Jim D.

Frankly I can't imagine a good-tasting white chocolate from Kroger (assuming you meant it's the store brand). You might find Lindt at Kroger, but it's going to be expensive. As others have said, you should probably invest in some decent white couverture. You will still most likely have overtempering problems but almost certainly have a better, less-sweet taste. The thickening of white chocolate is just the way it is, and the methods you mention are the ways of dealing with it. I have found that raising the temperature gradually even as high as 90F/32C works to thin it out some, and adding untempered chocolate helps as well. If you do the latter, you can let the chocolate to be added cool to around 90F/32C and add it slowly up to one-half or even more of the volume already in the bowl. Be sure and recheck the temper. Many have found Cacao Barry's Zéphyr one of the easiest whites to work with (and it's also less expensive than the Valrhona offerings). If you haven't done so, you might want to read through the threads on white chocolate (there are some on the best-tasting ones and on tempering problems).

I bought these 6-piece trays to hold chocolates and no longer have use for them. I am giving them away; all you need do is pay the shipping cost. There are at least 250 of them. Note that the cavities are large: 1 7/8" x 1 7/8" (these are intended for "turtles or toffees" or similarly large items).

That's the hope... but sometimes I wonder if all people care about is the look. There are times when I think we should all go back to completely undecorated chocolates--and let the flavors be what it's all about.

Here are my offerings for Easter 2019, first the bonbons: Fillings (clockwise starting with the yellow piece at the top): (1) banana and passion fruit caramel in dark chocolate, (2) apple caramel in dark chocolate, (3) layers of dulce de leche and coffee ganache in dark chocolate, (4) layers of cherry pâte de fruit and pistachio gianduja in dark chocolate, (5) layers of black currant ganache and hazelnut gianduja in milk chocolate, (6) dark chocolate ganache with orange, cinnamon, and habañero pepper, (7) layers of butterscotch and caramelized pecans, (8) layers of dark caramel, almond gianduja, and shortbread. In the center: (9) yuzu and ginger ganache in white chocolate. And the eggs: The fillings (clockwise starting with the red egg at the top): (1) layers of strawberry pâte de fruit and strawberry cream in white chocolate, (2) layers of coffee ganache and rum buttercream in milk chocolate, (3) salted caramel in dark chocolate, (4) crispy hazelnut gianduja in dark chocolate.

You haven't been in business long enough to have reliable statistics, so (as pastrygirl suggested), this will be a best-guess situation--and a note-taking opportunity for next year. If you have the means of freezing bonbons, I would make more and get the unsold ones into the freezer after Easter. On the other hand, if you run out, that (I have discovered) is not a total loss as it creates a kind of "buzz" about your business--these are the chocolates to have, and you have to get there early if you want them!

On the recommendation of @Kerry Beal, I got the Platinum Q4. There are also a few extras that make spraying more tolerable. There is a special small cup that works quite well. I would be glad to tell you what else I bought besides the system itself and the needle that works the best, etc. As far as regular HVLP guns go, you want to look for a mini-spray gun; they will have small spray cups that are tall and thin, thus requiring less cocoa butter. The same is true of the special cup for the Fuji..

Indeed I have a Grex airbrush. You can read my review of it on this page. I have to say, however, that I don't use it as much as I used to. It is still the best airbrush I have used, and for doing gradients, it is still my first choice. But I came to feel that the amount of time I spent reheating the cocoa butter was too annoying. When my sales increased recently, I took the leap (which in that thread to which I linked I said I would never take) and purchased a Fuji sprayer. I haven't yet written a review of it, but many others who use it have said lots. Actually I would suggest you read through that thread, where you will find much discussion of the tools for decorating molds. About the Fuji, I will say at this point, after having used it for nine months, that I am sold on it. It is so quick and stays warm for so long that, even with smaller numbers of molds, it makes spraying them much easier. I keep it warm in a dehydrator, and it is ready to go. It is quite rare that I ever have to stop and give it a thorough reheating with a heat gun. It also does splattering beautifully (which few if any airbrushes can do and some regular HVLP guns can but many cannot). Yes, the Fuji is expensive, but most chocolatiers underestimate how their business will eventually grow and how expensive it is in the long run to keep upgrading from one airbrush system to another (I am now the proud possessor of four airbrushes, one inexpensive HVLP mini-gun, and two compresssors, plus untold cables, connectors, moisture traps, etc.+). And the Fuji isn't as expensive as it first seems because it includes the compressor as part of the package.

That sounds very intriguing. Do you have a source for the recipe?

@pastrygirl, love the marbled bunny. And obviously Jackson Pollock has come back to life to design those beautiful eggs.

Yes, I am, but am currently too busy to stop for decent photographs. Besides, after @A Polderman's eggs, mine pale in comparison. My big success this year was getting an egg with a stripe--and not one drop of leakage of cocoa butter behind the stripe. It's all about the tape, I have learned.

@A Polderman, those eggs are beautiful, truly works of art. Did your husband use paintbrushes for the intricate pineapple design? If so, that's amazing since it is so difficult to paint successfully on polycarbonate. So often the cocoa butter is too fluid to stay where you paint it, particularly on the sloped sides of the egg. Do you have any tips on the technique? Do you have a chocolate business where you sell these creations?

Do you wait until the first coat sets before adding additional ones, or do you add one immediately after the previous?

Thanks for all those suggestions. Actually 50 euros per bottle is not far from what many liqueurs cost in the U.S.--by the time import duties, federal tax, state tax, etc., are figured in. What is your opinion of the Dolceterra products? I am suspicious because they have just about any flavor one could want, somewhat like Jacquin's in the U.S. It appears many of the products, such as apricot or peach brandy, are alcohol with an added flavoring.

I use these acetate sheets from JB Prince (they don't provide the thickness).

That cutter is impressive--I wish I had your mechanical skills. This is off your topic, but I am impressed with the fact that you make your own transfer sheets. I bought the plastic sheets intended for this purpose and made some (what I thought were) impressive designs, but the cocoa butter cracked off in pieces once it was in place (either on top of a slab or in a magnetic mold). I assumed the cocoa butter was too thick, but when you do things like splatter it across the plastic or paint it n various colors, they are bound to get thick. What are you secrets? If you have some ideas you are willing to share, it might be better to direct this discussion to an existing thread on making transfer sheets.

When I am sealing bonbons containing caramel, just before pouring the melted chocolate over the top of the mold, I pass a heat gun back and forth a few times over the top of the mold. I hold the gun (actually in this case a hair dryer) far enough above the mold so as not to melt the chocolate very much. The theory is that the heat slightly softens the edges of the bonbons so that the chocolate you are about to pour will bond more securely to the bonbon sides. I'm not entirely sure it works, but it seems to have lessened the leaking problem for me. Another thing I do is to take the caramel to a slightly higher temperature than "soft-ball" stage. It makes piping more difficult, but it also makes the caramel less runny and therefore less prone to leak out. If a filling is fluid, the laws of nature dictate that it will try to find a way to escape, and shells often have nearly invisible pinholes in them. And ultimately, if all else fails, you can try this (which works when the bonbons are still in the mold or have already been unmolded): Temper some chocolate and cut some small pieces of acetate. Then use a knife to spread some chocolate over the bottom of the finished bonbon that is leaking. Apply the acetate, let the chocolate set, then remove the acetate. It doesn't usually make for a very pretty bottom, but we can't all have pretty bottoms. 😉

I do not claim to be an expert on this recipe. It is delicious, but I find it very difficult to get it to come out the way Greweling's does. Because the chocolate "crust" is so firm, I could not get neat squares, and since it (obviously) cannot be cut on a guitar, I have basically given up on the recipe--the way it is specified. I have switched to an alternative molded bonbon that has the same flavors, but turns out very well. But as for your questions: I used an 16" x 24" acetate sheet that I got from JB Prince and use mostly for creating slabs to be cut and dipped. Like you, I could not get the chocolate layer as thin as Greweling says. Another issue I had is that if I roll the croquant with a rolling pin to separate the sesame seeds (as specified), they tend to be crushed and lose some of their desired crunch. I was afraid of leaving caramel bits that were too large and hard, posing a threat to my customers' teeth. Yet another issue is finding a satisfactory tahini paste. There is a reply to my query about this somewhere on eGullet, but I don't have the time right now to locate it; in that post, shain (who lives in Israel) listed several good ones. I used Soom, which suffered a food recall not long ago, but seems fine now. Getting tahini that uses roasted sesame seeds seems to be the key to flavor.

I have an opportunity to obtain (without a trip to NYC, where everything appears available) some hard-to-find liqueurs or brandies for my chocolate work, primarily in ganaches. I already have a poire Williams eau-de-vie and a framboise one as well. I have German kirschwasser but am getting low on that, so am thinking of getting more while I have this chance. For new ones, I'm thinking primarily of apricot. I have heard there are some wonderful European apricot brandies/liqueurs, but don't know which really taste of apricots and are worth purchasing. And the other flavor I would like is a strawberry brandy or liqueur. Online I've found Dolceterra Marcati wild strawberries liqueur and Drillaut strawberry liqueur but know nothing about either. I lean more toward a liqueur/cordial than eau-de-vie because sometimes I think the latter does not always taste specifically of the fruit. Any guidance would be much appreciated, including ideas for fruits I haven't mentioned.

This warming tray is 15 1/2" x 12" (large enough for my largest molds, plus some extra room for moving the mold back and forth), is completely flat, has temperature control, and is priced around $35. @Kerry Beal, is it possible, using this method of removing excess cocoa butter, to put off cleaning the molds until I have finished spraying, or do I still need to stop and do it after each is sprayed? The former would be so much more efficient (the gun wouldn't cool off as fast, for one thing), but I realize there are limits to how much a heated surface can accomplish.

Here is the one I was checking out. I didn't post the link before because I haven't decided definitely. It's a little larger than I wanted, and space is at a premium in my setup. But I like that the heat is (somewhat) adjustable since I don't want to melt the chocolate shells. There are a lot of warming trays out there, it turns out.

Exactly what I needed to know and wanted to hear. Thanks.

What a terrific idea this cleaning technique is (coming from someone with sore hands from rubbing cocoa butter from the tops of molds for hours on end last night). The TWT-20 seems to have been replaced by larger models, though there are still some older ones on eBay. Of course Amazon saw me looking and came up with several other suggestions (a little creepy but sometimes helpful). One I saw has a temperature control. You have mentioned those shop cloths before. No doubt I can find them, but I think you said previously you just toss them in the washer. How in the world do you get the colors out? I would also be a bit concerned about cocoa butter going down the drain (I am fanatical about the kitchen sink when I wash molds, having required one plumber visit in the time I have been working with chocolate). I suppose the shop cloths are not cheap enough to throw them away? (I can hear the gasps now, but at least I'll stop wasting paper towels. 😄)

I asked this question previously, and @keychris, who is very familiar with the school, answered me as follows: I signed up and have profited a great deal from the videos. Kirsten Tibballs, who does most of them, is very talented in decorating bonbons and has many good ideas. There are guest teachers doing some of the videos, such as Melissa Coppel. Kirsten's demonstration of the "feathering" technique (referred to most often on eGullet as dendrites) makes the whole process easy to understand--see the example from minas a few posts earlier. And finally, I love watching KIrsten: she seems to have such a good time in the work.

This happens frequently with more shallow cavities (as with demispheres, cocoa pods, quenelles, half-eggs). Your cavities don't look really shallow, but I'm sure it's what pastrygirl said. There has been a discussion of this before (don't have time now to search for that thread), and the consensus seemed to be that it is very difficult if not impossible to prevent this problem. As someone pointed out, it happens to the best chocolatiers in the world. I know that it happened to bonbons made by Andrey Dubovik in his online course. It's possible to scrape off the excess color, but that is very time consuming. One thing you can do with molds having shallow cavities is to be sure they are level at all stages of the process. What happens is that in this type of mold, the shells often release prematurely (it is a positive thing in that it shows they will come out of the mold without difficulty, but it has the downside you have discovered, and if you are piping something sticky like caramel, it will sometimes lift the mold right out of the cavity). If you hold the mold at eye level, it is easier to check whether any shells are tilted. If they tilt, then you will get that problem.

And you have been coloring outside the lines ever since! 😋 (Fortunately for all of us here)