Soleil

I will give the punition a try. Being relatively new to this, I have tried to shy away from using egg. My goal is to have a bonbon with 30 d shelf life. Have you had any problems with mold in the punitions? Thinking out loud, I guess if you are baking these cookies till crisp, the water from the egg would be evaporated and any pathogens killed at an oven temp of 350F.

Jim - the smell of the melted gelatin is less than ideal, but I have found just a little vanilla extract does the trick - I don’t smell or taste anything foul. Plus, since I am using this to pipe into shelled bonbons, the other flavors are there too. I have tried avoiding the gelatin and extra water (I wanted to get aW as low as possible), but the texture is too runny for my liking. My initial recipe with gelatin gave a wonderful soft marshmallow, but it didn’t self level. I cut the amount of gelatin I was using in half and it seemed to be a good balance between easily self leveling, staying fluid long enough to pipe into molds but yet giving a firmer texture when fully set. I am also working on the graham cracker round (I use the smallest Ateco biscuit cutter when the graham cracker is straight from oven and it fits my mold well). Again, trying to get away from as much moisture as possible I am tinkering with a recipe that uses only a little molasses and coconut oil instead of butter. Crispness is an issue right now, but the flavor is quite good. In fact, I could stop eating the scraps yesterday…). Any thoughts on a cookie recipes for a nice crisp cookie round? Oh, once I piped the marshmallow, I made a meltaway layer with 33% milk choc and coconut oil - just enough to seal the marshmallow and help keep my graham crisp. I am hoping to get another test of this going soon and I’ll let you know how it goes.

JimD - I have read many of your posts on aW and shelf etc. Thanks to you and all the other contributors for sharing knowledge and experience. So, I have been working on a smores bonbon and getting the marshmallow right. I stumbled upon an idea of modifying my Swiss buttercream recipe to make pipeable and self leveling marshmallow. I use fresh egg whites with double the weight in sugar - cooked over a double boiler until >165F to pasteurize. With some cream of tartar, vanilla and whisking - it makes a really nice marshmallow cream. However, I have been adding some bloomed gelatin that is melted during whisking. This seems to allow me the fluidness of getting into shells and leveling, but once it firms up, a decent texture. I have one of the aW meters similar to what Kerry Beal just tried the AW-160. Despite the fact that I am adding a little water with the gelatin, my marshmallow I believe was around 0.70. I plan to do some more tests/experiments soon. When I am testing aW, I cut a nice slice of the finished bonbon and put it in the sample dish to get a feel for the whole system. You expressed reluctance for using fresh egg whites, but what are your thoughts on this one…I am leery as well (very new to this business as a hobby turned into something a little more). The last thing I want to do is have someone get sick. Any thoughts appreciated. Thanks.

Third picture...

So I’ve done two batches after Tempering the cb. I heat to 45, cool bottle in ice bath while spinning and shaking until down to 30 then warm to 31-32 and hold. When I’ve shelled using Callebaut 811, I have it at around 32. How long should I let the mold sit when I’m shelling? I have been using about 30-45 secs. Is that too short a time to throughly blend with the colored cocoa butter? First picture I had very little white left in mold. Second picture the lines were painted or finger swiped. Both solid colors were sprayed and had no problems... any other thoughts? Could it be that I didn’t let the shells sit long enough to crystallize? The cocoa butter sat for 12-18 hrs before I shelled them...

Does any lone have a specific Rec for a moisture trap for air compressor? I have a Home Depot pancake compressor I use for spraying cocoa butter into molds. It’s oil less but I’m sure there is some moisture in the air. Of course the filters I saw at HD all read “it can cause cancer to touch this” etc... what do you guys use? Thanks!

I would like some info on best way to retemper colored cocoa butter. I had some issue with some roxy and rich cb not releasing from my mold. I tried twice to retemper without success. So if anyone is kind enough to spell out exactly what they do to make sure the cb is tempered, I’d be grateful. Normally, I just microwave the bottles in 10-30 sec intervals until it’s at 87F and agitate to well, then paint or finger swiped the molds. If I’m using my paint sprayer, I will push sometimes to 90-91 and haven’t had issue. Please note, my molds were clean and polished, at room temp, and the cb seemed to set in a few minutes. I tried another color in the same cavity that wouldn’t release the blue cb, and it released fine. So- having to ditch 14 trays has not made me paranoid that I’m playing with fire and not doing something correctly that has now burned me. Thanks in advance. Btw- I have also used Chef Rubber cb and am confused why they say just to reheat to 86 while the Roxy and Rich says to heat to 95. Any education and advice is appreciated. The picture is the blue that would Not release.

Beyond the food saver type system, any suggestions on how to seal a box of molded/filled chocolates to help extend self life? Any systems that aren’t too costly for a someone just starting out to make hobby to business jump?

Thanks. I’ve just been using air to blow excess cocoa butter out at end but wanted to make sure I wasn’t creating an potentially environment for something to grow or contaminate anything.

I have a Husky HVLP sprayer that I bought at Home depot on advice. Works well for my small volume needs. My question is how do you guys clean them? I was made aware that cocoA butter can go rancid, so any suggestions on what to use and technique to clean this sprayer? A friend suggested Steamine tablets. I’m still at the high end hobbyist- trying to become more than a hobby stage so I’m not familiar with these. Any advice? Thanks. Soleil