Jim D.

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)

I have come to believe that one of the crucial facts to know about Andrey's techniques is that he was decorating only a couple of molds at a time--he did not have to be concerned with the temp of the c.b. getting too low (though he did use a heat gun from time to time). In addition, many of his colors were translucent, and therefore thinner. Finally, he held the airbrush farther from the mold than I tend to do; the result is a thinner layer (but more overspray--which he got). This insight is also good to bear in mind. There is no way the c.b. being sprayed stays perfectly in temper as time passes--unless you stop frequently and check it, reheating if necessary--and during that checking time, it's continuing to change. If my spraying space is cool, I tend to stop and reheat from time to time just in case, but not usually stopping to check the actual temp of the c.b. (in the case of the Fuji sprayer, it's a major nuisance to have to remove the pressure cap and stick a thermometer inside the cup). If the c.b. thickens noticeably and spraying slows, then I check the temp, stir up the c.b. with the Thermapen, and reheat as necessary.

I would not use a heat gun--too much danger of ruining the cocoa butter. What I do is to fold a heating pad in half, get it warm, and keep a stack of single paper towels inside it to warm them up. Then I rub between the cavities with the towel to remove cocoa butter.

So you didn't follow Andrey's 86F/30C idea?

Perhaps @Kerry Beal will weigh in about the tempering of cocoa butter. I must agree that when Andrey said 86F, I was puzzled because I had always thought the working temp of cocoa butter should be about the same as dark choc (ca. 90F), but there is no questioning Andrey's results. To tell the truth, I have had as many successes as failures with c.b. sticking to molds regardless of the temp. I am also reasonably sure that the temp inside an airbrush or paint gun fluctuates much more than we would care to know! That's why the Krea Swiss heated guns are so intriguing--just wish they made one suitable in size for cocoa butter.

There are various approaches to the optimal temp for spraying. Those of us who took Andrey Dubovik's online course learned from him that 86F is the temp at which c.b. should be sprayed--and in (what seems to me) a very cool room. As far as I know, it is still a theory that the action of spraying tempers c.b., and when you think about it, how could we ever know one way or the other? I am not aware of any device that can measure the temp of c.b. as it is flying through the air. It would seem to me that at 95-99F there would likely be few Type V crystals remaining. But your experience must be evidence that temps that high don't have a negative effect on the result. I also find that if I scrape the mold immediately after spraying it, the time spent scraping results in the c.b. in the airbrush dropping in temp and therefore requiring very frequent reheating. You don't find that to be case?

I find this happens most often with white as a backing layer (as pastrygirl suggested, the layers are getting too thick). I don't think there is any way to stop it: crystallized cocoa butter tends to crack, especially the longer you wait to remove it. It's the same principle governing the making of stripes--if you wait too long to remove the tape, the stripe has little chunks missing. If the white I see in the photo is in fact a backing layer, I don't find the little chips make any difference--the colored cocoa butter underneath will still show and nobody will notice a slight variation in the color. (I can't believe I'm defending being casual about blemishes in chocolates, but that's what happens after doing this for too long!)

One additional thought: If you go to the archive of The Chocolate Life (it has fairly recently moved to its present format, but the old forum was really useful), there is this link, where Clay Gordon mentions his relationship to a display case manufacturer--and that company is located in New Jersey, no less! Might be just down the block from you.

Miriam, Have you posted this question on The Chocolate Life forum/classifieds? If you don't know that site, it's https://foodmaven.io/thechocolatelife/. It's moderated by Clay Gordon, who (along with others on that forum) knows a great deal about equipment related to chocolate. If you don't get the information you seek on eG, you might try that. Jim

Good idea. I would have to see whether it masks the maple flavor, which is surprisingly (to me) "fragile."