chocofoodie

Thank you so much for all your excellent responses! gfron1, I've been reading the forums referencing the Choco and Confection workshops and I'm jealous! Would love to attend. Were can I find out more? Thank you so much for your recipe, I am going to try it this weekend. Hopefully I have better luck with white chocolate then I've had with the others. I'm going to let the mold sit for a minute to try to achieve a thicker shell. I dont even know what to do to get a better temper but I'm going to work on the temps. thanks everyone!

About cocoa butter.... so I didn't ask any questions about this. I just melted some cocoa butter using a bain marie and dipped some cotton in it and slathered away the cavities. What temperature should it be at?? Should it be tempered first?

Another myth it seems I have: The thinner the shell the better? I thought it was best to have a thin shell?? How do I gauge the right thickness?

What would I change to keep a recipe fluid? Add more cream? add cocoa butter? Thanks for the tip, I always thought you're supposed to dump right away so I don't even wait a second. Once I've got all the cavities covered I quickly dump it out. I'm going to try letting this brand of milk chocolate sit and see what happens. Will update you guys soon!

I always hesitate with the scraping at the end. I usually pour the chocolate on to cap, hold the mold at a downward angle and scrap quickly in one motion. I might have to go over it again to get a bit of excess but I thougt you should only scrape once?

That's my chocolate. It's new. I don't know if it's the chocolate or things have changed in the past couple of years but when melted and tempered it runs like water. That stuff is so fluid it just pours out of the molds and there's practically nothing left behind to make a shell. I'll try your suggestions because my attempt resulted in a pool at the bottom (or technically the top) of the shell and really thin walls. The second picture shows why I like to fill with a warmer more fluid ganache. The messy looking ones are with a cooled ganache. How warm can the ganache be before it ruins the temper of the shell? So if you see streaks on the inside of the set shell that's a sign it's off temper? I don't understand why the temper is off. I'm following the temperatures on the box. I warm to 43 or 44 and final temperature is 30.

Ok guys here they are :-) so they came out easier than usual. I popped them in the fridge for about 15 mins after I capped them before I attempted to pop them out. They came out with a little bit of banging. Much better than usual :-) they are not totally consistent. Some really are shinier than usual but some have a bit of a streak. It makes me wonder if that's from the cocoa butter? Or is the temper again slightly off? I tested the temperature and the temper this time and everything was good.

Take II: I rubbed the molds down with cocoa butter. I used cotton balls. When I scrape I get like cotton fluff so I'm worried about that being mixed in with the chocolate. I didn't see any on the molds though. Does the cocoa butter coating make the chocolate flow better? It seemed to me to be difficult to get enough chocolate to stay in the mold to make a shell that wasn't paper thin. I don't know what I'm doing lol. Wish me luck!

Jim, I am so frustrated by the tiny bowl!! I do manage to angle my mold and empty it directly back into the machine with only minimal mess but the almost vertical angle means I don't get as much out until I flip it and tap out onto my marble slab. I think I mess the whole thing up when I scrape up that excess and stick it back in the machine. That excess has usually already cooled a bit and is starting to set. Next time I'll use your tips. I filled three molds this time and before I filled the last one I reset the machine but that was because I felt I needed more chocolate so I was adding more pellets.

Ok so I have another concern. I filled three molds this time. I was a little doubtful about how to do this properly without losing temper. I would pour from the temperer into the mold and then empty it out back into the temperer. But I also scraped up the excess and added it back in too. I was worried that scraped up chocolate may have thrown it out of temper. Maybe I should have warmed it up first? What temp should I have warmed it up to so that I can maintain temper?

I could feel the warmth through the pastry bag!! You live and learn. I was worried it was to warm but my desire to pipe loose outweighed my warning lights that I should let it cool off a bit.

Question 1: No I don't polish Question 2: I'm going to try this putting in the fridge thing after filling. I've never done that. I always try to avoid sticking the molds in the fridge as much as possible from fear of condensation Question 3: I was actually thinking today that I should do this. I've always blindly trusted the Rev2. I've never tested the temper or checked the temperatures. Next time I'm going to check the temp at each stage. Question 4: I've never had chocolate pop out of the molds easily. They don't usually break like these, but they never come out without freezing and banging repeatedly. I heard you could add melted cocoa butter when the chocolate thickens, is that true? Would that help?

I bought cocoa butter pellets but never used it. I wash it after each use and I've never buffed my molds. So that's definitely something I need to change. Your last question I think is right on the money. The recipe I used for this ganache had you heat the chocolate and the cream up to 112 F before combining. I then piped that into my molds, still warm.

How do you clean your molds? I usually soak them in very hot water and then clean with soap and water and then towel dry. Do you think this could have anything to do with it?

It also happened with the domes :-(

Any advice on how to improve the temper? As I said I'm using the Rev2 and I change the temperatures to correspond to the box guidelines for the specific chocolate I am using. In this case it was Cacao Barry's 64%.

So these got stuck in the molds for some odd reason

Oops didn't send pic

Yes one of the moods I usually use is a deep dome one. I do put it in the freezer for five to ten minutes. Are you supposed to flip right away or leave it for ten minutes to come to room temperature before flipping? I'm using the Rev2 tempering machine. This happened today. (See pic) I don't know why that happened.

Ok I haven't made chocolate in years. I feel like I'm starting all over again so I'm sorry in advance for all the posts from me :-) But is it just me or does this happen to others? I need to know if there are others out there because I am getting so frustrated!! My molded chocolates don't come out of their shell!! There's no flipping the mold over and beautiful chocolates falling gracefully out. It's me banging, banging, getting one, banging some more, refrigerating, more banging... You get the picture. When they come out they are beautiful and have a nice temper snap when you bite in. What am I doing wrong?????

Thanks for the great ideas! I'll try it and see what happens. If the consistency is not as fluid now from sitting on the counter, should I heat it up to make it more fluid again? Or should I add cream to it? About the light caramel, can it be darkened? Is there such a thing? and can it be made more fluid? I was wondering if one of the things that went wrong the second time was because I was worried about it burning again I cooked it really really slowly. I mean it took forever to melt the sugar and I was stirring the whole time. I feel like the change in the process of cooking the sugar contributed to the change in fluidity the second time around. Is there any merit to this or am I completely wrong here? Because the second time not only was the caramel really light, it was also a much thicker texture, more like soft caramel you would dip rather than something you could pipe into a mold.

My two trays of caramel are still sitting on the counter. I'm not sure what to do with them. I'm tempted to try and 'recook' the light caramel with some more cream to see if it improves the taste and fluidity. The dark caramel has a slightly bitter taste, of burnt sugar. I'm worried about putting it in the chocolate and it tasting nasty. But I dont know what else to do with it. Any tips?