Anthony C

If I'm honest (debatable) the cost of ingredients is a relatively small part of my costs here, especially for small boxes of 4 bonbons that I sell to hotels. The packaging (personalised boxes, flavour booklet and ingredients label) atually cost more than the ingredients of the bonbons inside the box, then there is obviously the cost of my time and skill(!) in producing them, so the increase in chocolate prices has yet to reach a critical point. Another big increase in price, come September, could change all that though. The last month or so I've also been struggling to actually buy the chocolate in the first place as my supplier can't source it, due to shortages... though this could be an issue more specific to the Canary Islands as efficiency and customer service are apparently illegal here.

My Barry Callebaut prices went up again in July, and I've been told to expect another increase in September 🙄 I'm considering making bonbons from gold instead

Ahhh Jim, the former scientist in me really enjoys your detailed replies to posts/questions 👍 Kerry also suggested looking at CakeSafe booth. Will be investigating them later. Importing stuff here is the main issue. Plety of people say they export here but then problems arrise. Last time I ordered colours from Chef Rubber, it took 5 months to get them. Its a load of paperwork too, and now they have decided I need to pay a customs agent to submit the paperwork instead of me submitting it directly.. more time and money. Chocolate World are a bit expensive, but they ship here with no issues (yet!) and I get stuff in 5 days, which is, IMHO, a miracle for the Canary Islands. I don't really fancy the idea of changing the "pre-filter" every few molds either, because I am lazy. The guy at chocolate world assures me that their filters only need changing every 2000 hours. I am sure that with my amazing technique, I can reduce that by a factor of 2 without any issue. But 5k asking price is a lot of bonbons to sell. Anyway, thanks to everyone that chipped in with info/advice. Enjoy your days!

Thanks Kerry. Will certainly check them out. We run on 220/230 V (depending on who you ask) and 50 Hz... though when it rains, I am usually working without any electricity. Fortunately,it only rains about 10 days a year here.

Hi Pastrygirl, thanks for your reply. I usually try to limit myself to 4 days of spraying each month, as I am not a fan of it. So i do 2 days every 2 weeks, and about 50 molds on each day, depending on design. I agree that this unit might certainly be a bit over-the-top, but as my previous working life involved working with radioactivity, I pretty much work alongs the lines of better safe than sorry, and its a hard habit to break 🙄

Hi all. Have found this thread very interesting. I am in the process of moving my chocolate lab to a larger site and am reviewing my spraying / filtration set up. In my old site I used to spray in the basement, with a very basic airbrush filtration box, along with an extraction fan to outside. This was only semi-effective and still resulted in a lot of cleaning (which I enjoyed immensely) My new site has no extraction so I am looking at something more effective. As I am in the Canary Islands it is quite hard to find people willing to ship here, due to somewhat difficult customs rules. The item that I am currently considering is from Chocolate World in Belgium https://www.chocolateworld.be/winkel/machines/decorate/M1295 It's a tad expensive (over €5k, plus shipping, plus about 17% import duties). I'm currently spraying about 200 molds a month, which I am sure this unit will cope with, but is this overkill for my needs?... After all, it's a lot of money.. but then nearly everything is in the world of chocolate 🙄 Any thoughts/comments?

I don't currently list the individual colours on my labelling (I'm in the EU). I just put "coloured cocoa butter". I only have to label boxes I sell to hotels that are prepacked. These are small boxes of 4 bonbons and the small size of the "largest surface area" of the box means I don't have to include some information e.g. nutritional. I could add the individual colour additives, but I'm not sure they'd fit on the label with the regulations on sizing of lettering 🤔 Maybe i should give it a go, to be on the safe side. I seem to spend nearly as much time faffing with labels/lot numbers/expiry dates as I do making bonbons I'm not entirely sure that the additives are shown on the labels of the bottles of colours I buy... I will check when I go to my lab this morning.

Not sure if this is the right thread to be asking this, but did anyone find a decent replacement for TiO based white cocoa butter? I have been using one based on E170 but to be honest, it's not great and I have to use a lot more when backing colours to prevent dark chocolate making the bonbons dull/darker. This is expensive and also I don't like using so much cocoa butter in case it impacts on flavour/texture.

You are not wrong there Jim. This is one of the reasons I weigh every mold after I shell it. I can see the masses increasing through my shelling run and reduce the standing time accordingly and also raise the working temperature of the chocolate in my melter slighly as the run progresses and the crystals keep forming. After a couple of hours though I tend to give up and will retemper the chocolate. I think the most molds I shell in one go is about 50 on a good day. Sometimes when I have maybe overtempered the chocolate a bit, I give up after about 15 molds 🙄

As I am that fussy ex-Scientist, all my ganache recipes are optimised to make enough for 1 tray, then I just multiply up. I very rarely have more than about 20g of ganache left even if I make enough for 12 trays, so I don't tend to freeze any. Except when I mess up and make enough for 10 trays when I only have 6 or 7 trays to fill, which has happened more times than it should 😂

Up to about 3.5 kilos is OK for me to handle. Haven't really tried anything bigger than that yet. I have some huge piping bags that I can get about 2 kilos of ganache in, but if i fill them then I get serious arm ache by the time I finish the bag 😂 I have an immersion blender that I use on a couple of ganaches... fig and banana... or i find they are a bit fibery (is fibery even a word?) Don't think it is that strong though, so maybe need to invest in a better one if I am going to be making big batches 👍

Cheers Jim, you have highlighted some of my concerns there. One of the ganaches is fig based and always thickens up pretty quickly so I think I will opt for the 2 preps with that one at least, rather than trying to do it all in one go... It's just more prep time of course. I am not usually one for reheating ganaches, though I know people do. Have never had one separate yet, but have probably only tried it 5 or 6 times. I tend to make what I need and use it all. One of my other concerns was homogeneity of the ganache. As I mix all mine by hand, it's easy to see and feel that they are well mixed when there is a small amount... The larger it gets the more difficult I find it. I suppose I could always use a blender 🤔

Hi there, When making molded bonbons, I use about 220-240g of ganache for each mold of 32 bonbons. Normally I make between 3 and 12 molds of each type of bonbon in each production run, therefore I usually make between 650g and 2.8kg of ganache. I have just received an order that means I will be producing batches of 32 trays of each flavour of bonbon. This equates to about 7.5kg of ganache for each flavour. I am a bit concerned about making batches this large (mixing, handling, dosing etc), so will probably make 2 smaller batches per flavour, but was wondering if anyone out there made large volumes of ganache and if there are any issues. Maybe 7.5kg isn't really that large and it's not an issue. Any insights much appreciated

Yes Jim, I basically shell them twice if they are too thin... but it doesn't happen too often as I have learnt to leave the chocolate in the mold longer for before inverting the mold and emptying the chocolate. The first mold of the day is a bit of guess work... why can't chocolate just behave the same every day 😆

I mainly use Ponthier because it is the only one easily available where I am, and find they are pretty good. I have also used Capfruit and Ravifruit which are ok too. For things like guava, tuno indio (cactus fruit) and banana I make my own.... banana because it is easy and we have loads of bananas in the Canary Islands, and Guava and Tuno Indio because I can't buy it. The Tuno Indio is a pain in the posterior though 🙄