Jim D.

You know far more about this stuff than I do, but I have had that "dusty" look with bonbon shells, but on the inside of the shell. My best theory is that the chocolate is over-tempered (it happens after I have been using the chocolate for a while and have not taken steps soon enough to deal with it). In my case, eventually the dusty look doesn't show, and it has never seemed to do any harm. I assume you are doing all the usual things, such as chilling the bars as they are crystallizing. And I assume humidity is not an issue in your kitchen.

I saw that you particularly like Roxy & Rich's Fuchsia Tourmaline, which appears (to me) to be in the purple category. So far I have not found a purple I really like (Chef Rubber's Purple Amethyst is what I often use, but it doesn't have that pop I'm looking for in a purple--it needs more red, I think). Do you have purple favorites?

I have heard good things about Chef Rubber's natural white color (not sure of its exact description). A number of people have stated that the natural colors fade. I think Andrey Dubovik has switched (at least partially) to natural colors, and his creations now look a bit faded. Perhaps we will eventually get used to duller colors and won't remember what existed way back in 2024?

With the changes in the U.S. administration coming in 2025 and promises of ridding our foods of unnecessary additives--and artificial colorants!--perhaps those of us in this country need to check out the natural cocoa butter colors available from some manufacturers. Am I actually ready to substitute beet juice for Chef Rubber's "Red Ruby"? And is there a blue vegetable that can replace the beautiful "Blue Lapis"? Hmm.

@Kerry Beal, which airbrush did the chocolatier like best? I used to have many more reservations about the Fuji than I do now. And I hate to abandon my Grex (especially after I spent so much time working with tech support to get it to spray colored cocoa butter successfully). But there is nothing better than the Fuji for getting the job done as quickly as possible--and with far less need for reheating the spray gun. Yes, the Fuji uses more CCB, but with all the suggestions I received from @Chocolot, I got the adjustments of the various knobs right and now use less CCB. I think many spray guns do an excellent job as well and cost far less than the Fuji, but my compressor isn't adequate to support a spray gun.

pastrygirl beat me to it, but I was going to mention the Felchlin Opus Blanc white chocolate. I have not used it in making bonbons but have tasted it, and it is very milky. @CazG, I'm not sure I fully understand what you are looking for. A basic filling that can be flavored for various bonbons? In the case of something like tiramisu, once you add the coffee flavoring, you are not going to taste much milk/cream or even white chocolate (I use coffee ganache made with a mix of white and dark chocolate plus mascarpone). A couple of other ideas: You can substitute plain cocoa butter for some of the white chocolate and reduce the white chocolate taste (though there is a limit at which the texture of the ganache is ruined). You can use a white chocolate with less taste of its own: Cacao Barry's Zephyr perhaps? But I think Felchlin's Opus Blanc is still your best bet (if you can find it). Another more radical idea is to use a butter ganache: Mix soft butter with some sort of sweetener (glucose or fondant) plus flavoring and chocolate. There isn't any cream, but the butter (depending on the brand) can add a lot of dairy flavor. The Peter Greweling book has lots of recipes for butter ganache. Again, however, the flavoring can end up masking any strong dairy taste.

I should add that I recently saw a photo of chocolates from @Chocolot. The transfers are from Chef Rubber, and the reds look good. Maybe I should give CR another chance.

@Kerry Beal No, there is no white. I remember meeting the owner of ChocoTransferSheets at the last Las Vegas workshop. I don't suppose you have any info on what happened to the company. I am still kicking myself for not taking advantage of their recent sales (if they had said "clearance," I might have taken action). Their transfers were a cut above the rest, in my opinion--tulips, roses, cherry blossoms. @pastrygirl That may be the explanation--it makes sense.

I did some work to show what I was describing about cocoa butter colors. Transfer #1: The pink color transfers to the chocolate fairly well, but not as bright. But then pink contains (presumably) titanium dioxide. #2: This is red on dark chocolate at its worst, very muddy, almost brown. #3: This beautiful transfer was my biggest disappointment (ignore the chocolate blotch in the middle; it's from a chip falling off the transfer--this is a very old transfer sheet): Perhaps one could say the dark red/brown is OK--unless you know what it is supposed to look like.

The latter. It happens with other colors as well (blues become grayish). I have contacted American Chocolate Designs (information that came from you earlier in this thread), and they are sending me (free) some samples of transfers with red in them. The fact that they didn't answer with something like "Oh, we know about that problem, and with ours, the red stays bright red" suggests these won't work. I've never understood what ChocoTransferSheets does (did?) that made theirs opaque. If they added white to red, it would turn pink. Here is a sample of one of their transfers:

To follow up: I posted my issue on Facebook, and Ruth (@Chocolot) replied that she uses Chef Rubber. And in her photo the reds were really red. I have bought CR transfers in the past, and the red turned brown (on a dark choc background). Perhaps they have changed their method. I'm not sure how I can delicately ask CR (when I want to say: "do your reds still turn brown?")

I just received a notice from ChocoTransferSheets as follows: I had received several notices recently about price reductions in their products, but our warm fall weather discouraged placing an order. It sounds as if reopening of the company is an "iffy" proposition. Of course this is a season when those who use transfer sheets usually stock up for the holidays. ChocoTransferSheets was unique (as far as I was able to determine) in being able to make any color opaque. Reds did not turn dark red/brown but stayed a bright red. I do not know what their secret was, perhaps some use of white that did not distort the displayed color. I have used several other vendors--and have many bags with their non-opaque transfers that I will never use--except perhaps for bonbons molded in white chocolate. Does anyone have suggestions for another source?

Another interesting and delicious-sounding combination. For my "apple crisp," I use a layer of apple pâte de fruit with the usual apple pie spices, then a layer of vanilla buttercream, ending with a crispy layer made from Speculoos cookies. What do you mean by "mixed the crumbs a bit too much"? They lost their crunch? Recently I made a bonbon that called for a cookie layer on top (actually it was your carrot cake bonbon!), but I had filled the cavity too much, so I used my heavy Robot Coupe immersion blender to pulverize the cookie layer more than usual so that it would flatten once piped. This worked, and I didn't detect too much loss of crunch. I think cookie layers in general are tricky to get right--sometimes mine don't firm up enough even though I have done exactly the same thing as I always do. Including clarified butter is an issue: Kalle Jungstedt includes it, but the reality that butter doesn't firm up as much as cocoa butter does means that a layer with butter will always be a little soft--or at least that's my guess.

With the caveat that I don't know the costs involved in shipping chocolate from the U.S. to Canada, I found Supremo, a sugar-free dark chocolate. I have not tasted it, but it is from Felchlin, a company whose dark and milk chocolate I use for my chocolate production. It uses maltitol as its sweetener. Chef Rubber sells a 500g bar for US$8.70, an amazingly low price for Felchlin chocolate. I know Chef Rubber does ship internationally but may have quantity minimums.

That's what melangers.com recommends; I think most people use a food processor. The farther along you go toward a liquid, the easier the melanger will be, but, of course, after a while you might ask the point of having a melanger. In the case of almonds, I process them until a little liquid appears, then let the melanger do the rest.