Jim D.

Will you share your recipe? I'd like to see how your approach differs from mine.

You bring up a significant issue with using CCB--opacity. As Kerry wrote, you can look at the ingredients, and if there is white (usually titanium dioxide in the U.S.), it will PROBABLY be opaque. But not always. I airbrushed orange recently. You might think orange would be opaque, and it is to some degree, but dark or milk chocolate behind it make it dull. If you want it to pop, then go for the white. Some other colors (I use Chef Rubber) that you might not expect to be opaque turn out to be. There is a way to test: If you have a sheet of something transparent (hard plastic is ideal), paint some of the melted CCB on a small area. Let it crystallize, then melt some chocolate (dark or milk whichever you are going to be using for the shell) and paint that chocolate on about half of the CCB area. When everything has firmed up, turn the plastic over and look at the blob, comparing the parts with and without chocolate. This is not infallible, but it gives a fairly reliable prediction of what will happen. One last thought: You might expect red to be opaque, but it's one of the most disappointing colors--without white behind it. I don't know if you have access to Chef Rubber, but they now have a non-titanium white that is getting very positive reviews. I think it's the White Natural color, but I am not sure.

If you recall, I started using Orelys in your cinnamon bun recipe, a recipe that has been insanely popular. An eG member has formulated a recipe for making Orelys in a melanger. I'm thinking of giving it a try. It will probably end up costing more than a 3kg bag shipped by Valrhona to me (via many in-between people, I am sure), but I will really miss having it. @Rajala, since you are so close to the Rhone Valley (I know, typical U.S. concept of geography), why don't you make a trip over and find the Orelys warehouse?

I do know a very smart eG member who has figured out the recipe and has made it in a melanger. A reason enough to get a melanger. What irritates me is that you just know Valrhona has a warehouse full of the stuff sitting on the banks of the Rhone. I used it for my pecan pie, cinnamon bun, and more. My Valrhona supplier suggested I substitute Dulcey, but of course they aren't anywhere near the same.

Delicious-sounding assortment and beautiful decoration. Just one downside: I just learned that Valrhona has discontinued Orelys. I have used it in several of my fillings and am very disappointed.

Excellent information. Thanks. I will start weighing--though if I don't temper airbrushed CCB, I suppose it's not an issue. Among my upcoming experiments, I will try your high temps for CCD.

I know you have said that previously. And you don't have any issues (such as the ones I have mentioned above)? Do you use that high a temp for regular airbrushes, or just for the Fuji? What about the overtempering issue? I have never known whether adding extra silk leads to overtempering (whether chocolate or CCB).

The basement where I spray was about 70F, or even warmer when the Fuji has been running for a while. I think a post-Valentine's round of experiments may be in order: spray just orange, spray with white, clean using heat, clean using just towels. I posted this issue on the "Bonbon and chocolate painting techniques" FB group and got the usual confusing mix of explanations. The most comforting one started "I've run into this too." The consensus was that I am taking the CCB out of temper: "You are 100% taking the CCB out of temper. Plus, you have WAY too thick of a CCB layer. The combination of the two is your problem." That person concluded: "if you’re using milk or dark chocolate, just let it be. That minuscule amount of CCB isn’t going to affect your whole batch." But I don't clean off the mold just for appearance. Leaving the CCB makes it more difficult to seal the chocolates and scrape them so that there isn't a thin--or not so thin-layer of cocoa butter everywhere).

The orange was backed with white. The issue may be showing up with other molds, but of course the white makes it more obvious. It does happen more commonly when I back with white, but I don't see any connection, do you? How do you clean off your molds after spraying?

As displayed in the accompanying photo I am still having trouble with bits of colored cocoa butter staying in molds. The pattern is the same, suggesting there may be a single cause This is driving me crazy as the saga goes on and on, and I am looking at every possibility to eliminate the cause. My latest inquiry brings me to the use of silk. I have tried using the warming tray method (described earlier in this thread), but with the heat barely on. It's better, but I have a terrible time getting the excess CCB off the molds and I continue to get the little bits of CCB staying in the cavities. I mostly use my Fuji sprayer, and there is no question it sprays out a lot of CCB. I have tried moving the gun farther away, but that didn't seem to make a difference in the coverage. All these explorations have brought me to the tempering possibility, namely, is the CCB overtempered and is therefore crystallizing immediately? I watch experts decorating shells, and they casually turn a mold upside down and easily wipe away all the excess CCB. I cannot do that. So I am brought to a new question: is it possible to add too much silk when tempering CCB? I don't weigh it, I just put some in (following the example of the esteemed inventor of the EZtemper).

I have one of those. I don't mean to discourage you, but I find assembling it each time a very annoying task. And because it's nowhere near airtight, I wouldn't expect it to hold temp very accurately (which may not be an issue for you). I did, however, find a great use for the little tray that holds water to provide the moisture in the proof box: I lay it on top of parchment, and when I'm letting chocolate sit to form a shell, I put the mold on that tray. In that way the mold doesn't drip so much chocolate down onto the parchment, and I can maintain a hint of neatness.

@Elle Bee An additional thought about trying to keep chocolate in temper while melting it: It's very difficult to do. Greweling mentions it as a way to melt chocolate from the bag and keep it in temper--but for ganache. So it is somewhat easy for the small amount required for ganache, but for large amounts, the chocolate will probably stay quite viscous and will need to be taken well beyond the temper stage, then brought back down. Silk makes all this so much easier. And to add to your future equipment possibilities: I use a dehydrator to melt colored cocoa butter and large amounts of chocolate overnight and am very pleased with it. I can melt milk chocolate in the Mol d'Art while simultaneously melting dark in the dehydrator. No equipment I have found maintains an exact temperature, including the Mol d'Art and the dehydrator, but, as you know, chocolate life means adjusting to reality in ever-changing ways. I also must comment on your dislike of running up and down stairs constantly: I do it with 14 stairs dozens of times a day. That's what makes it possible to snack from the chocolate bag from time to time. 😁

This depends so much on the chocolate you are using. Mine is usually flowing easily, though certainly thicker than the cream. If melted chocolate is noticeably viscous, I would say you have a problem, probably with humidity in the work space. First, although Greweling says that chocolate used for a slab must be tempered, not everyone does that. I have used it tempered and untempered and have not (to be honest) noticed any difference. If it is out of temper and you are adding silk later, then it will be tempered. Sometimes I hold mine in my Mol d'Art melter for days, but I definitely don't trust it to be in temper after such a long time. It will almost certainly be overtempered. As you probably know, there are several methods of bringing overtempered chocolate back into temper; all involve melting some of the excess Type V crystals. When I leave chocolate in the melter overnight, I cover it so that the heating process is more efficient. When I am making shells, I leave it uncovered (so that I can dump excess chocolate into it), but I take the cooler ambient air into account when setting the temperature. Unless you experience very humid conditions in your work space, I don't see condensation as a problem--if it is, you would need to take more drastic action to lower the humidity.

It's on page 204 of the second edition. You can substitute something else for the balsamic vinegar (such as a reduced strawberry purée or good-quality strawberry flavoring or compound). According to Greweling's notes on butter ganache, the mixture is very forgiving about the amount of liquid you add. Just one caution: you may find the taste (strawberry in this case) somewhat muted in a butter ganache--the price you pay, I guess one could say, for having a longer shelf life.

What I do for my strawberry Easter eggs is to pipe in a relatively small layer of strawberry pâte de fruit, then on top of it a layer of Kerry's strawberry buttercream with added natural strawberry flavoring from Amoretti. The PdF adds a lot of flavor. My Aw measurement was 0.73, which is not bad.

@Dark side, since you have called me out for my nagging, I feel I have no choice but to respond to your questions. As I say quite often, I consider myself still a learner in this business, by no means an expert. Mostly it's been trial and error, with a great deal of the latter. With that caveat... Yes, on the .7mm Grex--though pastrygirl's Spanish airbrush sounds intriguing. Having to stop to heat up your spraying device becomes more annoying than you might at first imagine. Even if you go for a less expensive airbrush, I would definitely get one in the trigger style. I have a California Air Tools compressor with 4.6 gal. capacity. If I were doing it over, I would get the same brand but with a larger capacity. I am finding that as time passes, the compressor is running more often, and experts say that is bad for the device in the long run. The price differential for a larger one is not great. More significantly: If you decide later to get a spray gun (a move that is quite common in the business), the 4.6 gal. compressor struggles (and runs almost constantly). Spray guns, by the way, are quite inexpensive, relatively speaking. I know others disagree, but I found using a box, fan, and filter inadequate for keeping overspray out of the air, and the filter clogged up very quickly. With the CakeSafe booth, the "pre-filter" has to be changed quite often, but I don't find the cost of filters exorbitant, and I can see clearly when it needs to be replaced. I realize that the cost of the CakeSafe may be a factor, especially as you are just beginning. I have said this next thing before, but I'll repeat it here: Clairvoyance would be very helpful when considering chocolate equipment, but obviously is in short supply. I wasted money buying equipment that in no time at all became inadequate (airbrush, compressor, etc.). If you grow to enjoy making decorated chocolates, you will be hooked, people will find their way to you, and you will want/need to make more, and then your first Christmas season will hit you over the head. With that in mind, I will add that even my moderate production quantities are made more bearable by having a Fuji spray gun. You can spray many more molds without having to reheat the gun because it holds much more cocoa butter than the Grex (or any airbrush I know of). The Fuji (and other spray guns) are also more forgiving in pushing cocoa butter through the nozzle. I have found that a few grains of unmelted cocoa butter can clog my Grex and require much use of a heat gun, whereas a spray gun can handle that issue much better (proof of this just last week: the Grex refused to spray, no amount of heat or stirring with my thermometer would unclog it, in disgust I poured the CB into my Fuji, and it sprayed the same CB without issue). Will airbrushing take longer than hand painting? Perhaps a little longer, but the quality is so much better. I never had much success trying to cover a mold by using a paintbrush--the cocoa butter was streaked, it ran, coverage was spotty. In a few seconds you can cover an entire mold with spray from an airbrush. One of chocolatier Kalle Jungstedt's useful insights is that over-brushing a mold will take the cocoa butter out of temper and cause it to stick to the mold. If I were in your position and had all the advice now available on eGullet on this topic, I would probably get the Grex again (I use the Fuji much more often these days--but the Grex is excellent in doing gradients and similar detailed work, which the Fuji is not always good at), but I would definitely get a compressor with capacity to service a spray gun.

Yes, my setup for two layers is as you describe, and it does result in more or less the same height for each layer. For the 1/2", I don't worry about the height I'm losing (there's only so much I can worry about). If you are concerned, you could purchase an extra 1/8" bar (if you can find it). Aluminum bars might work as long as they are glued down (with chocolate) thoroughly.

Yes, I still use this method, and yes, I use untempered chocolate for the foot. There are several opinions on the foot: Some say tempered chocolate (I find it shatters easily), some say overtempered chocolate (I'm not even sure how to achieve the overtempered state without taking a lot of time), some say untempered (which sometimes shatters, but not often). I heat it to well over 100F so that it doesn't start hardening before I can spread it. And I definitely spread it on acetate and then spread the filling on top of it. I don't put the foot on top unless it's a very soft filling that is not going to be easy to dip later, then it gets "two feet," so to speak.

I used Felchlin's 72% Arriba for the bottoms, and it worked very well (I didn't use any heat). The ganache had sunk a bit more than I desired, so the Arriba layer was thick and therefore is less than perfect for biting. I suppose I should make sure my customer dental insurance is paid up. But the gratifying part is that the dark chocolate counteracts the sweet date filling quite well, and I have made a note to use dark for the shell in the future. Even though the Aw is very good, the ganache needs a bit more cocoa butter to firm it up. It has an amazing quantity of Amarula in it; I think the ganache proportions work because Amarula is the only liquid (no cream) and because the dates add a huge amount of solids. I am pleased with the date, lemon, and Amarula combination, and @Kerry Beal, I thank you for that idea.

I've already included lemon. Perhaps some more is called for.

I'm interested in your remark on "the heating thing." So many famous chocolatiers swear by it (Kalle Jungstedt, KIrsten Tibballs, just to name two) that I began to think I must be missing something. It does seem to help with that phenomenon of chocolate running behind the colored cocoa butter in certain molds. The reason I came to the idea of using a dark bottom on this bonbon was the filling. I took your idea of pairing Amarula liqueur with dates. I developed a recipe, measured its Aw, tasted it countless times with various chocolates, etc. The conclusion was that the filling tasted best with caramelized white. But today, when I got to producing these bonbons (and had already made the shells, of course), they tasted much too sweet. It turns out dates are sweet--who knew? I'm now mulling over my options for rescuing the bonbons--nursing a little Amarula on the rocks seems to help the process.

I have some bonbons shelled in caramelized white chocolate and, to counteract some of the sweetness, would like to use a dark chocolate to seal them. Is there any inherent reason different chocolates can't be used for the main shell and the bottom? I don't ordinarily use a heat gun on bonbons before pouring the sealing layer (with the exception of caramel fillings, where the slight melting seems to help stop any leaking), but I thought that in this case I would use that step just to encourage the two parts to stick together.

I was going to say that if you are using raw flour, there is the issue of taste. I assume the filling is sticking together with butter or something similar? There might be the issue of having a filling that is too dry, taste-wise, and there is the consideration that ganaches dry out as they sit. But if this turns out as well as your cinnamon bun recipe (which I use frequently), then I will have to beg for the recipe.

The brownie idea sounds interesting. I don't think there should be an issue with using flour. If there is one, there are certainly a lot of chocolatiers using some form of cookies in their bonbons who would be in trouble. In fact, there is one of them located just down the street from you (more or less), Kalle Jungstedt, who uses cookie layers a lot. Of his tiramisù's savoiardi layer, he writes: "the cookie base is water free with months of shelf life."

Following Kerry's diagnosis and suggestions: I would, in the future, definitely make the hazelnut paste alone, then mix it with chocolate, heat the mixture, then temper it (preferably over cocoa butter silk if you have it, by stirring over cold water, or by tabling the whole mass). The heat resulting from processing plus the initial heat of the hazelnuts is probably taking the chocolate way out of temper. Peter Greweling writes: "Because gianduja is a fat system, and not an emulsion, there is no danger of separation." It would appear you have proved Professor Greweling wrong! But his diagnosis and remedies for "overly viscous" gianduja may prove helpful: The cause of this situation, he writes, is "excessive processing, resulting in heat damage" or "insufficient cocoa butter in chocolate." His remedy for the first issue is "Do not process gianduja in the machine excessively after the chocolate is added" and, for the second, "Use chocolate with sufficient cocoa butter content." If you take Kerry's suggestion and tackle a small quantity of your "split gianduja" at a time, you might have success. If you put a little melted cocoa butter or tasteless oil in the processor, then add the defective gianduja a little at a time through the feed tube, the two fats (chocolate and hazelnuts) might come together once again. Other than that, the only step I can think of is to make this into a kind of ganache, adding a little liquid, and see if an emulsion will form. The resulting mixture will be more perishable than gianduja. But if this issue occurs again, adding cocoa butter (whether by using a chocolate with higher cocoa butter content or by adding plain melted cocoa butter) sounds like the best idea. What brand of chocolate did you use?