Nikkic9922

Unfortunately, no. When I first moved here, I had to redo a lot of my recipes that I had previously used in the States. A lot of my recipes were coming out strange, and come to find out, all of their "butter" here is vegetable oil based. But of course you won't find that on the label.

Ok will do! If I could afford using straight strawberry puree, I'd consider it... but strawberries are astronomically expensive here. An 8oz container is around $10! But I'll still try what you mentioned to see if maybe it'll make a better puree. Choux mentioned adjusting the water content of the ganache...does he mean of the puree that I'm using or the ganache as a whole? I'm wondering if maybe the heavy cream here is the issue? All of the dairy products here seem to be a step down from U.S. products regarding fat content. Like their full fat is more like U.S. 2% and their heavy cream is a little heavier than U.S. whole milk. There's stuff here called "Thick Cream".. I'm wondering if maybe I could use that instead?

I use 8oz of fresh strawberries with a 1/4 cup of sugar until it's cooked down. After straining I end up with a little less than half of that.

Hey Kerry... sure! I usually use a white chocolate ganache as the base for the fillings. It's 12oz Lubeca White Couverture 3oz heavy cream 1oz glucose. I mix my fruit puree into the cream, add the white chocolate, heat it until the chocolate's melted, and whip it by hand until I have the right consistency. I've tried using more white chocolate to get the right consistency right off the bat, but it then tastes too sweet and more like a white chocolate ganache rather than a fruit filling. Thanks for the help and input

I haven't been able to find any sort of freeze dried/dehydrated fruits here. I'd try ordering it online, but trying to get any sort of liquid or food into this country is ridiculous. I'm not adding the fruit directly to already made ganache. I add the fruit puree to the cream, then the white chocolate and glucose.

Also, I've tried other recipes regarding the ganache... infusing the cream with fruit by letting it sit in the fridge over night... but it just didn't have enough flavor. I've tried fresh strawberries... frozen.. real mangoes... mango pulp... nothing works. Also, how long on average should I keep fruit filled chocolates in a chocolate case? Sorry for all of the questions... I'm just worried I may be in over my head!

Thanks for all of the input! I think it may be fermentation.. I was hoping it was something else Regarding the filling temperature, I let it sit at room temperature overnight if not 24 hours. They taste great for the first few days, and then after, they kind of lose their flavor. I thought maybe it could be the temperature of where I store them, but it's a pretty cool room, and the rest of my chocolates are fine. When you say to work on the recipe to reduce the water activity, how do I go about it? For my strawberry filling, I cook them down with a little sugar until it's basically a thick puree (nearly minutes from being a burnt sticky mess... I try to get it as thick as possible). Strain out the seeds and chunks, add it to my ganache, and let it sit. I also have a snowball business here in Kuwait so I have a boat load of flavor concentrates... I usually add a few drops of the strawberry concentrate to give it more of a punch. But I don't think the concentrate is the culprit as I've used it to flavor caramels and they seemed fine as well. Thanks again for the help... I'm kind of lost here. Our storefront opens in less than 2 weeks, and I'm trying to get my inventory up to par, but I've put the fruit filled chocolates on hold in fear they'll just be a big oozing mess.

I recently got into molded chocolates, and I've searched nonstop as to why this keeps happening. To no avail, I still have oozing chocolates. It only happens to these two, the Mango Ganache and Strawberry Ganache. They're not runny ganaches, so I'm not sure as to why they're cracking. Other chocolates that I've done that almost have a runnier consistency seem to be perfectly fine. Any ideas?