Bentley

It doesn't appear to come off on his hands. He's done quite a few of the truffles and his hands don't look like they have any gold on them. You can see his fingers when he puts the truffle on the tray that they don't appear to have any of the dust on them .

My latest...with a new-to-me mold from Pavoni. It's a white chocolate salted caramel in a dark shell.

Saw this and it stumped me. There is obviously a gold dust in the bowl...but what else is in the bowl and what is the theory behind it?

Similar to the other post above yours regarding Andrey Dubovik's work, I think this one is done by several blasts of compressed air aimed at the center of the mold cavity to create a concentric web-type pattern. I've been meaning to play around with the technique but the humidity here has been crazy.

Bruno Albouze has a recipe that uss corny syrup or glucose - no honey or invert sugar. I haven't tried it yet, but I love many of his other recipes, so it's on my list.

@gfron1 Thanks. Those are beautiful. I will have to do some experimenting. What is your Instagram name?

The way my airbrushes are designed, I can't shove them into the tip. Need a different airbrush - or maybe ct down the back end of the tip. I'm on a mission

He did reference some earlier experiments spraying through different tools and gadgets, but I have not been able to figure out which thread that was.

@gfron1 Did you get this one to work? How did you attach the tip to the airbrush? I can't find a way to do it that doesn't just create a big puddle of color in the mold. I've tried a couple airbrushes. The first is a basic badger 250 - the way that one is made, the siphon nozzle is in front of the air nozzle and there is no way to get the #33 tip on. I also tried a Badger 360 but didn't do much better. I would think that the airbrush needs to be seated close to the #33 tip's star opening, but I can't get my airbrushes to set up that way. I'm curious how you did it.

That seems to be Andrey's signature design. I see it a lot on his Instagram. I think Kerry is pretty close on this one. I would have guessed sponge painting and then compressed air. The good news is that he has an online chocolate course and this bonbon is one of the lessons.

If there is a significant amount of color on the mold (e.g. from airbrushing the whole mold), I let it partially set then scrape it and add it back to the bottle - cuz that stuff is not cheap. If it's just a little bit (like from splatters and the like), I lay out a sheet of parchment paper and, while the color is still wet, invert the mold and rub it across the parchment paper to clean it.

I use Chef Rubber colors. It's a bit of a guessing game because the colors on the web (and bottle lables) don't match what's in the bottle all that well, but once you figure out what the actual color is, the actual product is excellent. I've also used Roxy and Rich colors with great results - easier to get if you are in Canada.

I have Selmi envy

That's a good point about the fat content. Water might be the simplest solution. I don't think it would take much to thin out the gianduja a bit. I don't need it runny...just a little less firm than it is.

I've been making variations of gianduja with different nuts - hazelnuts, peanuts and pistachios. The typical ratio is 1 part nuts to 1 part chocolate. I find this makes a very firm gianduja. If I wanted to make a creamier product, would you increase the ration of nuts to chocolate or add a little cream to the mixture? This would be a for a filled bonbon, so the extended shelf life of uncoated gianduja isn't as important.

Interesting. Sounds like you would start with the tip close to the bottom of the cavity and draw it out as you spray? I will have to do some playing around with this.

I call this one the PCP for Peanut, Caramel, Pretzel. It has a pretzel biscuit topped with a milk chocolate peanut butter ganache and salted caramel. It represents a couple different experiments. First, I wanted to try a crispy layer. The pretzel biscuit is coated in cocoa butter...three days later, it's still crispy. We'll see how long that lasts. The other experiment was the colored cocoa butter technique. It's the dremel technique shown by Chef Salvatore Martone on his Instagram feed (https://www.instagram.com/p/BMcaOibDWt9/?taken-by=chefsmartone). I would not call it a success. I think I may have had too much light blue CCB in the mold. I think it may also be necessary to let the CCB set slightly before using the brush. I'll keep trying. In any case, they still taste just as good!

@pastrygirl What is the reason for mixing the colored cocoa butter with white chocolate vs just splattering the CCB by itself?

This is a first - never seen a question on how to NOT get shine on bonbons My first guess on this one is that she is using splatters with White cocoa butter then finger painting with white and red. Artisan colors rather than jewel colors (in the Chef Rubber line) - meaning no glitter to the colors. That hazy matte effect reminds me of a technique that Melissa Coppel once showed. She took melted cocoa butter and added a small amount of colored cocoa butter to it and sprayed the mixture into the mold before painting. It created a hazy, translucent effect on the bonbon. It was very shiny though. I wonder if spraying that coat on the unmolded finished bon bons would give a matte finish? In the case of the above bonbons, I would add a small amount of white cocoa butter to the uncolored cocoa butter.

Is anyone familiar with the chocolatier Cacao and Cardamom in Houston? Annie Rupani is a Texan with Pakistani roots. She has a lot of interesting flavors, including one with cardamom.

I'll try that. I painted mine after they cooled.

The Dick Taylor mold is beautiful. Would think you'd need a 6-7 drop fluidity to get that kind of detail

I guess not. It's Chef Rubber's cardinal red with a little ruby red mixed in. Which CCBs are transparent?

Really interesting picture, @Chocolot! Under the red, I did finger swirls of white to try the technique referred to in my other thread about the A519 bonbon (the "How do they do that" thread). I didn't get the results I was after. Perhaps my layer of red was too thick. As it is, the red doesn't look bad -just not what I had in mind - and if the green showed up, it would be satisfactory. Next time I try these, I think I will backspray the entire tray with white just to make the colors pop.

@rarerollingobject Those look amazing. I recently did something similar for a lemon blueberry macaron. I used a bit of blue food coloring gel in a couple drops of vodka to paint the tops. Everyone who ate them had blue tongues and fingers Does your color come off - if not what are you using?