Jim D.

This look great. The stripe is still sharp after unmolding. I wish they made the tape you found in a wider size, but I could not find it. And speaking of finding the tape, it does not appear on the main Scotch site. If you do a search for it ("Artist Tape for Curves"), what comes up is "Artist Tape for Canvas," which may or may not be the same thing (of the three images provided, one of them is of "Artist Tape for Curves"--rather confusing). Also interesting is that on Amazon the "Curves" tape is listed as being 1/8" wide, but if you look closely at the image, the package says it is 1/6" wide. I think the crucial factor about the tape you found is that it is plastic and stretchy, not paper and therefore produces a sharper line. What is the approximate diameter of the cavity of the mold you used?

Crucial thing to know that you have to take neighbors into consideration. First, it's good of you to think of them. I spent many years living in apartments below people until finally my #1 criterion for choosing a place was that it had to be on the top floor. But even there you do have to consider those below you. If I were in your situation, I would find a way to cushion the sound--if the compressor is small enough, put it on a stool or table or wooden box with as much padding as possible beneath it--definitely not directly on the floor. That kind of noise can drive even nice neighbors to violence!

I have had that happen, particularly with demisphere molds (which is what yours looks like). Did you also have the issue that when you are adding ganache (or whatever the filling is) the chocolate shell can be dislodged easily? That is also a characteristic of flatter, spread-out cavities (while being an inconvenience, it is also a positive sign that your chocolate was in temper and is going to come out of the cavities easily at a later stage of the process). As for the chocolate showing around the bottom of the finished bonbon: I have always assumed it is because I did not completely cover the cavity with colored cocoa butter--that is, up to the very top. If you leave any spots unsprayed, they are, of course, going to show the underlying chocolate color--it's easy to miss this when you are in the process of spraying and you don't want to make too thick a layer of cocoa butter and you are hurrying because the cocoa butter may be getting too thick or cooling too much. The gap in color could also happen when you scrape after capping the mold. Not everyone agrees with the following, but I think you need to scrape off all the excess cocoa butter after spraying the mold so that you have a completely flat surface when you pour and scrape what will become the bottom of the cavities. Immediately after spraying a mold, I invert it over paper towels and rub it back and forth to get off as much c.b. as possible. Later I use an offset spatula and paper towels to clean off what I missed. Experience has taught me that leaving any bumps of c.b. will make scraping uneven.

I think that is the same tape that@pastrygirl said Melissa Coppel was using. I bought it under the Martha Stewart brand, and in the thread linked to below demonstrated that I could not make it work. So please tell us exactly what you did.

I'm not sure why you find that a problem. Does the PSI on yours drop to zero just before the motor turns on to refill the tank? Mine drops until the PSI reaches a certain set point, when it comes on, but during that process, there is still enough PSI to continue working. The small compressors (such as the Iwata Studio series) provide compressed air on demand, and so don't require a tank for storage. The downside, of course, is that their PSI is low (and, in the case of the Iwata that I have, their price is relatively high).

Is it the same as the Chocolate World #1673 mold? Called a quenelle by some people. I bought 6 of these and was not thrilled. They are rather long, but don't hold a lot of filling. They are probably better with two fitted together (and they have the holes to help with that).

I have the Aqualab Pawkit, used by several on this forum. Aqualab has now become Meter Group, but I think the Pawkit is still sold, though they are emphasizing more expensive equipment now (the Pawkit is labeled a "legacy" product). I am happy with it. It's accurate to within + or -0.02 (which is enough for me). Warning: it is not inexpensive.

Definitely true. There is a drying out and shrinking of the ganache that happens as well as a fading of the flavor.

To add to what I said above: If a shelf life of 3 weeks sounds like a "no problem" situation, it isn't. I talked to someone a couple of days ago who received a box of my chocolates as a Christmas gift. She proudly announced that she is still (this was on Feb. 10) enjoying them, one piece per day! That is the sort of information that keeps me vigilant and led me to purchase a water activity meter. No one has any control over what the recipient does with the bonbon. And that is why I would never produce a bonbon such as the crème brûlée one sold by a famous NYC chocolatier (who, I have read, tells customers to consume it within a day or so). And finally, it is why I purchased food insurance.

Yes, it is. Or at least knowing the water activity can provide an estimate of shelf life (about the only indicator there is, aside from just keeping ganache for a while and checking it for spoilage from time to time). Jean-Pierre Wybauw gives the following guide for how long a ganache can be safely kept: for an Aw greater than 0.85: maximum of 3 weeks for an Aw between 0.70 and 0.85: maximum of 3 months for an Aw between 0.65 and 0.70: maximum of 9 months for an Aw below 0.65: "the ganache is microbially stable" (I'm assuming that basically means "forever") I operate on the general principle that the Aw must always be below 0.85, with the goal of getting it as low as possible. In the U.S. some states have specific regulations that nothing at 0.85 or higher can legally be sold.

When you refer to "cookie butter gianduja," you are referring to the paste + choc slab? This method would have the flavor, but I'm not sure how much crunch there would still be after the shortbread has been reduced to a paste.

That sounds entirely too easy! Thanks for the idea.

I remain pleased with the inclusion of a shortbread cookie in a bonbon and have refined the logistics of getting it in the shell successfully. Now I would like to find a way to include those same cookies in a truffle. I make a chocolate chip cookie truffle by creating a ganache with Dulcey, cream, and molasses, then add coarsely chopped dark chocolate and pecans, and roll the mixture into balls, which I dip in dark chocolate (milk also works) and decorate with either more chopped pecans or cocoa nibs. I think adding pieces of the shortbread cookie would contribute a great deal toward reaching the taste of an actual chocolate chip cookie, but of course there is the issue that a ganache will soften the cookie bits (in my current use of the cookies, they are surrounded with gianduja, so no problem). I can't make this as a bonbon because the pecan and dark chocolate pieces cannot be piped successfully. But I'm stuck with how to protect the cookies in a ganache. I've had a couple of thoughts: (1) Turn the base mixture into a gianduja with Dulcey and some sort of nut paste (pecan probably). But that leaves out the molasses taste (which is meant to suggest brown sugar), and in my experience giandujas tend to get very firm--and regulating the final texture is nearly impossible because nut pastes vary so much in viscosity (you don't know how they will turn out until it's too late). (2) My other thought would involve the kind of detailed work that only a few (not mentioning any names ) would undertake: bake the shortbread cookies not as 1" rounds but as small squares, which could be dipped in chocolate to protect them from the effects of the cream and molasses. These would be substituted for the chopped chocolate and would still suggest chocolate chips--with the bonus of the buttery cookie flavor from the shortbread bits. If anyone has other ideas, I would love to hear them before I begin experimenting.

I thought she used the Fuji for that. Or are you referring to the "aim the airbrush at a stick so that the cocoa butter will ricochet onto the mold" technique? I had forgotten about the latter. I had success with it one time. I used a metal spatula for that, but the c.b. crystallized too quickly on the metal, and I haven't found a wooden tongue depressor (or wide craft stick).

Regarding the Salvatore Martone snipped ballpoint pen technique from earlier in this thread: The pens I have don't have the apparent taper shown in his video, so they end up being a straight hollow tube. For me, it wasn't so easy a process as he makes it look. First, some of the ink got out of the pen onto my hands (wear gloves next time!). The tube was a bit too large to fit into the Grex airbrush, so I basically had to hold it in place while airbrushing. I noticed that Martone also holds the tube, but his fits into the nozzle and so is more secure. The good news: The arrangement does produce splatter. I'm not sure why lengthening the path of the cocoa butter creates splatter, but it does. The bad news: The splatter isn't reliable in size, and as soon as the tube gets some crystallized c.b. in it, the output is greatly reduced. I think technique would improve with lots of practice, and it certainly is the least messy way of producing splatter with a regular airbrush.

Mine was done by splattering copper and green cocoa butter, then molding in milk chocolate. I have never been happy with the various brushes I have used; this was done with a Mr. Clean dish brush--rather thick bristles, but basically too large (there is a huge amount of "overbrushing"). Toothbrushes have produced rather large blobs that make the c.b. look like a bad case of measles. I am not going to use the airbrush-while-dripping-from-a-cocoa-butter-bottle technique. I don't mind messy, but that is a whole new level of mess.

Thanks. I wasn't consciously imitating a recent one of yours, but it is similar--when you used tobacco in the filling.

Photos from Valentine's 2018: The mold of choice for Valentine's? Hearts, of course, these filled with strawberry pâte de fruit plus Meyer lemon ganache. A squadron of hazelnut latte bars ready to be boxed: coffee ganache with Kahlúa plus hazelnut ganache with Frangelico, dipped in Maracaibo dark chocolate and topped with a toasted hazelnut. The assortment. Top row: hazelnut latte, strawberry pâte de fruit & Meyer lemon ganache, dark caramel with Maldon sea salt. Middle row: sesame truffle, citrus (orange, lemon, lime) ganache, apple caramel. Bottom row: toasted almond & cherry gianduja, chocolate mousse with orange, pecan shortbread & caramel. I have to add that, for all the hype I used in the description, the hazelnut latte was a disappointment. Yes, I know the recipe comes from the person probably at the top of the pantheon of chocolate gods, Peter Greweling, but the hazelnut part just doesn't have much flavor. It's white chocolate with a small amount of hazelnut praline paste emulsified with cream and some Frangelico. There is not enough praline paste, but more would mean this already-soft ganache would never set enough to cut. I'm thinking next time I will make a gianduja containing only white chocolate and hazelnut praline paste for a stronger hazelnut flavor.

I do exactly what @pastrygirl described. If you do a second spray too soon, it blows the still-wet cocoa butter around and you can get bare spots. I try not to make the final result too thick, but for full coverage you really have to spray more than a single time--unless you intend the color of the underlying chocolate to be part of the design (as in pastrygirl's hearts, seen earlier in this thread). If you need a backing layer of white (as when you don't want the underlying chocolate color to show), then it's more difficult because the white can easily get too thick as you aim for full coverage (and you also get that offputting taste of titanium dioxide in the white cocoa butter).

Not to belabor the issue too much, but you are working with a 1/5 HP compressor (correct?). That's what I had with the previous Paasche external-mix airbrush. For me, it's been a night and day difference in airbrush output since getting more HP. But IIRC you aren't working for a chef any longer. I belong to a different school of thought: Having shiny stainless doesn't necessarily mean it is sanitized stainless!

I think isopropyl evaporates almost immediately (some people use it to clean their molds), so I don't see any harm. I am curious, though, as to why your airbrush was so "gunked up." Was it more than hardened cocoa butter? It seems to me that if you go to all the trouble of getting the brush as clean as you can, isn't it at mostly the same situation the moment you start blowing cocoa butter through it? If you are, for example, spraying red, then, after cleaning the reservoir of leftover red (which will take time), pour some yellow into the cup, the airbrush is going to be filled with quickly hardening red, which has to be melted out before the output turns from red to orange to yellow.

See the post from @pastrygirl a few posts above yours for her method. I leave the cocoa butter in the airbrush and melt it out the next time. You should definitely not use soap or solvent to clean it. I'm not sure what good would come from the use of oil.

You could stop using Himalayan salt and see if the taste improves. I once sprinkled pink Himalayan salt on some caramels dipped in chocolate, and it came close to ruining them--overwhelming salty taste.

@RobertM answered your questions. I would just add that most people do not temper cocoa butter--at least not in any traditional way (the way I see most often is partially melting the bottle contents, then shaking the bottle and assuming the c.b. is in temper)--but obviously Bob tempers his and I do as well. If I overheat it in the melting process, I use a dab of cocoa butter silk from the EZtemper. I always test the c.b. for temper. This may seem extreme, but I figure that if I do all I can and the c.b. still sticks in the mold, then at least it isn't because I skipped a step that I could have easily taken. As to your question about "being sure," oh that certainty were a possibility. Yesterday I unmolded 21 pieces decorated with red and gold c.b.: 20 chocolates fell out of the inverted mold with no effort whatever; after considerable banging on the counter, the 21st came out, leaving bits of red and gold c.b. behind. It does seem to me that certain shapes can sometimes be more difficult, such as domes, but that may be my imagination. All sorts of theories have been proposed as to the cause of sticking c.b. (you didn't notice but you touched the mold with a warm finger in a certain place and the chocolate in that spot stuck, or c.b. in the airbrush got too warm), but I think all of us know of cases that disprove such theories. My "solution": Always make more bonbons than you need and try to relax about the failures. Another actual solution: Use magnetic molds with transfer sheets--which never stick. But where's the challenge with that?

Bought the Martha Stewart tape, cut a strip of the 1/4", and placed it in a demisphere mold (I can't imagine doing this in one that is more "enclosed," such as a dome). The first time I added colored cocoa butter with a finger. It got under the tape everywhere, total mess. Second time: On the second try I pressed the tape as firmly against the polycarbonate as I could, pressed it again, then sprayed with airbrush. It's the closest I have ever come to success with striping, but obviously, not good enough. The cocoa butter seems to bond together so much that it comes off in chunks (as paint does sometimes). Perhaps the tape should be removed when the c.b. is still a bit wet? If it weren't obvious already, I am not Melissa Coppel.