Jim D.

Thank you for that insight. It's difficult to make yourself stop in the middle of making shells and test for temper, but it appears to be necessary. Do you know of any discussion or any scientific papers about overtempering that deal with this problem? I have also noticed that sometimes shells, when they are cooling in the fridge, acquire a dusty look. Could this be a sign of overtempering? They usually come out of the mold without a problem, but it looks suspicious.

I lost about 20 bonbons from the condition shown above: the top part broke off from the bottom, which stayed firmly in the mold. It was a CW large dome, a mold that has given me much trouble over the years, but sometimes is fine. This is the worst "stuck in the mold" episode in a long time, but that doesn't keep it from being annoying and embarrassing. I suspect overtempered chocolate used for the shell (isn't overtempering one of the suspected causes of this problem?). I am not so new to this process that I will ask the question I want to ask: "What could have happened?" We will never know. But how can one tell chocolate is overtempered? I know it gets more viscous, but this was milk chocolate, and it's always viscous.

I can think of two possibilities. CW may have made it for a special order. Or there is another company, DecoRelief, that makes versions/copies/knockoffs (whichever term you prefer) of CW molds. I was looking for a cocoa pod a bit larger than the CW one I was looking at and found it through Renée Drolet at Chocolat Chocolat in Montreal. She would be a great resource for your search.

Just to confuse things further about the guitar: I have the 5mm base. It allows for cutting 25mm squares, which is almost exactly 1 inch.

A guitar is a great tool. The first time you use one and get perfect squares (or rectangles), you will wonder how you endured using a knife. As has been pointed out previously on eGullet, knives are triangular, and as such they are incapable of cutting "perpendicularly." But, although some use guitars to cut caramel, I would never do so. I broke a string once (on a gianduja I had let crystallize a little bit too long), and replacing it is a nightmare (to me, at least). As usual, on eGullet, there is a video, this one from @pastrygirl, showing how to perform this task. I do not have a vibrating table and manage without one. They are very expensive. I too use a Chocovision Delta and like it very much, but all tempering machines with bowls (unless the bowls are enormous) do not allow for dumping the chocolate so as to form shells. I've tried every trick I could think of, but the resulting mess was too much to stand. So my latest purchase is a Mol d'Art melting machine. Given how long it takes to adjust to a given temperature, I would never use it to temper chocolate, but I use it as a receptacle for dumping molds. The rectangular models are perfect for doing this. The chocolate accumulates, then you can empty the container back into the Delta for more work and, as a bonus, if the temperature of the chocolate is right, you compensate for overtempering problems in the Delta bowl. I would spend my money on an airbrush setup. If you have not decorated chocolates with cocoa butter and if you have an appreciative audience for your bonbons, these go over incredibly well. "Too pretty to eat" is the most common response--and that's even when you, the chocolatier, know they aren't as pretty as you meant them to be! If you go this route, there is a very long and informative thread on eG all about airbrushes, compressors, cocoa butter, etc. I have been very happy with a Grex airbrush. Another piece of equipment I would recommend is a dehydrator for melting chocolate overnight so as to shorten the time it takes for the Delta to melt the chocolate from scratch. I also use it for melting colored cocoa butter so as to have it ready. The dehydrator has improved my workflow incredibly. I can recommend one if you are interested. Good luck with this happy task of spending money!

I'm glad you brought that up. After an experience like pastrygirl's, I bought some sorbic acid to add to ganaches, but have not been able to find the correct amount to use.

There is a video showing the use of the PHMB to temper chocolate, but NOT using the paddle, just stirring. I suspect the use of the paddle may be contributing to your probable overtempering (as pastrygirl explained). Other tempering machines, such as the Chocovision ones, rotate the bowl constantly, but that is not as much movement as the KA provides. I didn't mean to suggest that the chocolate should be raised to 93F as the "working temperature." I said you should raise it well above that temp to melt it initially. Then you add additional unmelted chocolate to lower the temp, making sure there is unmelted seed as it gets to 93F, let the seed melt until the chocolate temp is around 89-90F, stir it for a few minutes, then test it. Dark chocolate should then be in temper. As you work with it, over time it becomes overtempered, and that is the time to raise the temp and/or add untempered chocolate. You mentioned that cooling down the chocolate takes time. Yes, that is a (yet another) problem. Adding unmelted chocolate speeds it up, but without a very expensive tempering machine (such as the Selmi), patience is required.

Another situation you must be concerned about is "over-tempering," the condition where too many Type V crystals have formed. You can tell from the viscosity of the chocolate and (probably) from its setting up too quickly on parchment. Over-tempering doesn't usually happen until you have been using the chocolate for a long time, but I've had it happen early. There are two remedies: (1) raise the temperature (being careful not to raise it above approximately 93F) and/or (2) add untempered chocolate (chocolate you have deliberately raised well above 93F and to which you have not added any seed--meaning that it will dilute Type V crystals in the chocolate in the bowl).

This is a puzzle. The Ghiradelli wafers appear to be real chocolate (as opposed to "coating chocolate"). From the spec sheet, they seem more like milk than dark chocolate (they contain 41-50% cacao, plus sugar, milk fat, and vanilla), but that does not matter a great deal in terms of tempering. I don't see any reason to heat the chocolate all the way to 120F, but again, that does not do any harm, just means the process of cooling down takes longer. You are using the seed method to temper, so there is no reason to lower the temp down to 85F, then warm it back up. The only issue that might apply is how much of the seed is completely melted as you get below 95F. If you have studied the science behind tempering, you know that you are seeking to eliminate all crystals in the chocolate by heating it up, then trying to obtain a predominance of Type V crystals by introducing already-tempered seed chocolate. But if all the seed is melting as the temp gets down to around 93F, then you probably don't have Type V crystals remaining. In other words, you must have some unmelted seed as the chocolate gets below 93F. When it is around 90F, you can fish out any unmelted seed (because there won't be much melting below 90F). Assuming it in fact dark chocolate, you can take it down to 89F, then test to see whether it is in temper. Webstaurant Store also carries Guittard, another reasonably priced chocolate; there is more variety to choose from in that brand. As for the differences between using the same product and doing the same thing as in the past but getting different results, welcome to the fickle world of chocolate. Room temperature and humidity can affect chocolate. Photos would definitely help diagnose the issue further.

You might try the proportions of the original recipe you posted but omit the cocoa butter, so: 100g of milk chocolate, 10g of honey, 50g of cream. That provides a ratio of 2:1 chocolate to liquefier. I start with chocolate from the bag (so, we assume, still in temper), melt the chocolate until there are a few pieces left, take it off the heat, then stir to melt all of it, which (unless you have overheated it by a lot over 90F/32C) should still be in temper. Meanwhile heat the cream and honey to 105F/40.5C. Use just a spatula to emulsify the chocolate and cream mixture. Sometimes an immersion blender can be too much. If I see bits of unmelted chocolate, I place the pot on heat for a few seconds. If the ganache still separates, add liquid (skim milk, liquor, even water, but NOT cream) a few drops at a time, still stirring. At the right point you should see that texture that successful ganache has; I describe it as like chocolate pudding, a bit spongy, glossy in appearance. I found this video on fixing broken ganache that might be of help.

Actually that ganache does not look curdled/broken/split to me. Here is an image of such a ganache: If I'm misinterpreting your photo, then the fix is to add warm liquid (skim milk, purée, liquor, water, NOT cream).

Good luck on your venture. As expensive as it may be, a humidity-controlled case is the way to go (IMHO). Especially if you decorate the chocolates with colored cocoa butter, they will lose their shine and have a matte look when humidity hits them. This does not affect the taste but certainly makes them less appealing to the eye (which is, of course, what you want for the sake of sales). I get around this issue in the shops where my chocolates are sold by, first, insisting they have refrigeration available and, second, by sealing each box in a plastic bag to protect from humidity (requiring an investment in an impulse sealer and appropriately sized bags). I suggest reading the various threads on shelf life on eGullet and obtaining one of the standard books on chocolate (two are mentioned in the post by Altay.Oro). It is a very important issue. If you can afford it, get an Aw (water activity) meter to test each filling. Otherwise you can get Jean-Pierre Wybauw's Fine Chocolates Gold, where he provides water activity readings for the recipes. If you don't wish to make either of these (not inexpensive) purchases, you can stick with caramel (and all its variations) and gianduja. My Aw readings for caramel are in the 0.55 neighborhood, meaning it is predicted to last 15-30 weeks (according to Melissa Coppel). My reading for hazelnut gianduja is around 0.60 (12-20 weeks according to Coppel, 15-30 weeks according to Wybauw--you can see that Aw readings are an estimate). When you get into ganache, however, the addition of cream and other perishable ingredients creates a different story altogether. On the other hand, if you stick with butter ganache, you will have a shelf life comparable to the safe numbers mentioned previously.

Some people do it that way, but most (as far as I have seen) spread some chocolate on top of the mold, apply a transfer sheet (with a design pre-printed on it) or plain guitar sheet, then spread the chocolate with a scraper. After the chocolate has crystallized, the acetate sheet can be removed easily. Unless one is an expert, this makes a mess, with chocolate flowing down the sides of the mold. And it is also difficult to remove the chocolate between the cavities with the scraper, but not doing so means they can be very difficult to get out of the mold. Perhaps you can detect that I speak from some unhappy experience. When it works, however, this technique produces an attractive bonbon, and a transfer sheet adds a nice design touch to the bottom of the bonbon--something I have learned, to my surprise, that customers notice and really like.

Those are really beautiful. If you don't mind telling, how do you get such subtlety when painting with cocoa butter? Mine is almost always too fluid to stay in place and runs all over the mold. And, in the case of the bonbon on the far right, the blue color had to be painted first to get the gradient effect.

Can you describe what the ganache looked like? And what were the approximate temperatures of the cream and chocolate when you first tried to emulsify them?

Like pastrygirl, I take shelf life very seriously. But I got even more serious about it when I discovered mold inside a bonbon not long ago. I went into a panic, notified people who had bought the chocolate in question, had to take the boxes off the shelves of a retail outlet. They had been stored in an air-conditioned room with temp around 65F. Turns out that's not low enough. Now I am careful to freeze anything that's going to sit around, and during the period when customers are stopping by to pick up chocolates, I keep them in the storage room, but now with the temp set at 60F. For retail outlets, I now give them instructions on how to keep some of the stock frozen and gradually bring it to fridge temp for sales. I wish I had a cooler with humidity control just for chocolates--that would make me feel better. A wine fridge has the right temp range, but you would need one large enough to hold more than you now make because if your chocolates become popular, your sales will increase more than you probably imagine at this point. No matter how much you tell customers about shelf life, there are always going to be some who stretch the consumption into a far longer time span. So even though I have an Aw meter and test every recipe, a decent reading doesn't guarantee long shelf life. In warmer weather and for freezing, I use an impulse sealer to seal all boxes of chocolates in plastic bags, which protects them from humidity.

My Easter 2021 offerings: Eggs: (clockwise from top): strawberry cream with strawberry pâte de fruit, dark caramel with sea salt, coffee ganache & rum buttercream, crispy hazelnut gianduja. Bonbon assortment: "bananas Foster," "caramel macchiato," cherry with kirschwasser, coconut macadamia, pecan praline gianduja with toasted marshmallow, almond praline gianduja with salted caramel & shortbread, orange blossom mousse, cookie butter, hazelnut crunch with chocolate shortbread, lemon cheesecake, and dark caramel with sea salt.

I'll respond to more of your questions when I have a little more time, but you might want to check out the hemisphere/demisphere molds I have for sale in the Classifieds section of the forum. I was not satisfied with the size of the existing ones (too small to provide a real taste of the filling) or too large (would not fit in the trays I use for boxing). My listing provides the dimensions and shows some of the bonbons I have made with them. I agree with pastrygirl that any shallow mold (eggs, hemispheres, the so-called quenelles) have the issue she mentions. BUT bonbons made with them almost always pop out of the molds without banging on the counter and they are very easy to decorate (a simple swirl of colored cocoa butter, then spray or paint with another color, or just splatter some cocoa butter of various colors across the mold). I'll add here that I have been tempted to sell at the local farmers' market and have almost given in multiple times (vendors even offered a free tent and setup), but the weather is just too problematic. And the market continued during this past December, but at that point I was up to my eyeballs making Christmas chocolates.

So what else have you got to do now that the EZ is done? I always thought you were someone who enjoyed a challenge. The "EZspray" airbrush.

I keep my airbrush warm in a dehydrator, and that helps a lot, but the brush does cool off. Yes, that is the Krea product to which I referred. I looked into it, but it would take so much cocoa butter that it would be completely impractical. But they are on the right track.

I use the same equipment and have almost exactly the same experience. I am not sure how the compressed air (which is probably at room temperature) could be a significant factor in cooling the cocoa butter in the cup, but the metal cup certainly is. I am afraid that this is one of those "that's the way things are" situations. The cocoa butter is much warmer than the surrounding air and will cool as time passes. If my room temp is somewhat warmer, then I can do 2-4 molds without stopping, but usually I play it safe and run the heat gun briefly around the cup and the airbrush after each mold. This does not take a lot of time once you get the routine down. Switching to a plastic cup would probably help hold the temperature of the cocoa butter, but I asked Grex about how heat-resistant that cup is, and they recommended against using a heat gun with it. I have also mentioned to Grex that it would be great to have a larger metal cup, with the thought that a larger mass of cocoa butter would take longer to cool off. The person at Grex was polite but noncommittal about developing such a product. I think Grex is not fully aware of how widespread the use of their airbrushes is in the chocolatier community. My dream is that Grex (or someone) will develop an airbrush with something surrounding the cup to keep it warm, something like the Krea hotCHOC. Perhaps this could be the next project of the developer of the EZtemper!

Yes, that's it. And I also got mine from Nashville Wraps. I still had some from a previous order, so was able to compare the two, and there was/is definitely a chemical odor in the newer one. It also looked different, so for this particular color (which was out of stock for quite a while) they must have a different source.

An odd topic to be sure, but at least it's seasonal: I reordered straw/grass/crinkle-cut paper for Easter baskets from my same supplier last year, and, unlike the previous supply, this batch has a off-smell, something chemical. The supplier said no one else had reported the issue, but I know it's there. What can I do to minimize the odor? Last year I had some powdered vanilla and mixed that with the straw; it helped a little, but vanilla is a rather expensive way to reach the goal. I thought of putting the batch outdoors in the sun for a while, but can't find a container large enough. Yesterday I removed all the remaining straw from the individual bags and left it where it could air out somewhat, but I need an idea that will work more quickly.

I ended up using Brimar Packaging in Ohio and am satisfied with them. There is a thread on packaging that is very useful.

It is available from my website: https://www.santiagochocolates.com/ganache.html