nice polycarbonate molds. What would you do? Any suggestions to make it fun and run smoothly?

I've never used the marble method before but I might give that a shot. I've used seed, and the close cousin of direct melting leaving enough solid as seed. I'm hesitant to keep adding fresh seed chocolate if there is something contaminating it. If I can manage to manualy temper it with the marble method that will prove the chocolate is good and give me more experience as well. What I found frustrating was that the automatic Rev2 which always worked before was having trouble with this batch. If that doesn't work I'm wondering if there is a reason that is also preventing the seed method from working well. Note that while it is getting quite thick, it is also not a great temper. JPW did tell us in class that you may need to hit it with a hot air gun to keep the crystalization in check and I know I wasn't doing that while I was using the Rev2. Perhaps all the extra cocoa butter I added to thin it out was causing the fast crystalization. Has anyone else added cocoa butter to thin a batch before? Does it have any unintended side effects like this?

I've got a batch of Callebaut Dark chocolate that I've been having a great deal of trouble with. I started out pouring brand new callets into a Mol D'art melter several weeks ago and I left it on (lid closed) for three days as I couldn't get enough time to finish production in one sitting. It worked OK at first, though I noticed that the chocolate was pretty thick at working temperature by the end (after hitting it with hot air to melt out some crystals and thin it). I had read a post saying that a chef in one restaurant left his on 27x7 and this was in my basement with a relative humidity of 20-30% so I didn't think much of it. Since then I've had nothing but trouble with it. I managed to get a halfway decent temper in part of it by running small batches from the melter through my Rev2, though there was too much to process it all at that time. Now I'm having a terrible time getting a good temper even when running it through the Rev2 using the "Poor seed" cycle (though I'm using brand new callets for seed). I've been adding quite a bit of cocoa butter to thin it out. I added a bunch to the batch in the melter and more to the latest batch I ran though the Rev2 to get a decent dip. Yet when I finished last night the batch in the melter was at 90F (as measured by my infrared themometer after a good stir) and it was extremely thick once more. Is there anything that likely happened to the chocolate to make it so troublesome? Or have I lost my knack and the Rev2 lost its ability as well? I figure that I'll have to set all this aside for ganache, but it's quite a bit and I don't want to have to do it again so I'd like to know where I went wrong.

I just found a 175W clear infared bulb on eBay for $5 which you could probably just put on a gooseneck lamp. I'll bet you could construct a sugar box of plexiglass and one of these lamps for less than $30. Is there anything special to look for in a cream siphon?

OK Kerry and others who already have this book, you need to tell the rest of us what equipment we need to buy to use it! I see pictures of foamed chocolate and no specifics on the device. Now we need a sugar lamp too? We need to know this so we won't fall hopelessly behind in this thread by the time our copies of the book arrive!

So where do I find an explanation of this technique? I don't have cable and haven't seen the show.

So you've made pop-rock bon-bons or truffles? What flavors have you used? How much smashed candies do you add per batch (grams/1000g's of ganache)?

I have to add that I believe that one can get all the benefits of a formal class right here. Between the official courses like Kerry's "Confections 101" to the short demonstrations and browsing others questions I have learned a great deal. That includes techniques, recipies, and sources for equipment and ingredients. There is a real wealth of knowledge here. Now to tap that wealth: How much additional butter would you add to the above recipie if you were to remove all of the cream? I have a bag of pastry rocks and I'm looking to see if I can make a "Snap'n Raspberry" truffle. The puree and liquer might still disolve the sugar rocks, but I know that I have to get rid of all the cream if it's going to have a chance of working.

I made my first marshmallows last night as well since I do chocolates the rest of the year and this is unexpected. I recieved this note back from a co-worker: "Thank you for the strawberry marshmallow. It was marvelous! I have never had a marshmallow that didn't come from a colorful plastic bag in the grocery store and didn't realize what I was missing!!" Just a little more encouragement for anyone who hasn't broken down to join the cult of the marshmallow yet...

Since I just made the dice molds I thought that I would finish up a project for Valentines Day that I had originally started back for my wedding reception. Back then I didn't have silicone and was trying to make a mold via vacu-forming but ran out of time as the rest of the wedding planning took over. I was planning on a special chocolate bar for all the guests, and I started with Sculpey clay. I'm no artist, so I used a cookie cutter for the base and a push mold to create the letters. This is the clay positive. I rolled a sheet of clay out between two bars and cut the main shape with the cookie cutter, then applied the letters and then baked the whole thing in the oven. Then I mixed some Playdough type silicone material, smeared some into the details, then pressed the rest over the clay form. Let it set, then peel out the original and you have the mold! Fill it. (OK, at this point I realized that I should probably have added a plaster backing for stiffness, but I was out of time. It made getting a clean back more difficult.) Still, it produced a passable result. (Before anyone chimes in, I know that I got the & symbol backwards. My wife happily pointed that out to me :-) This just shows that it doesn't take much skill or effort to produce a specialty mold for a small run. You will find quite a variety of push molds at your local craft store, and I know some of you are much better sculpters than I am. So consider it next time you have a wedding reception or other special party you are making favors for.

I have a jar from an online supplier that has "Glucose" on the big label and a smaller label with "Corn Syrup" on the back. Would this just be corn syrup with the water taken out? Since it's labeled both ways it's a touch confusing. I used it the marshmallow recipie which called for corn syrup and now I'm wondering if I should have used a little less due to water being an expected component of normal corn syrup.

Tammy, It would be a simple matter of fastening several dice on a flat surface and forming a wall around them. I used a dab of modeling clay to do that for my single mold. The amount of mold material you will require depends upon how many dice you want to cast at once. The silicone isn't cheap so you might want to start with a plaster mold cavity and pour a thinner layer of silicone around the dice if you are going to make a large mold.

Ok, the experiment is complete: The dice to be duplicated The food safe silicone mold liquid. You weigh out equal portions of the two parts and mix it up in a disposable cup. Then you place the item to be duplicated in a makeshift mold box and pour it in. Rip the mold box off the silicone once it sets and you have your test molds. Note the pretty extreme protrusions for the die pips on the six-sided mold. Fortunately the finished mold is pretty flexible and will release without ripping. Then pour chocolate into the mold, let it set, and... Unmold the finished product. The chocolate has a matte finish, and it was rather thick which left me with a few air bubbles even after using the vibrating table. However you can see that the silicone picked up all the detail in the dice and duplicated it nicely in the chocloate. The dice are too small to do anything but solid casting, but if you wanted to try filling something like the six-sided with its protrusions you would probably have to make the mold thinner and back it up with a plaster support. That way it would be more flexible and you could demold a filled center without crushing it.

Don't assume you can't make your own! I'm specifically designing my cutter to be able to be built by just about anyone with no expensive tooling (well, so far I've resigned myself to requiring access to a table or radial arm saw for cutting the slots for the wires). When I finish I'll write up a detailed construction manual and possibly even edit a video for anyone who wants to try their hand at it. Like the efforts to get laptops in the hands of every kid in the third world, I want to make it possible for every confectioner to have a guitar cutter. David

Tammy, I've got both liquid and playdough consistancy food grade silicone mold material. Would you like me to try pouring a die mold to test it out? I've still got 4, 6, 12, and 24 sided dice. Were you thinking of making them standard size?

Here's an update on progress so far: I have a new wooden clamp jig with updated dimensions. I had it cut an inch and a half longer so I can clamp against the vertical side of the sorter pieces. I also had an 1/8th of an inch added to the width so I can be sure it will clear the sides of the 12 inch cutting board. That gives me a bit of room to fill with the brazing material, but we'll see how that goes. This is how it will look clamped up for brazing. I cut the corners of the jig to allow access for the flame on the inside. I may add a couple more clamps. The aluminum needs to be 'tinned' with the brazing material to start. That means that you have to heat it up enough to get the metal to melt the brazing rod all by itself without the flame. That opens the pores of the base metal and forms a proper bond with the filler metal. I scribed an outline on the side pieces where the ends of the short pieces will join in, then dropped them in a vice and heated it up with a hand torch and a MAP gas cylinder. It took several minutes to get it hot enough due to the size of the piece and the fact that the conductivity ensured I had to get almost the whole piece up to temperature. However I did get the brazing rod to melt into the aluminum. My first attempt was a bit sloppy By the fourth one I was much neater. The ends of the short sides need to be dealt with too After I finished that much I realized that I'm going to have to drill the holes for the hinge rod and prep around them as well as the handle before I clamp it up for the final assembly. Once it is all together it will probably be too much metal to heat up with the torch for the initial braze. Fortunately once the aluminum is prepped the final joining only has to melt the brazing material together and that can be done in the flame. It doesn't have to be pretty to function but after I get it all together I'll see how much I can clean it up with a Dremel tool. This is my first time working with the brazing material and I'm learning as I go. The second frame should go together faster and neater. I cut a couple pieces of aluminum on a tablesaw with a carbide tipped blade and it went very smoothly. I would recommend that over a manual miter box. The cutting board is due to arrive today so I'll get that cut next weekend.

The recipie calls for straight alcohol to fortify the syrup and liquor mixture, so whatever brand you can find that has a high proof will do fine. Everclear is just a particular brand that can be found in the States at 95% and 75.5% pure depending on where you live. Where I am they can't sell the 95% version by law so I make do with the 75.5%. Typically Vodka is available at 40% so it probably isn't much stronger than whatever liqour you are using for flavor.

I'm not biased one way or the other as I have several molds and plan on getting more. It's just that the options for enhancing the appearence of a molded piece are limited to 2D painting. You can get many different 3D shapes but that means buying another mold. You can't change the output of the one you have (short of glueing two pieces together to make them fully 3D). The bright colors and high sheen certainly catch the eye. I'm just wondering how long that would continue if everyone started producing them. Right now they stand out for being different. Would they all start to blend together and get tiring? As you stated the techniques are pretty limited right now pretty much to swirls and Jackson Pollok designs (I'm going to try for a Piet Mondrian look). That's a function of the relatively tiny canvas size of a bon-bon and the viscosity of cocao butter. I don't think anyone is ever going to get a fine line out of a spraygun, and even if they did it would be impossible to use it to paint a decent design inside a deep mold cavity. I'm working on a technique to extend the possiblities and standardize/speed the painting of mold cavities. I have some food grade silicon mold putty that can be spread thin and forced into a cavity to match the surface. My initial test was to use a specialty paper punch to create a stencil with several small heart shapes and use that for a mask to spray through. Unfortunately there were two problems: 1) The force of the air lifted the edges of the stencil bluring the hoped for crisp lines, and 2) Even though the stencil was fairly thin, it still had a depth that shadowed the spray for any cut on the side of the cavity. I'm going to go back and retry it with a brush or cotton swab as that has a good chance of avoiding both problems. It would be interesting to see what people could do with the technique if it works out. I believe that we need to look at the appearance of the full line of chocolates and that it should have variety. To me that means both molded and enrobed pieces enhanced with a variety of techniques.

Tammy, You might try spraying white cocoa butter in the mold as a last step before pouring the chocolate for the shells. The white background will keep the dark chocolate from making the darker colors disappear so much.