Gary Traffanstedt

What are you using to keep your product cool? I use Cambro coolers and that works pretty well. Mine are the kind that hold full sheet pans. On the bottom I have one pan of truffles then I put a pan above that and load in my fudge. 1 ice pack at the bottom and 4 up top and my stuff stays cool.

Kerry, I know you prefer your Fuji over the Badger. Do you think the Badger is ok for starting out? I'm assuming a Fuji would cost quite a bit more? And any recommendation for an air compressor? Thank you!

I looked on Amazon and there are a few versions of the Badger 250. For example one is the 250-MT. Does it matter which version I get? And how is the compressor working for you? There's a Harbor Freight Tools here and I was going to see what they have for little air compressors. Something pretty quiet would be nice.

Somewhat related topic... I've just started playing with colored cocoa butter and of course want to get into airbrushing with my molds. Any suggestions for a good beginner airbrush setup? I need the gun, compressor, whole thing. I looked at one the other day that was a complete package that was around $1200. Was total overkill for my needs of course. Said the compressor could run two airbrushes at the same time continuously. I just need something simple, but also something that's easy to use for someone just getting into it. And one related question, how are you guys melting the cocoa butter in the bottles? I scraped some out into a small glass dish and heated it in the microwave and then used a gloved finger to do some "painting" with it. Next time I'm going to paint the inside of some molds and do it that way. Unfortunately I already had chocolate in my molds when I got the colored cocoa butter but next time they'll look even better.

Ah, hadn't considered using it for a sauce. My mind was stuck on truffles. My bad.

With truffles you are dealing with two different things. The outside is typically pure chocolate. That of course could be remelted without issue. The inside however is typically a ganache of some sort. That isn't something you can just melt down and reuse. If you really want to try this, I would heat it just enough so that the shells become soft and try blending it all together with an immersian blender. This will basically give you a ganache that has more chocolate than it needs and you could maybe use that as a filling for your own truffles, but even then I have no idea what that would taste like or what the shelf life would be like. Actually, the more I think about this, the more I think it's a horrible idea. The truffles you have now have a limited shelf life from when they were made. You melting them down will not increase that shelf life. Plus you don't like them as is and whatever you make from them isn't going to be all that much better than what they are now. My advice is to either eat them as is, give them away, or worst case just toss them. Then just start fresh with ingredients you really like and go from there. The key with truffles is to start with very high quality ingredients that you really like. If you start with something you don't care for, there's not much you can do. But that's just my thoughts on it. Good luck and let us know how it turns out if you try to melt them down.

How does the shelf life compare between the two ganache types? I've been wanting to try a butter ganache. If I'm not mistaken his gingerbread ganache is a butter ganache and it's on my list of things to attempt when I can find a free moment.

Ooh, bacon bark. I've gotta make some now! What chocolate do you use? I'm thinking maple bacon in dark chocolate would be really good. I've never made bark. For my first I'm planning a layer of dark under a peppermint layer. Thinking white chocolate with peppermint oil, and then crushed peppermint candies.

Hadn't even thought about the flexibility making it harder to scrape. Excellent point. Maybe I really should just stick with pouring it out on wax paper in a pan and then busting it up into pieces after it sets. I was thinking the molds would make it quicker/easier for consistent weight and appearance which is why I'm doing molded truffles over hand dipping. But now I'm thinking this isn't the case. Pour my dark layer, let it set, then pour my peppermint layer, let that set, bust up and bag it. But then I have the issue of each bag being a different weight and I may end up with a lot of small pieces. Always something I guess.

What do you think of this mold: http://tomric.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=936 It yields a six ounce piece that I could slip into some holiday bag with maybe a ribbon or something. My only concern with the non poly-carbonate molds is that because of their flexibility I'm wondering how easy it will be to get the bars out without cracking them. Your link that has the three bars in a mold... I wonder what the weight is on each one. The mold I linked to here is only one bar per mold and obviously much more expensive. Having three to a mold would be quicker/cheaper/etc.

Thank you for the links! To be honest I have no idea how much I'll be making. Right now I'm only doing truffles but I've had several people ask if I'll be doing bark around the holidays so I thought I'd give it a try. With the truffles I'm using molds so I have to make the shells, then pipe the ganache, let that crystalize, then finally cap them. Not a difficult process at all but it's quite a while that the molds are tied up. With the bark it the molds would be turned over much quicker so I might get away with maybe 4 or so to see how well demand actually is. Then again, my truffle molds were back ordered so I'm still waiting for my second order of molds to arrive. Anyway, thank you very much for the ideas. I'll let you know what I end up with and I'll post some picks once I have some bark made.

I'm making peppermint bark to start and plan to do a few others. Wanting an easy way to get a consistent size/weight so was thinking some nice polycarbonate moulds would be perfect but haven't found one that I like. If you look at Godiva barks they have a rectangular shape with break apart lines molded in. Ideally I'd love molds like this. Anyone seen a mold like this?

Does anyone have a working link to this recipe, or maybe have it saved and could post it here? I'd love to try it but can't find it on the site. Of course this was posted here in 2008 so I'm only 5 years late to the party. Thanks!

Thank you! I contacted Gourmail and they were supposed to call me back but haven't yet. I'll try contacting them today. I found a number of places that would ship here, but either the shipping was low and the prices were outrageous or the prices were great but the shipping killed it. I don't know if I checked Albert Ulster but Swill Chalet sounds familiar. I'll check with both again. I melted a bit in the microwave this morning with a lump of cacao butter in there and it came out really thin. Added some more chocolate to it and stirred for a bit and it was just right. So for first time trying to thin chocolate it worked well. I'll try through the three sources you guys provided to just find the three drop though. Should come out quite a bit cheaper over having to buy chocolate AND the cacao butter. Thanks again!

Locally I can only find two drop Callebaut chocolate and it's just too think for my molds. I have three drop dark chcolate and that works fine, but both the milk chocolate and the white chocolate are two drop. Is there any sort of standard ratio that I can use to know how much cocoa butter I should add to get it thinned out a bit? I know I can add it to the tempering machine during the melt phase but I have absolutely no idea how much to add and would like a general starting point. Obviously once it's added I can check and see if it's thin enough but I don't want to add half an ounce and find out I should have started with four ounces or something. Also, is it unusual for places to only carry the two drop chocolate? Even online I've had trouble sourcing a three drop Callebaut for milk and white. And lastly, anyone have a good source for Callebaut chocolate? I'm in Florida, just north of Orlando and am currently getting my chocolate from Restaurant Depot in Orlando. I first orderd online from Qzina but then their prices jumped way up so I went this route, but they for milk and white they only carry the thick stuff. Thanks guys!!!