Hello everyone, I am brand new to eGullet. I started playing around with chocolates about two years ago. Mostly basic truffles, and bark and similar things. I'm excited to learn a lot from everyone here as I can tell just by a quick glance over some of the discussions that there is a lot of great information passed on by great people. Today I have a question related to my first experiment in making molded chocolates about a year ago. At the time, I just wanted to see what molding was like, so I made the shells (which turned out suprisingly well), but hadn't really planned a filling. On a whim, I filled them with a tasty strawberry jam. They turned out quite nicely. Since them, I have also made various flavor curds (sugar, egg yolks, butter, and juice) which I have used. They seem to taste pretty good and go down well at parties. As I'm learning more about chocolate making, I've noticed that these kinds of fillings don't seem to be used by anyone. Is this purely a shelf life issue? All my chocolates have been eaten within a week (often much less) of making, and I've never noticed any issues. Have I just been lucky? The people I've fed them to seem to enjoy them, especially a double layer one I made for a cinco de mayo party that was lime curd and chile ganache. Any other ideas why jam and curd type filling aren't used? Katie
