chocofoodie

HAHAHA! Dont jump on me now! I just finished reading that thread, and thought the whole thing was hilarious- so typically English! But you gotta love it.

I was reading above and there was this 'grainy-ness' issue before that someone had. And I remembered that my husband commented that the second batch of truffles seemed a bit grainy when you first bite into it, but then it would disappear. so i think maybe i had the same problem the above did. I think it has to do with the fridge. After taking the ganache out of the fridge, I let it sit without touching it to get it to room temperature. How long should you leave it to reach room temperature? Because I didnt wait that long before scooping it and making it balls, I thought, let me just scoop them now, and then they can reach room temperature scooped before I actually dip them. so maybe thats what caused the grainy-ness- scooping before it was warm enough. Plus, I didnt mix it again before i started scooping. In general, do you guys put a soft ganache in the fridge overnight to harden? Is it ok to just leave it out to harden?

I liked the ultra softness of the ganache, thats why i stuck to the same ratios second time around. it was like bitting in and finding mousse. but I think you guys are right about the butter. the first time i did add it earlier than the second, i had thought that the first time was wrong and it was better to add the butter at a later stage. plus, i thought, hey its not all that much butter, it probably wont even make a difference. but it ended up messing everything up. today im going to make a dark chocolate one to one ratio truffle, with no butter. I thought normal ganache was 2 to 1?

Have you ever made the same thing twice and it came out different? I made a milk chocolate ganache, i used 12 ounces callebaut milk, 1 cup cream, and 3 tbls butter. I made it this way: I put the chopped chocolate in a bowl, poured over it boiled cream, let it sit for a 1-2 mins, mixed it gently til it was almost mixed, added butter, and then mixed and mixed and mixed. (is there such a thing as over mixing a ganache?) because it went from nice and smooth, to slightly broken, to back together but more liquidy. Then I put it in the fridge overnight, and in the morning scooped into balls and put it on my marble slab to harden a little because its really soft. at night i dip them. the trouble: first time, even though they are really hard to work with because they are soooo soft, they tasted great done. The second time (mind you only a few days later) the ganache didnt quite seem "together". as truffles, inside their chocolate shells. it seemed the same before dipping. and the second time you could really taste the butter. Maybe I didnt mix enough the second time around? I have no idea what happened, I thought I did everthing exactly the same.

Tammylc just posted a topic on sourcing chocolate. I thought it was a great idea, but as I read all the responses I was disappointed that they are all U.S. based. So, anyone have any names for UK sources? And not just of chocolate, but anything chocolate related- molds, flavourings, nuts, etc.. At the moment I use vantage house. They are great because you get the order really quickly. Otherwise, they have a very small selection of chocolate brands.

Thanks Tammylc! So is it your experience then that the Callebaut milk is very sweet in general? I've never tried working with any other milk chocolate, so I just thought they would all be like this. In general, when you are looking for the right chocolate, do you have to experiment a lot with different brands and percentages? Would that be the best way to go about this?

I tried the filling in these two chocolates: Callebaut 815NV (which is a 56.5 dark chocolate) and 845NV (which is a 34% milk chocolate). The results: In the milk, which I tried first, you could taste the maple flavor of the fondant clearly, but together it was a very sweet chocolate. In the dark, you couldnt taste the maple flavor at all, but the dark chocolate did tone down the sweetness. soooo... there has already been one suggestion for switching chocolate, but I think the gran saman will be to powerful, considering this callebaut was already to strong. Im up for the idea of switching though. I dont trust the gran saman i have now in the cupboard, so ill have to order more to try it out. any other brand suggestions? anyone have experience mixing chocolates? oh, i just thought of something as well... do you guys think that maybe i should have put in more maple syrup to the fondant before using it with the dark chocolate? that would be making it even sweeter, but maybe it needed the flavor to be much stronger so it could stand out?

Ok, I tried the dark chocolate. It was over-powering. You couldnt taste the maple flavor anymore at all. So I was thinking, I use Callebaut milk chocolate, what could I do on the milk chocolate scale to enhance maple flavor but not sweetness?

John, thanks for that tip about the dark chocolate. Im going to try that now actually. I'll let you know how it comes out :-)

Thanks everyone! Great suggestions. I am going to look into ordering these alternatives and trying them out to see which I like best. Enjoy your baking and confections!

Does anyone have any tips on how to cut the sweetness of fondant? When I add maple syrup to flavor it, it becomes really sweet. and since this is going inside chocolates, i feel it is overall to sweet. id like to havea strong maple flavor, but less sweetness. any suggestions?

Thanks everyone for your comments. I think I am going to follow your advice and practise more direct recipes. And not white chocolate ones! I cant wait for the Grewling book to come in to help with that. In the end, the first batch that had less chocolate actually tasted better (it was soft, but smooth). The second experimental batch, where I added more chocolate, was very crumbly in texture.

Oh, and about the time we made it in class. The consistency was thicker than plain old melted chocolate, but it was still very 'liquid'. We put it into piping bags and piped long straight lines then we waited ten minutes for them to harden a little before we started rolling them into balls. When we rolled them into balls, it wasnt sticky. it was still kind of wet, you got some chocolate onto your hands, but they were firm and easy to work with. then we dipped them into tempered chocolate and coated them in nuts and things, and the whole time we were using our hands and they held up perfectly. When I was making mine yesterday, I used a dipping tool, and still some of them were so soft that they were being indented by the tool.

I do not have Grewling - yet. I ordered it, but it hasnt come yet. For the last two batches (yesterdays and todays) I am using Callebaut white chocolate. I am trying to make a white chocolate nut truffle. First I pureed my nuts into a paste. Then I microwaved 10 ounces of chocolate til it was fully melted. I mixed the chocolate with about 2.3 ounces of the puree until it was fully mixed. Then I microwaved almost 5 ounces of cream and added it to it. First let me say that I apart from the final ganache result, I have also had horrible emulsion experiences as well. I added the cream here slowly, and it was working out fine, then all of a sudden it broke. So I microwaved another about quarter cup cream and mixed into that an equal amount of my broken ganache and i had to keep adding to that very slowly until it was all done and emulsified. Needless to say, I had very sore wrists. But anyway, then I spread it at the bottom of a tupperware container and left it to set overnight. The next morning I started scooping out balls but it was still rather sticky and soft. but after leaving the balls on the marble slab for a while, they were hard enough on the outside to dip. But I put aside a portion of the ganache, about a half cup, that I wanted to experiment adding more chocolate to. I melted a small amount of chocolate, less than half a cup, and added it. i let that sit again at the bottom of my tupperware. it was rock hard in the morning. so i microwaved it and added 50 ml cream to it, also microwaved. after much work, it became a paste, which i left overnight. TODAY, the mixture was again pretty hard, softer than yesterday, but still to hard to make into balls. so I microwaved it a little and put it into a piping bag and piped it out into rows. I am now going to sit and shape them into balls. (I tried one, and it did shape, with a bit of resistance). But here's the thing. I took a 2 hour chocolate class, nothing serious or professional or anything, just a fun class. it was an intro to chocolate making and you get to go home with chocolates that 'you' made. In the class, we used one container cream (at room temperature) to two parts melted chocolate (dont know if it was tempered or not, but i am assuming it wasnt because I remember he just popped it in the microwave for this step, then he tempered with us watching after). So we poured the cream into a bowl, then poured in the 2 containers worth of chocolate and mixed it barely, just until the white streaks of cream were gone. It was so easy. I thought, this is great, I can make this so easily at home. Since then I have tried with every type of cream (including the same brand and size he gave us in class) and every type of chocolate and every time it doesnt work! Sorry about all this, but im sure you can imagine my frustration! thanks for your help!

hi Tammylc, I am trying to make truffle centers. But when it comes out to fluid I end up using it in molded chocolates because its so loose. Yesterday's batch was thick enough to use for a truffle, but it was still very soft and sticky. Today's batch is much thicker, it gets hard very fast so its hard to even roll it into balls. When I look at pictures of what a ganache is supposed to look like before it sets, mine is nothing like it. its more dough like right from the beginning.

Hello everyone! Im new to this forum, and chocolate making and baking as well. Thats why I joined this forum, really, because I am in DESPERATE need of help! I cant even make a simple chocolate ganache correctly! My ganache either comes out two thick or to fluid. But I am following the proportions EXACTLY. I am getting super frustrated and was wondering if anyone had any tips or advice, or anything at all that might make me feel better :-) thanks all!