kannehearts

@Kerry Beal @Jim D I got my new cocoa butte colors the other day and whipped up a batch of bonbons. So. Much. Better! I compared the new white with the old white (same brand) and there was a huge difference in scent. My husband had just asked me to smell check some old sunflower seeds that same day and we agreed that they were bad, and they smelled the same as the old white even. Thanks for your help guys!

I haven't strained it so far, and I have some undissolved bits here and there, but I'm not too concerned with that until I get some of the other problems solved.

Yeah, I know titanium dioxide is sort of icky. I haven't noticed it when I've used it in the past, but i maybe just wasn't using as much. Or, it oxidized like Kerry suggested. I am going to get a fresh bottle just so I know, but I'm not going to toss what I have in the meantime until I figure anything out. When I said I have a bunch of white, i meant I have 8 oz, haha. My other pre-made cocoa butters are 2 oz bottles. Mixing is going better so far. I'll be getting the milk frother in a day or two which will help. And the white is definitely going to have to leave the rotation for now. In a test with specks, a lightened color, and white only, they were so bad. Other colors, pre- made and homemade, all tasted fine if they hadn't mixed with the white. Maybe the suggestion to wait overnight was for the tempering process? I believe they said it was so the cocoa butter could crystallize. I read a lot in the forums the other day though and can't remember enough about it to be trustworthy. I might just be spreading rumors.

Kerry and Jim- thank you!! I did some more practice and experimenting today with your recommendations and information and things have been going better! I still had the homemade pink so I added more pink powder and that did the trick in terms of fixing the consistency and yellow tone. I made another homemade color, purple, and I'm letting it sit overnight before I use it (I guess you're supposed to?). It already looked better than my first batch though since I wasn't stingy with the powder this time. I ordered a milk frother today to mix better. I've been waiting for a good excuse to get one 👍 I think I will then buy another bottle of the pre-made white cocoa butter and compare the two to see if the original has gone bad. It sounds like it shouldn't be so gross normally so I won't worry too much about this happening again for now. I have a tray filled with shells that I will inspect tomorrow to see how things taste with the homemade color and how a light coating vs. a heavy costing of white differs, if at all. Thank you both again!

Hi all, I started playing with tempering chocolate last December. It's been a few months since I last made any bonbons and I'm sort of having to re-learn a few things while I try new things too. I have a big container of white colored cocoa butter by roxy and rich and started experimenting with lightening some other premade colors. I have a few bright primary colors and figured I could just do some mixing to get whatever I wanted from there. I like a lot of cool pinks and purples so l used a lot of white to get a pastel tone. I also was curious if I could coat an entire shell in a color rather than swipes or dots of color. They were grooooss. My husband also tried some said it tasted like a closet. I think I figured out it was the liberal amount of white I mixed in and it took on the gnarly taste of titanium dioxide. Even the shells that only got a small splatter of a colored mixed with white, it was still very jarring and off putting. Is messing with white to this extent just not an option? Are there whites that aren't so pungent? I also have some roxy and rich powders and some food grade cocoa butter. I mixed some pink powder with melted cocoa butter and added a small amount of titanium dioxide so it wouldn't be so transparent. Since the cocoa butter is quite yellow though, the pink was weird so I'm sort of in the same boat where I'm looking for something to mix in. I don't want to add white though because I'm afraid it will create that bad taste again. Maybe violet would help? It's supposed to negate yellows I think. The homemade color also ended up too thin to paint into my mold. It ran so much I didn't have any control of where it went, and it looked cloudy. Is color mixing a lot more technical than l thought? Or, maybe l missed something? I saw some of you mention creating a coating of white to make some of your colors pop. What is this though? White cocoa butter? White chocolate? Do you need to airbrush that in? If the answer here is to just get premade colored cocoa butter, that's fine. My biggest concern is this yucky taste. Should I try to avoid using white any more than a speck? How can I be sure I won't get this taste with the lighter premade colors too?

Hmm, I can't seem to find a retailer that will ship to the US. While looking around though, I had a thought. Buttercream often has a similarly creamy yellow tone since it is butter based. A technique I've seen bakers use is adding a very small amount of violet to negate the yellow. I wonder if that would work! I have a few options to try today!

Thanks Kerry! I saw Power Flowers briefly when I was learning how to temper and have since forgotten they are a thing. I'll look into it and see if this will help!

I tried again yesterday with similar results. I think I'm going to put this one down as a fail. Thanks for the info Jim! I have do have white cocoa butter (I think mine is Roxy and Rich) so I'll give that a go today. At this point, I think I can learn to be content with yellowish white chocolate. I'll read through that discussion you sent as well!

I used the seeding method and brought the chocolate up to 110°F and back down to 87°F. It did eventually set, but it definitely has a chalky feel and, although the bark doesn't bend, the break isn't as sharp as it usually is. You can see in the photo that the bark didn't come off the acetate cleanly. It maybe just needed more time to set, or it was always going to be kind of off. Being my first go with titanium dioxide, I just eye balled the amount and kept adding until it was as white as I wanted. Which ended up being a lot. I'll reign it in next time. I'm going to do another test today. I think I added too much titanium dioxide so it just interfered with the temper. I'm hoping it will set better with less, and it isn't just a lost cause. TBD.

Hi! I started tempering chocolate in December despite saying I would never temper chocolate because it looks so complicated. Now I'm whipping up chocolates for every holiday and birthday gift. I'm not the best for sure, but I've been practicing a lot and I'm feeling good about the results (usually)! I'm trying to make a bark that is mainly white with some red feathering. I used titanium dioxide for the first time to try to get the white chocolate whiter, and everything seemed to be going well, but after a half hour, the red chocolate (dark) has set but the white is very tacky. I can't find any information on if titanium dioxide affects the tempering process. Did I blow it?