Gary Traffanstedt

Do you need all of the fat off of the mold? I've been using detergent (and sanitizer) but was thinking none of that was needed if I was doing same chocolate again. Meaning if I did dark and am doing dark again, I could do so with just a quick polishing of the cavities rather than a full blown cleaning of the mold.

Try fridge for 20 minutes then let them sit in the molds for another 20 on the counter. I have no problem with condensation and they pop right out for me. As far as I can tell, as long as you leave them in the mold no condensation occurs so let them come back to room temp that way, then flip them over and let them come out. Note: I haven't tried leaving them in the mold with ones from the freezer. I may just be getting lucky with the condensation issue but I've been trying to be very careful with the 20 minute time in the fridge and so far that's worked for me. I've heard using a heat gun to "dry" the truffles can help after condensation has happened and someone else told me you can air brush them to restore shine but that makes no sense. You'd be airbrushing OVER the spots.

So I'm not doing anything wrong then? Like I said it turns out beautiful as long as they're 5 minutes in the fridge. I just wasn't sure if that was correct or if I was messing something up and the fridge step was covering up my mistake.

You bring up many valid points. I'm doing this professional at farmers markets around Orlando, FL. We primarily do fudge but we also have ten to twelve varieties of truffles at each market and they do fairly well. But at the markets the shelf life hasn't been an issue. It only came up when I was approached about wholesaling and then for gift baskets. Normally I do a 4 or 6 pack and everyone is happy. They take them home and their consumed in a day or two. I've had a few boxes purchased for birthdays but those too we're consumed within a week. Now that the holidays are coming I've been approached about events where Christmas stuff is sold. I wanted to do some gift baskets with fudge, truffles, and a few other things but no way the truffles will last. It was also suggested to me to get a kiosk at one of the local malls starting Black Friday through the end of the year. But again, truffles won't last that long. I'm sure I'll sell a lot just before Christmas but I'll also lose a number of sales because people will instead buy other stuff that has a longer shelf life. I just started in August so I have a tremendous amount to learn yet. Maybe next year I'll have some idea for a way around it. Maybe sell gift boxes early by order only, and then deliver for Christmas. Then I could spend the week before Christmas making them and deliver a high quality fresh product. I know a lot of people at markets want things right now. Like when they ask for a fudge I don't have, they never want to order it for the following week. So we'll see. Regarding toasted coconut, that's brilliant! This is why I love his forum. I would have probably never thought of that on my own. Thank you!

I'm very curious how Sees is getting that shelf life. I'll have to take a look at their ingredients. I understand vacuum sealing and freezing for things like sticking up before an event but in this case I need it to last once a customer has bought it. Thanks again for all the info. Definitely interested in freezing at the kitchen. When you vacuum seal what are you putting the chocolates in? In terms of shelf life it seems we are dealing with a few different things. Integrity of the shell. Life of the ganache (could separate, go bad, mold). And then any decoration applied. My coconut truffles have an issue with the coconut on top drying out. Using nuts for decoration they could go rancid. So it's not just a matter of adding something(s) to the ganache but solving other issues too. I'm determined to find a way to get a 60 day shelf life at room temp. Hopefully before Valentines is upon us. Would like to do a lot of gift boxes then, if I can't get this solved on time for Christmas.

I'm using Greweling's book for the majority of my recipe. And yes I know invert sugar, glucose, etc., act as a natural preservative but a month under ideal conditions isn't enough for Christmas gift boxes being sold in November. I'm trying to achieve the shelf life that Godiva and others are getting. If I can just get these to be good for a solid eight weeks I'm golden. Sell mid-November and they're good until mid-January. That would really open things up for me. As it is, I really can't sell for Christmas until mid-December.

Something I thought of after posting this... how do you store truffles? After I make mine they end up on a sheet pan until they are needed. I've been thinking about oxidation and how having them just sitting there like that probably isn't the best. Should I be storing them in some other manner? Maybe they need to be vacuum sealed somehow or placed in air tight containers? If so, does anyone have suggestions for containers? I've seen plastic covers for sheet pans. Not sure if they would be tall enough with the truffles on there but I can look into that if that's needed.

I use a Chocobivision tempering machine to temper approximately five pounds of Callebaut milk chocolate. I used the temperature off the back of the bag and programmed that into the machine. When the machine told me the chocolate was in temper I filled my molds and then placed them in the refrigerator for about five minutes to set them. End result was beautiful. After making truffles when I demoulded it worked great and they all came out nice and shiny. The other day I decided to skip the refriegerator step thinking I didn't need to do that. Room temperature should be fine. It's 72F and 50% humidity. I figured that was cool enough and they would setup really nice. I filled the molds, they looked good, so I placed them on sheet pans, the pans into one of my racks, plenty of air circulation and not too close together, then went to lunch. Came back and almost all of them were splotchy. I had a different kind of mold that I had also made shells with from the same batch of chocolate that I had placed in the fridge for a few minutes. That one did not appear splotchy. Is my chocolate not actually properly tempered or is the refrigeration a needed step in the process? I've read that 68F is ideal for the workshop but I don't have control over the temp as this is a commisary where I lease space. Is 72F too high? Is 50% humidity too high? For tempering the chocolate I used the temps listed on the back of the bag of callets. I know it's melting at 113F but I don't recall the other two temps. The final temp for either milk or dark is 89.6F but I don't recall which one. I'll be at the kitchen later today and can check and see what three temps it's using for both and report back. For dark chcolate it's melting at 115F. And again, everything seems fine as long as I put the molds in the fridge for about five minutes. If there's something I can do to get a good reliable temper without having to use the fridge, that would be awesome. I'll comment with the temps this evening.

My truffles all seem to have roughly a three week shelf life. This has been fine for selling at markets as they typically get eaten within a day or two. I've been getting a lot of questions lately about doing gift boxes for the holidays and I'm wondering if there is anything I can do to increase my shelf life. There are some local holiday events coming up later this month that I think I could do really well at, but it leaves Christmas outside of the three week window. Beyond that, if someone gifts a box of truffles that I made two weeks prior to Christmas, that only leaves one week for the recipeint to consume them. I'd love to extend that. What are the big chcolate places doing to get long shelf lives? We make fudge that goes into sealed plastic containers so we add potassium sorbate to inhibit mold. I don't think with truffles it's a mold issue at all... they just go bad after a while. Mine start to implode and the bottom will get sucked into the truffle and then the around the base will crack. Is there sometnng I can add to my ganache that would help with this? When I first started I was all about my chcoolates not having any extra crap in them. No stabilizers, no added preservatives, etc. Now I'm just frustrated that they go bad so quick.

Chocolate truffles are my first thought. Glucose in the ganache with dark chocolate would work. I'm about to start making sucrose-free fudge so that's another possibility. I'd offer a recipe but I make mine from a mix by Calico Cottage using their kettle and everything. But from this we know it's possible so just a matter of finding a recipe.

Looked at a bottle of mint extract and it's a combination of spearmint oil and peppermint oil. I ordered spearmint oil just now and I have peppermint oil on hand so I can try a combo later if need be. Thinking just the spearmint should be perfect though.

This is exactly what I needed to know. I'll order some spearmint oil today and give that a try. Interesting that I didn't come across any recipes that called for this. I did see a few that wanted mint extract and maybe that's spearmint.

I'm quite confused about what type of mint goes where. For ice cream there's the pink peppermint and that would be peppermint oil. Then you have mint chip which is green and often calls for fresh mint leaves. I've seen more recipes that instead call for peppermint oil. I don't recall ever eating mint chip ice cream that tasted of peppermint. For chocolate bark I'm going to do a peppermint bark using the oil but I've had a request to also duplicate mint chip in bark form. My first thought was fresh mint leaves but I've no idea how that would work in making a bark. I see you can also get a spearmint essential oil and I wonder if that would be the correct mint flavor for mint chip? Anyone well versed in the world of mint that could shed some light on this for me? And on the subject of bark, I've seen recipes that call for adding vegetable oil to the chocolate. Is this the correct way to do it? If using properly tempered chocolate do I still need the oil? I'm not a fan of adding anything more than necessary to my chocolate but I'm curious if that will give it a better shine or something.

I make a hazlenut latte truffle that uses both regular Kahlau and hazlenut Kahlua. It's hard to just use it for my recipe and not use up the rest of the bottle all the ways Jaymes sugested.

I make the Greweling pumpkin caramel only because it's the only one I had at the time. Deff going to give yours a try tomorrow. I have two molds ready to go with orange cocoa butter swirls applied. Should come out looking quite nice. And I'm excited to have a more traditional pumpkin flavor. Thank you for all the info!

Very cool list of flavors in your 24 and they all look amazing! I'm always curious where people find these recipes as I have a couple books now but nothing about red velvet cake, anything with cream cheese, nor anything close to several of your others. I do a great pumpkin caramel but as I also offer two other caramel variants I think a pumpkin spice might be better. Wishing I had the pumpkin molds someone on here is using. Hopefully I'll remember those in time to order them for next year.

The pumpkin looks amazing. I do some of my fudge in shape containers and thought they were kinda cool. Never crossed my mind to use seasonal molds for my truffles. Well done!

How are you vacuum sealing? A regular home type unit or something fancy? Using the regular vacuum sealer bags? Vacuum sealing vs placing plastic wrap on the surface. I wonder if there's any difference. For me the plastic wrap would be faster. I just placed a batch of ice cream in the freezer in a hotel pan with plastic wrap pressed on the surface. Even in Tupperware there's ice crystals at the top so I'm trying this. Thinking the same would be fine for ganache without having to mess with vacuum sealing.

My understanding of why you go freezer to fridge to room temp with finished chocolates has to do with minimizing condensation on the surface. That's also why they need to be vacuum sealed before being frozen. But I've also read to do room temp to fridge to freezer when freezing them too. I have yet to try vacuum sealing anything. I have a home vacuum sealer I bought at Costco a few years back but no idea if that would work. For the frozen ganache I think I'll split a batch and experiment. One directly from freezer and one with 24 hours in the fridge and see how they both end up.

Sounds like thing went well for you. Always great when there's no major problems when first trying something new. Any issues with condensation? I initially did a lot of ice packs too and bottom but now I do 4 at the top and 1 on bottom and that seems to help a lot with condensation. I'm able to keep everything slightly chilled but not too cold where the chocolates would start getting wet the first time I pulled the tray out.

What happens if you go freezer to melted in one step bypassing freezer to fridge? I'm planing to start making larger batches so I can freeze some, then pull it right when I need it. I'm not organized enough to pull it a day ahead. If I pull and then microwave and use an immersion blender, will I run into problems? Also, what are the issues with freezing butter ganaches? Do the separate when thawed?

Is there a good place to look for stuff like this used or is eBay the only place? I actually found my fudge kettle on CraigsList via a google search but got really lucky. It was in Vermont she I'm in Florida so it was a bit of a drive to pick it up but for the savings it was very much worth it. I'm sure people upgrade to bigger guitars and such but no idea if there's a better place to find them when they go up for sale.

Seven molds I ordered about a month ago from Tomric arrived today so I'm up to 18 now. Will really help with making shells ahead of time. Can't believe I still want more!

When you make shells are you leaving them in the molds or taking them out somehow? I do dome truffles and would love a way to make shells in advance and have them ready to go. With just 11 molds I don't yet have enough to leave them in molds until needed.

I've never used one but I'd love to. The price tag keeps it out of my reach. Why are these so expensive? They seem so simple. Same with vibrating tables that go for $700. Here you have a frame and some wires. That said, if I had the cash I'd order one!