David J.

I gave you the original recipie cut in half, but I can't recall if I cut it in half or thirds when I made it. Either way it made more than I needed because I filled two trays and had some left over. My suggestion would be to cut what I gave you in half and have four trays ready to fill. It won't hurt to have unfilled cavities. To be a little more scientific you could add up the weights of all the liquids and measure out that much in water. Then fill your trays with the water and you'll have a good idea of how many trays you would need. Some of the water will boil off, but that would be balanced by the thickness of the shells.

These are specialty items so they are rather expensive at $20 each. I have tried straight sided cutters in the past only to be dissapointed when the cut center sticks inside and falls apart when I force it out. These extra deep cutters are cone shaped so as you cut the second center it pushes the first up and into the body where you can just tip it over and it spills out easily. You can generaly fit three centers in the cutter at once so you only have to tip them out every other punch.

Tammy, My plans for the guitar cutter proceed on. I've ordered the cutting board and if I can get a thin kerf saw blade before the weekend I'll have it cut along with the new brazing jig this weekend. However you don't need a guitar cutter to take advantage of a poured ganache slab! Take a look at my thread on the Advanced Chocolate Class with JPW and you will see him using a deep oval ganache cutter. Using one of these you can punch out quite a few centers very quickly and they will all be precisely the same size and shape. Granted you will have some "waste" between the cuts, but all you need to do is roll it out again (a good way is between to plastic sheets with caramel rulers as pictured on the class thread) as you would cookie dough and punch again. You don't have to remove the chocolate bottom, just incorporate into the ganache and coat it again. Tomric carries quite a few shapes, though a number of them aren't in stock. I'm currently waiting on the larger circle cutter myself. To find them go to www.tomric.com and type "cutter" into the search box.

The clean lines and shiny surface of molded bon-bons looks more "machine made" than "hand crafted" to me. To counter that you can do special things to the mold like painting it with colored cocoa butter or swirling different types of chocolate. I've experimented with both and it makes a nice presentation. The number of techniques you can use to spice up bon-bons are limited though. You can get far more creative with enrobed pieces, making marks with the dipping fork, using texture sheets, air guns to create "wrinkles", transfer sheets, topping with nuts or other bits both inside and outside the enrobing, and piping figures in contrasting colors of chocolate. Enrobed pieces just look more "hand finished" even if they are completely automated. Having said all that, there are just some fillings that require molding. I wouldn't want to give up my soft carmel filling because I wasn't willing to use molds. Also having a few molded pieces in a box also adds a nice contrast to the mix.

The recipe calls for an equal amount of the liquor of your choice and pure alcohol. Everclear was just what I had on hand. Obviously when you get to a pure alchohol the brand doesn't matter as it's all the same chemicaly. I asked Jean-Pierre Wybauw himself the reason for the total amount of alcohol and his response was it was designed to counter the sweetness of the sugar.

I form the shells in a polycarbonate mold in the usual manner, then fill them with the sugar solution as you would fill with ganache. I used a squeeze bottle but I believe the best method is to use a confectioners funnel with a stop valve. The difference between the liquid center and ganache is that you then have to leave the molds perfectly still after filling them so you don't grow crystals in the middle of the chocolate. Fill them someplace you won't have to move them from and where they won't get bumped. After 24 hours you should have a thin crust of sugar which will allow you to bottom as usual.

The solution should not separate with a thick syrup on the bottom. How did you mix the sugar solution with the liquor? The supersaturated solution is very susceptable to shocks or tiny bits of matter suspended in it. If you shake it you end up with tiny crystals which will form solid sugar inside the center rather than on the walls. Also if you have too concentrated a solution which seems to be the case in half your centers you end up with a solid or mostly solid mass of sugar instead of a nice even coating of the walls. I would try again and carefully mix the liquor and sugar well by pouring between two bowls. The recipie I used for molded shells: 750g sugar 25g glucose 250g water 75g liquor 75g Everclear -Bring the sugar and water to a boil -Carefully brush the sides of the bowl with water. Add glucose -Continue to heat syrup to 223 to 225F -Leave to cool to 122F before mixing in liquor I tried to save my unused solution before and found out that it doesn't work. The sugar will find a way out of solution and usually end up as a mass on the bottom of your jar or squeeze bottle.

I'm waiting on my friend to cut me a new block for the brazing jig. Unfortunately for me he has been traveling for work and doesn't have a lot of time. I hope to get it next weekend so I can braze up the frame. My current thought for the cutting table is to buy a 12x18x1" plastic cutting board and use a 1/16" kerf blade on the tablesaw to cut 3/4" slots every 1/4". I was trying to come up with a way to achieve a deeper slot, but they were all significantly more expensive than this. Given that at least one commercial cutter has only 3/4" depth I believe it should be enough. I'll be ordering the cutting board and looking for the thin kerf saw blade this week in the hope that I can get that cut at the same time I get the new jig.

I wrote Jozef Vanelven at Mol d'Art and he said that they had some with the USA plugs but forgot to send that style. He said it was easy to change the plug style so I take it that all I need is a plug adapter and not a step-up transformer. Is this what you used? http://bargainoffers.com/catalog/product_i...bcdd61712bd04b1

I ordered to 6kg melters and just tried to use them tonight only to find myself staring at a European style plug that is the proverbial round peg for my rectangular hole. Do they manufacture these with US style plugs and I just got shipped the wrong one, or is everyone expected to find a plug adapter? I believe I read that it works with both 110v and 220v so I would assume I only need a plug adapter and not a voltage converter.

That's what I was asking. I was wondering if it would stay in temper if you let a pretty large batch cool in the pan, and if you had to do anything to ensure it remained in temper. My thought is to take the pan out of the melter for a while, then slip it into the fridge to cool under the theory that if left out the exothermic reaction of such a large batch would break temper. Most of the time of course I'll need to add additional chocolate anyway, but I figure some times what's left over will be enough for what I've got planned and it saves on raw chocolate if I don't have to add a lot of seed each time.

Kerry, Can you do this to the chocolate that you have tempered and let cool back down in the pan? Do you have to do anything special to ensure the chocolate stays in temper as it cools? Or do you need to add new chocolate as seed if you are reheating what was in the pan from last time?

I imagine you can get the sugar to disolve again, but in the process you will boil off all the alcohol. Remeber that you added the liquour to the sugar solution after it cooled down quite a bit. I would start from scratch again myself. David

Are you placing your molds with the open side of the cavity up? JPW mentioned this specifically for large hollow figures as placing it with the open side down would concentrate the warmth at the top as it rises and throw that part out of temper.

I'm using 60lb test Stainless Steel Trolling wire. I couldn't find it local so I ordered it online: http://www.alltackle.com/american_fishing_wire.htm It comes in a boxed double spool of 300ft which is more than I will need for several cutting frames.

Here are the basic raw materials for the cutting frame. Two four foot lengths of 1 1/2" alluminum angle, a 1/2" solid rod, and a one foot 1" OD tube for the handle. I cut two 1' and two 2' lengths of angle using a manual mitre box and a hacksaw. The first tip is that you might want to just order the angle cut to length if you don't have a metal cutting bandsaw. It wasn't a lot of effort, but even with the mitre box the cuts were not perfectly square. That doesn't matter for the smaller pieces as the brazing material will fill in any gaps, but the ends of the long pieces might look better. It's not critical for operation though, and you can save a few bucks by buying longer pieces as I did. I had decided to use a block of wood as a jig to ensure the pieces were all square and that if I built a second frame for different spacing wires they would all be identical. Unfortunately the board a friend cut for me isn't perfectly square so I need to find another one. If you can think of a better way to build the jig let me know. It needs to keep everything square and be repeatable. Additionally the corners need to be free because I'm going to be using a torch to braze the two short pieces in and any wood too close is likely to catch fire. The internal opening is 12"x13".

Hi Mark, I followed JPW's technique and it worked pretty well for me. You do have to have a light touch with the sugar shells as they are not very thick and you can crush them if you are too rough. I had a 2" deep pan and pressed about 3/8" deep cavities. I baked my cornstarch in the oven overnight to drive off all the moisture. After pouring the syrup I sifted a fairly thick layer of cornstarch on top and let it all sit for 24 hours. I used a pretty flexible pastry brush to clear off the remaining starch after fishing them out of the pan. After doing all that once I realized that casting the shells inside chocolate molds is far easier and less failure prone. You just mold the chocolate as usual, then pour in the syrup and let it crust over on top overnight before bottoming the mold. I did that and it worked out great. A big trick is to not handle the syrup much and don't shock it. If you are too rough with it, small nucli will form in the middle of the syrup and it starts growing crystal lumps inside the middle of your chocolates. David

Hi Gareth, I've had the metal sitting in the basement waiting to be cut and brazed together for a while now. Other projects have gotten in the way, but since I just got two 6kg Mol D'art chocolate melters I need to resurect the project. I'll start cutting tonight and post pictures as I go. It helped that I was able to get some experience using a guitar cutter a couple months ago at the Advanced Chocolate Class with JPW. David

Hmmm, this seems to be going around... I had a batch of butter/white chocolate/kaluha go grainy on me a couple days ago. I'll just repeat what JPW said in my class: Some ganaches are more susceptable to separation than others due to the ratio of fat/liquid/chocolate. Unfortunately I forget if he mentioned the levels that made for trouble. Overheating will cause the ganache to break. This can be done just by working it too much with a blender or food processor. The latter is how he broke a ganache in class. The first method of rescue he uses is to take a portion of the broken ganache and pour in a little cold cream and whisk. If that works he will continue by adding a little of the broken ganache in at a time and incorporating it. Again, you have to be carefull not to overwork it and heat it up or it will repeat the break. If that doesn't work he will place the ganache in the fridge until it starts to set around the edges. Then he will fold that back in and whisk it in. The batch he rescued in class required both methods before he was successful. In class he also was clear to add your butter only at room temperature. He frequently used melted tempered chocolate right out of the melter to make his ganache, but then I recall him letting the boiled cream cool a bit first before mixing.

Have you examined Kroese? He has some very nice boxes. Check out the thread where I used one of his more unusual boxes: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...91602&hl=kroese and here is his website: http://www.kroese-exclusief.com/ You have to sign up in order to see the catalog, but it is free and worth the bother. Ordering is also easy and shipment prompt.

Since I am in the middle of creating them I will add the notion of using truffle shells. If you use a filling tray the piping should go faster than piping half moons, and you eliminate the whole scooping and/or rolling operation. The only downside I can see is that there will be a minimum shell thickness, but if you dip in very thin chocolate it should be controlable. Then there is this device I ran across, called a rollerboard: http://pastrychef.com/Catalog/rollerboard_4340114.htm It claims to let you drop a pan of ganche on it, push the top back and forth a few times and end up with a bunch of perfect spheres. It only works with the more firm ganaches however. Still very interesting. Has anyone used one of these? If it really works it seems to be a real time saver. I've spent a couple hours scooping and rolling just one batch of stiff ganache.

Ann, JPW wouldn't give a definitive time before placing the mold or truffles into the cooler environment because each molding may require a differing amount of time to start setting up. Variables include the chocolate temp, mold temp, room temp, and thickness of the coating. The best I could get out of him was to watch it and you will know when it is time. I believe that the time would be when it looses the wet sheen. I agree that 50F is rather warm for a standard fridge. What I failed to add was that he also suggests a fair wind velocity in addition to ensure a good rate of heat transfer. This is something that most home refrigerators lack. I believe the chief requirement for that temperature is the restriction of a maximum 18F difference bewteen the working and cooling temperature. He is concerned about shock cooling and too rapid a cooling which might generate unstable crystals. The ideal commercial setup has three temperatures, 80.6-82.4F for working, 62.6-64.4F for initial cooling, and 44.6-46.4F for final cooling, again with only an 18F difference between each. With only two temperatures for the artisan chocolatier, and a restriction of 18F difference you have to strike a balance between too cold a working room temperature and too warm a setting temperature. I'm not sure what to do about the fact that my own fridge is significantly colder than this other than to obtain a small fridge or cooler just for chocolate work. There is a purpose built fridge I saw for sale somewhere, but it was at least $2K and therefore well out of my budget. I think a dorm room fridge or a wine or beverage cooler would work out well. Wine coolers are typically adjustable from 48F to 61F while beverage coolers can reach 40F. At least one wine cooler advertised a fan to effectively move the air around which would seem to fit the velocity that JPW recommended. They start around $200 and are much more palatable to my budget. Yes I did mean to say "Add melted un-tempered chocolate" if the batch you have has too many crystals in it. Think about it as a ratio. If the batch you have is getting too thick, it is because it has too many beta crystals per unit chocolate. If you add more chocolate that has no crystals you are changing the ratio to a more favorable working range. Of course you have to watch the temperature of the chocolate and the amount so that you don't either melt out all the crystals you have or swing the ratio too far. The alternative is to keep the amount of chocolate you have constant and change the ratio by melting out some of the crystals.

In my class JPW mentioned that a couple of our ganaches had to sit overnight to crust or they would weep. The ganche was piped at room temperature so that wasn't a factor, but they were more moist than others. How long did you let the centers sit before you dipped them?

That's what I love about this place, so many brilliant ideas! The chocolate paper strip should form a good enough seal for a second dip. The hole is small enough that it should be structuraly strong. I can use my really thick chocolate (two and one drop(s) for milk and dark respectively) to ensure a thick seal. I checked the Albert Uster website and found that the shells they sell match my mold in diameter. That means I could probably buy their filling and sealing trays if I wanted. They are a bit pricey though, so I will probably start out by piping my ganache carefully and sealing with a pastry bag. I want to try the three different non-sugar shell recipies in JPW's book to see which works out and tastes best. I have a co-worker who likes the filling semi-sweet, but with no crunchy shell and that gives me a personal chalenge to learn how.

Which way are the holes in the filling tray tapered, inward like a funnel? Is it a flat sheet or does it have a stem that fits inside the hole? Could you draw a picture? I had suspected that the finishing tray might be concave since it has to have a definite thickness to cover the ganach a straight sided hole would produce a cylindrical pillar. That makes it a bit tougher to machine and explains part of the reason it is so expensive. I had an idea for covering the pure liquid filling. If I took a tapered countersink bit like this: http://www.amazon.com/IRWIN-12411-Speed-St...39?ie=UTF8&s=hi I could possibly produce a sloping hole that would let a solid disc lodge in it. Then the sealing tray would cover that and form the rest of the sphere. I'll have to actually cast a mold to see what the spheres look like to see what I can do with them. I ordered Callebaut 811 from Qzino since they don't carry 815 and the cocao percentage is within 2%. I should get that in a couple days and then I'll try the mold out. I was told by Chocolat-Chocolat to fill it with a piping bag so I'll give that a shot. I'll have to see how quickly I can fill all 32 cavities and if the first and last have significantly different wall thicknesses as a result of sitting filled for different lengths of time. The base formula might be liquid enough to work out. From what the rep said I think that commercial uses have automated filling machinery that doses each cavity at the same time.