Jim D.

As I write this, I have just finished using my Delta, so everything is fresh in my mind. I can provide what I have learned over many batches made with the machine. I heat my chocolate to somewhere in the 110-115 range. I do it overnight in a dehydrator before using the Delta, so it is ready to be poured into the machine. Before I had the dehydrator, I melted the chocolate in a large bowl in the microwave. Either of those methods will speed the melting process along. But before melting, I remove 250-300g of the chocolate and set it aside (small pieces work best). You are right that one drawback of the Chocovision machines (and any tabletop temperers, I suspect) is that they don't have a cooling mechanism. Of course, if they did, they would cost a great deal more money. There are such machines; they are called Selmis (or similar products). A cool room temp will also speed the process. I use the manual mode of the Delta so that I can control the process more precisely. (Someone at Chocovision told me that the automated methods offered by the machine can be programmed to use whatever temps you want, but my machine was made just before that option was added.) When I add the melted chocolate to the bowl and start the machine, I set the temp for 95F and add the amount of unmelted chocolate I set aside. That helps to bring down the temp more quickly. Then, at 95F, I add whatever seed I am using (there is no point in adding seed above that temp since it won't do any seeding). You could add it earlier (as Chocovision directs), but I like to use a block of chocolate for seed and don't want to use it up just for cooling the chocolate. I set the temp for 90, at which point I remove the seed and set the machine for whatever final working temp I want. I have checked, and the Delta holds the set temp very well. That is the reason I like this machine. But the constant rotation does overtemper the chocolate. Needless to say, overtempering happens with whatever method you use to temper. It's just the way chocolate is. Chocovision suggests several methods for coping. The simplest is to raise the temp. Raising it a degree at a time somehow thins out the chocolate. I say "somehow" because I have no idea why this occurs--no Type V crystals are being melted out until we get above 93F or so. I posted this question on eGullet once, and no one had a definitive answer. When the overtempering appears again, you can take the step of raising the temp to something like 95 for a period of time, then lowering it to where it was. I always check the temper at that point because you never know what has happened to those crystals. Chocovision speaks of "killing" some Type V crystals--a vivid image, however inexact it might be. This method works. But the method I prefer, especially if I am doing a large batch, is to add untempered chocolate. For this purpose, before I begin melting the chocolate the night before, I remove 1/4 to 1/3 of it and place it in a separate bowl to melt at the same time as the contents of the larger bowl. When I want to start tempering, I leave the smaller amount in the dehydrator. So when the overtempering starts, I remove the small bowl from the dehydrator and let the chocolate cool down but not below 95 or so. I have found that it's OK to add it, small amounts at a time, to the Chocovision bowl at 95F, even as high as over 100 (which I just did today). As long as you don't add too much, the temper will be maintained and the chocolate will be more fluid. To me it feels like starting the batch all over again with freshly tempered chocolate. Of course, the overtempering process starts again, and so it goes.... Probably more detail than you wanted, but I have experimented a lot over the years and wanted to include what I have learned.

I'm thinking he might be a keeper.

I temper with silk from the EZtemper and test each time before spraying.

I also continue to try to find the "right" procedure, while having the suspicion that there may not be a right way. I dutifully temper the cocoa butter and test it before use. I do not work in an especially cold space. I think one factor that has not been mentioned is humidity, and I often wonder if that is important. It will always be a mystery to me: In a recent batch, most bonbons released with no issues, but some (far too many for my sanity) left cocoa butter behind in the molds. I can't think of any sensible explanation for these erratic results. The adjoining cavities were washed, polished (cloth only), etc.--in every conceivable way treated exactly the same. But how many times has this observation been posted on eG? I am going to pay more attention to the temperature of the cocoa butter as it is being used (swirled, airbrushed, etc.) on the suspicion that I may be using the heat gun too carelessly (or letting the cocoa butter cool too much while in use). It is a major pain to stop airbrushing to take the temp of cocoa butter, but I continue to seek a factor I can control. Just another guess in the puzzle.

I'm inclined to think the temp has more to do with it. There are professional chocolatiers with shiny bonbons who don't use alcohol (in one case I know of, the molds are not washed at all between uses). Dubovik does not use alcohol, and his bonbons are blinding (so to speak). On the other hand, as much as I admire your stamina, when I translated 18C into 64.4F, I knew I would need to continue sacrificing some shininess--it's difficult to make chocolates in an overcoat!

Thanks for checking. I think it would be fine. Melissa's info is available on a Cacao Barry site, and Wybauw's in his books. Is this FB group open to those interested in chocolate?

The Art of the Chocolatier. The other book you mention was authored by Peter Greweling.

How fine were the cookie bits and how did you manage to pipe them while still leaving them large enough to have crunch? That's the question!

I used ground graham crackers for my experiment (totally ground). The issue with leaving "bigger than sand" pieces is that they won't pass through the tip of a piping bag (and if you cut the opening to be larger, it's impossible to pipe without making a huge mess).

You bring up the issue I encountered when I tried to make a pipeable cookie layer (rather than inserting an actual cookie and surrounding it with something to keep it crisp). I ground up cookies and added chocolate (I tried various chocolates as well as cocoa butter), and it worked in terms of being pipeable and being much better at filling up the cavity without leaving gaps, BUT the layer was no longer crisp. I know of a chocolatier who regularly makes a pipeable layer of ground graham crackers for a cheesecake bonbon, but I had no success with it at all.

That's what I was assuming. Here gingerbread is a soft cake.

Sounds very good. If you don't mind, I have more questions: What made the third layer crispy? Did you use something like gingersnaps ground up or ... ?

@Rajala, tell us what the layers are in the gingerbread filling.

@Muscadelle, beautiful but I am confused. Does the color come from the "highlighter dust" or do you also spray with metallic cocoa butter? And can you explain what the dust is, some sort of luster dust?

Yes, I sometimes make fillings ahead and vacuum-seal and freeze them. They are fine, BUT (painful experience showing here) they must be heated up very slowly, especially if they contain white chocolate. They "want" to separate and must be coddled. I break them up into small clumps and heat a few, then a few more. It ends up almost being more trouble than it's worth, but if I happen to have a lot left, it seems a shame to throw it out. If I'm making some new but also using old (as I am today), I make the recipe for the new, then, at the end, mix in the old (slowly and with immersion blender). I have quit making fillings ahead purposely because of these issues. I feel the same way you do about showing others how to do things. I consider myself still learning. But, in my limited experience, most people are in awe of what we do (they find transfer sheets amazing--which I consider the easiest way to make a nice-looking chocolate, requiring very little skill), so I am sure you will be considered a guru.

In both of these cases there might be an issue knowing if a juice concentrate needs to have some water added to it (as one would normally add water to orange juice concentrate to make juice). If the concentrate seems considerably more viscous than a juice or purée might be, then I would add a little water. I say that because if you have too little water in the recipe, you may throw off the balance of fat (including cocoa butter) to liquefiers and have a split ganache. But--and there is always a complicating factor--Greweling's passion fruit ganache calls for reducing the purée so you end up with...what else?...a concentrate. You might just have to experiment to see what works (that's what Kerry B. always tells me to do). One positive bit of info you probably already know: If a ganache splits, in my experience it's usually because there is too much fat, so I add drops of skim milk or water or whatever liquid is in the recipe, and the ganache comes back together (usually).

I have often wondered the same thing about that recipe. So what I have done is to use fresh lemons, juice them, then strain out the seeds and add some of the "globules" (I'm sure that is not the correct term) of lemon pulp to the strained juice. So it's sort of a compromise. It can be quite difficult to do this if a particular lemon has tiny seeds. The recipe has worked fine when I used mostly juice. I used Meyer lemon once. As I am sure you know, the flavor is milder.

The books are no longer available.

@RWood, I assume you have read through the discussion in this thread, particularly on the Grex. I strongly recommend it, the 0.7mm needle is what you need, but I would get the gravity flow, not the side. With the cup on the side, you are adding an unnecessary extra path for the cocoa butter to travel, and cocoa butter needs as straight a path as possible. The California Airtools compressor should work fine for what you want. If you think you will ever do more with chocolate and require a spray gun, you might want to think more air capacity, but this one is fine for an airbrush. The other compressor does not have enough capacity to keep your airbrush going without interruption.

Thanks for those great ideas. I was about to ask you if there was an alternate term for "rubber policeman," thinking it was an inside term that chemists use and Google would not have heard of it. But I suppose Google should never be underestimated--multiple sources for such policemen popped up immediately.

Me too. I have a tiny little sharp knife that I sometimes use. I would love to find a tiny angled spatula that would fit into a cavity, but it would have to be so small that there would be no room for the angled part. There must be some tool somewhere that would do it. The finger approach has the added advantage of heating up the ganache a tiny bit to nudge it into flatness. I have never been able to figure out why some (not many) dark ganaches self-level and most do not. Over the years I have been gradually inching up the temp at which I pipe to get as much fluidity as possible without melting the shells.

About ventilation for spraying cocoa butter: There are many approaches and solutions to this. Many people (me previously) use just a big box with a hole cut in the back and a furnace filter attached there, with a powerful fan behind the box. It did not work all that well for me. As soon as the filter gets clogged with cocoa butter (which happens quite soon), it doesn't really work any longer. The professional chocolatiers we saw at the most recent Las Vegas eGullet workshop have separate rooms with huge fans venting (I assume) to the outside. Some will argue, however, that when the ducts to the outside gets clogged with cocoa butter, they also don't work all that well. My current solution--and I continue to be very pleased with it--is the "master spray booth" from CakeSafe. The inventor based it on the principle that cocoa butter in the air is basically completely different from paint fumes. This device does not need venting to the outside because it has multiple layers of filters and a powerful fan that keep cocoa butter mostly inside the booth area (which is created with large acrylic panels). Truly, if a white sheet of cardboard is held behind the spray booth, no color shows up on it. Still I wear a respirator from 3M ever since I read one of Kerry's comments on blue showing up in her nose.

Are you using "truffle" in the true sense of a ganache or other filling rolled into a ball (or other shape) then dipped in chocolate or something such as cocoa powder, coconut, or nuts--or in the wider sense of a bonbon filled with ganache or other filling then sealed with chocolate? If you are making a ganache and have Ewald Notter's book, his recipe for lemon is very lemony, and lastingly so. He calls for both juice and zest. But his is too fluid to roll into a ball. If you need it to be firm enough to roll into a ball, then I think, as Kerry has already said, you can add (more) lemon zest and lemon oil. For lemon oil, I strongly recommend Boyajian. Some experts, such as Kirsten Tibballs, caution against leaving zest in a ganache, warning of textural changes over time, but I have never found this to be true.

It is a wonderful combination. Recipe is from Ewald Notter. Yes, the ginger is chopped, then steeped for a long time in the hot cream (I understand that you cannot add ginger to a dairy-based product as it will curdle, somehow steeping avoids that). Notter uses white for the shells. I usually use white (or Cacao Barry's caramelized white), but it also works in dark.

Having just finished making a yuzu and ginger ganache, I can attest that chipping off the yuzu purée was quite a task. I use one of those "chippers" intended to break up blocks of chocolate. My yuzu purée has quite a lot of solids in it, but is still very hard. The recipe calls for reducing it by half to intensify the flavor--and get rid of some of the water content.