Rajala

Nope. Not the thermometer. But it's still so bizarre. How can I basically forget how to temper chocolate? I have no idea. But I will go for 27° instead. See if it'll work.

I'll give it a go if I fail with the other thermometer. It shows a ,5 difference just when I measure the "air" of the room. That's quite the differene for chocolate. But not sure if it always was like this or not. 3,5 hours left of the work day. Will temper after that.

I melt the chocolate to 50°, pour EVERYTHING on my counter top, work it down to like 28° and then up to 31-32° in the microwave oven. I don't save a third of it or so. I guess this is a bit strange? But it always worked for me.

I normally handle chocolate at 21-22°. But I got the idea to have it at 20° just to see if I got better results, and I just fail with everything. I tried to mold with Caraïbe minutes ago and it doesn't even set. Someone suggested that maybe my thermometer is off? Might be I hope so, because I can't really understand how I lost the ability to temper chocolate otherwise. One thing is for sure, I'm going back to the roots with using small pieces of paper just to check if it's tempered and if not? Well, start over.

Those images look to be the same image. Weird that Chocolate World haven't updated their images for some of the older models yet. However! Yesterday I tried to temper again, regular room temp at around 21,7°. One single shell contracted from the mold. I'm either losing my mind or the chocolate is messing with me. I'm gonna try with some classic Caraïbe today and see if the result gets better.

Yeah, It'll probably cost a bit. But if this is your business, maybe it's a worthwhile investment when you realize it's your favorite milk chocolate ever?! It's weird though, they don't seem to have this chocolate as a bar. It's usually easy to grab a bar to test a variation out.

I'll try that together with less cream. When I made some calculations, it seems like it's a little bit too much sorbitol. I'll report back later.

Haha, good idea. I always try to rush things. And I would believe you would tell me "you can't rush chocolate"?

Is there anything one can do about the contraction marks? Or or do I have to live with it? A chef once told me; "a cake always have a front and a behind." - I guess you can apply that to bonbons as well then? I'll try your suggestion. I'll lower it to 14° when I put them in the fridge next time. I'm gonna do a new test soon. This time going down to 27,5° and heating the molds to around 25-26° just as a test.

Yeah, I've been working and reading about Morató's formula quite a bit. But I'm more and more thinking that the bonbons should last maximum a month or so (I do don't sell these things), but I do measure AW of any ganache I make to make sure that it's not at 0,9 or so.

I think it is so that the over tempered chocolate contracts before it hits the mold. And if the chocolate don't contract... We know the story.

Thanks Teo. I usually never check my chocolate, so I'm thinking that it's not tempered properly now. As I wrote, it's much colder than normal, so maybe I'm off with the temper for some reason here. I just made a new test and went down to 27,5° with my dark chocolate - with much better result. Still 5 of the shells didn't contract successfully. I wish I could figure out why certain shells behave like this. I'm only doing one mold right now, testing things out. What do you guys think about this? That little streak below the spot reflection. It's not a reflection but some kind of mark on the shell. Dirty mold? Something else?

I'll try with 75 grams. Thanks. I guess it was too long ago I made a white ganache, because I can't remember it being this soft.

I've only made ganaches with it so far, but I think it's a lovely chocolate. Pretty milky and maybe plain when talking about milk chocolates? But it's not like Jivara is like a crazy stand out in taste, taking away from other parts of your product? I probably wouldn't hunt down Orizaba just for the sake of it, but can't you just order a smaller bag of it from a place who repackage, to try it out. https://www.chocosphere.com/default/brand/t-z/valrhona/orizaba-lactee-les-feves-1kg-bag.html - like here? Not sure where you're located though.

I made a ganache with 200 grams of white chocolate (37% cocoa butter, overall fat content at 44%), 100 grams of cream (36% fat), 20 gram of glucose (around DE 40), 18 grams of sorbitol and 15 grams of invert sugar (yeah, this came out sweet.) I've been using these ratios with milk and dark chocolates getting a great result in terms of texture - but this white chocolate ganache becomes so soft I can't cap the bonbons. Any suggestions on how to balance it? I tried adding some extra cocoa butter, but the texture ended up a little grainy - maybe I didn't emulsify it enough though. Maybe just a bit of less cream is the way to go? But how much less? I made a test with the same chocolate and just cream. No sugars added and it's still a little soft in room temperature, but not as soft. Maybe I've just forgotten that white chocolate ganaches are really soft? 😂

Look at this shell, do you see how there's a difference in the shade of brown? Look a few millimeters below the reflected spotlight

Strange this. But as @Muscadelle is writing, it's probably not tempered well enough. But if it isn't, how come some of them contract? Is it that I need to keep it at the end temperature for a bit longer to ensure that most crystals have melted away? I'm using CW1217 - 30 mm diameter hemispheres. The most simple mold of them all? Well with that said, I'm going to try again today in an hour or two when my brain has awoken. This time without heating the molds. Just to see if there's a difference. The reason I'm trying to heating the molds is just to play around, see if there will be less marks on them. Greweling is writing about "uneven cooling spots," and that unheated molds can cause that.

So, I spent the night reading all posts in this thread, maybe skimming a few text heavy posts. My question and what I want to talk about, might have been answered elsewhere. But due to my so-so English skills, I really don't find anything good while searching the forum. Please point my in the right direction if you know where I could find an answer. I've been experimenting with getting my kitchen temperature down to 20°, which works fine, humidity is at around 40% or sometimes hitting high 30s. Which I guess should be fine - if there aren't any issues related with too low humidity that I'm not aware of. The issue I have is that multiple shells really don't contract from my mold at the moment, and I have no idea why - it's not like they're all in the same spots, they can be all over the mold. I've made two tests today with dark chocolate (Cacao Barry Extra Bitter Guayaquil - I had to google that ). With one test I heated up the mold to around 25° before pouring chocolate in the mold, and letting it set in room temperature (20°) - around half of the 21 shells contracted from the mold. With the other test I begun with the same process, but I let the chocolate set in my chocolate fridge at 16°. In this case, only 6 of the shells have contracted as they've cooled down. What do you think? I must also say that earlier I just haven't cared about the temperature in the room. It have been at around 22-23°. Can it be that I don't agitate the chocolate enough while tempering it on my counter top? That it cools down much faster with less movement, due to the lower temperature? Should I don't bother with heating the molds? I'm thinking that maybe the chocolate I'm using also have done all the heavy lifting it can do - it's a 5 kg bag I've used for a while and re-tempered many times. Maybe a few too many? People usually state that chocolate can be re-tempered "forever" (okay, I might be reaching,) but maybe there is a limit after all? Well, I'm going to try some more tomorrow without heating up the mold. Just to see if I get a different result. If I still have problems, I think it's time to open a new bag of chocolate. You may ask why I even do this when it worked earlier? Well, I just want to try other things I guess - also since people say that 20° is the temperature to work at. 😁

Some of them tiny, some of them larger. I had probably twice the normal opening on the piping bag. I think one just need to work on the technique.

Haha crisis problems. That's what you get with chocolate quite often, right?

Yeah, that was the whole idea with it and combining clarified butter and coconut oil. Here's the recipe for the crispy part. You'll have to translate it. 😛

Thank you!

Ah, got it. My mistake. I never realized gingerbread was just the soft one. We call the "cookies" pepparkaka, and if we make a soft one, it's prefixed by mjuk (soft). Mjuk pepparkaka.

Yeah, kind of. Gingerbread in Sweden is a little bit different from what you have. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger_snap Check the Scandinavian part there. But those become the crispy element.

Well of course! 1. A caramel with gingerbread spices. I make a wet caramel which I deglaze with cream that I heated up together with the spices 2. A ganache made out of Valrhona's Orizaba and again gingerbread spices for the cream. 3. A crispy layer with same chocolate, ghee, coconut oil, gingerbread pieces and some sea salt