keychris

I leave *all* of my molded chocolates overnight before capping to allow for setting / evaporation / shrinking. 45 minutes... I can only think of a few recipes I make that would be firm by then that have gone in shells

centre is a vanilla caramel. I was in the dipping zone Made by adding boiling cream to the sugar syrup at 145C and whisking until the caramel reached 121C. Really easy!

Was the first mold placed under a window or a cool place? To get a nice shine, you want the mold to be within 10C of the working temp of the chocolate - so waving a heatgun over the mold quickly before you pour the chocolate in can help too

Don't know if you have it on your packaging, but we have on the side the Nutrition Information - my butter says: blah blah blah Fat: Total: 70g / 100g ie. 70% HTH

This is a pet peeve of mine - I made a cake a while ago with enough chocolate in and on it that if I had make them pay commercial pricing, would have cost several hundred dollars. When I said this, I was told, "But it's just a cake!" Grrr

If it has chunks, just pour it through a sieve, that should get those chunks of praline out

That's just a plastic one I found in a throwout bin recently - was $16, was $12, bought for $3 no brand or anything, I'm afraid!

that one's defective, might have to lick it off the plate... need a hand with that? nomnomnom!

Thanks Curls! The mold is Chocolate World CW1218, the filling is a strawberry flavoured ganache

Chocolate mud cake with strawberry ganache filled chocolates and fresh strawberries. 21st birthday cake (& our present!) for my brother-in-law's girlfriend (Her name begins with 'M' hence the chocolates )

For my brother in law's girlfriend: to go on a cake (pics when complete!)

funny how people are different. I'm not really a fan of the Ghana. I use a 38% Felchlin which is very nice to work with and isn't particularly sweet, for example, compared with Callebaut 33% milk.

hurrah! nice one

this is vaguely like what I use: grab one from your local hardware store

There's very little left between the rows, if you've applied the acetate correctly. Here's some pics: This one has the acetate on - you scrape down firmly and it forces all of the chocolate out. You can see it's slightly thicker at this end, my technique isn't quite perfect And I leave a lot of mess on the sides and away comes the acetate. these are from a little photo tutorial I put together on my facebook page: https://www.facebook...01914679&type=3 As an extra point: you can see some of the filling in the second picture - the chocolate was setting up as I took the photo before I put the acetate on and it did exactly what I described earlier - pushed into the filling and pushed it out. Chris

agree with PastryGirl - you just have to work faster When I cap the molds, I usually have the acetate on the mold ASAP after the chocolate goes over, tap it a couple of times then acetate. It's more important (to me) to get the bottoms looking beautiful and have maybe one or two that aren't perfect than to have the chocolate thickening - if you have thickening chocolate and try to put acetate over it, the chocolate will force your filling out of the shells (that's the voice of experience ) acetate method is awesome, but will be just as frustrating to start with It leaves a beautiful shiny base though and is well worth it. Chris

that was my first thought - I don't think the unit will heat that high. I'd also be concerned about it sticking to the bottom, as I've had things stick in mine quite often, even though it's mixing all the time.

A christmas tree! Lime ganache & buccaneer tea infusion.

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 ) cheers Chris

that's exactly how I dry caramelise, too. 1/3 of the sugar at a time, heat until it's melted and honey coloured, add the next third, repeat.

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

exactly a wonderful honey flavour with that textural component, all in one ingredient... wonderful! not to mention how good it is for you, too.

A macadamia nut praline slab, with bee pollen for texture and a honey flavour. Pity about that those fingerprints in the metallic dust Shoulda been wearing my gloves!

I just pour the boiled cream over the chocolate, directly in my blender, blast it until it's smooth. If it needs butter, I cover it with clingwrap until it's cooled to 32C, then pulse the butter in. Never had it split, never grainy. Now I've said that, I'll probably get it happen this weekend

I get felchlin for AUS$18 / kg, which is pretty reasonable. I was quoted something like $80/kg for Valhrona, which was not