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I'm late to the game - anyone have any ideas for Father's Day? And I refuse to make to make chocolate golf balls.

New useful shop toy acquired today: a milk frother. This small device is perfect for stirring pigment into cocoa butter when you are making your own colors, or need to mix up ones that have settled. It makes no splatter like a hand held blender and is super easy to clean - just put it in a mug of hot soapy water... I picked one up on Amazon for under $20US with a stand, thinking it might be good, and it was great! Because the cocoa butter has a thicker viscosity than milk, it doesn't froth it, but does an excellent job of blending without the mess.

Hello there everyone! I am a new chocolatier and I am looking for someone who has some time to dedicate helping me set up my new business. I have questions mostly on recipes and equipment. Is anyone available? Thank you Egli

I've seen so much beautiful molded chocolate work here I decided to come to the experts. I'm still trying to get consistent shine on my molded chocolates (not using colored cocoa butter yet). I typically get a few really good ones, most have some spots with really good shine and some ok shine, and then maybe I have 1 dud (air bubble or some kind of blemish). I'm just wondering, what would you all say are the top 3 tips to getting that consistent super shine?

I just wanted to thank Kerry, Steve (lebowits), Rob (gfron1) and Chocolot for taking the time out to answer so many of my questions. I haven't been working with chocolate for long and was running into a number of problems and they were so helpful. After following their advice and lots of practice I finally feel like I am getting the hang of things. Here are today's results. Waiting to be filled, but so far so good. Thank you again and hopefully I'll get to meet you guys at the workshop next year. By the way, there will be TONS of additional questions to come. lol Branden

Well, I guess I am more curious than embarrassed. Although I use fairly good quality chocolate to make dipped citrus peels, bonbons and so on, I also use a lot of less than good quality chocolate to make toppings on pies and cakes, particularly for friends and neighbors who think that Merkens is delicious. Well, that's unkind, but you know what I mean. In Canada, we have a chocolate called 'World's Finest' and it is truly awful. Oh well. So here is the situation. I have purchased from Canadian Wal-Mart for a good number of years now a bar, Waterbridge Imported Belgian, 400 grams, in Milk, Dark and Extra Dark varieties. And my topping is invariably 4 oz of chocolate and 1/2 cup of half and half or whipping cream. And it always sets just fine. Perfect. About 3 months ago, I made a Milk chocolate topping for a friend who loves milk chocolate. It didn't set. It was soup. OK. But the Dark and Extra Dark still worked fine. Two days ago, both of those were soup. I wrote to Wal-Mart noting the change, and also that the ever-present gold cardboard is now missing from the bars. They apologized profusely and offered me my money back. (In the meantime, I figured out that 1/4 cup of cream would work perfectly.) The ingredients are: for the Extra Dark: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa powder, soy lecithin and the Dark: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter and soya lecithin. What do you suppose they did to the mix to make it so different?

I am trying to work on making some chocolates for my diabetic sister. As the sweetener, I used Swerve, an erythritol-based sweetener that supposedly behaves like sugar (and that my sister likes.) I added it to my standard milk chocolate recipe from Chocolate Alchemy- http://chocolatealchemy.com/recipes/dark-milk-chocolate-45 It came out of the melanger fine and set up OK. But, when I went to temper it, it would not melt! Even after an hour at 140F, it was about the consistency of peanut butter. Has anyone worked with Swerve and have any successful recipes? Or have any idea why it was so viscous? The stuff is darned expensive, so I don't want to experiment too much.

Hi everyone, I am someone who used to hate milk chocolate (and white as well) because they are always too sweet for me. but recently I got to try Valrhona's Bahibe 46% and it's really good; creamy and not sickeningly sweet. After Valrhona has changed my mind, I'm on a quest to explore the world of milk chocolate. Are there any alternatives as good or even better? what's your preference when it comes to milk chocolate? Thank you.

Hi everyone I am a new chocolatier. I would like to know if anyone sells their bonbons in malls or airports and if they do, do you keep them in a fridge for chocolates? I know that chocolate is very sensitive to temperature especially bonbons...or is the air-conditioning enough?

Hello, I am a new chocolatier. Any suggestions on new products or other sources of revenue one can create to increase business during warm weather? People dont really like to eat chocolate during very hot weather we have here. I need to think of ways that will not give me extra costs. Thanks for your feedback

hi everyone, Another problem occurred with our caramel recipe for our bonbons. I had a perfect texture using my recipe for 32 cavities and when I multiplied that by 2 the caramel was a completely different texture and very runny. Any suggestions why this happened? Thank you

I have an opportunity to obtain (without a trip to NYC, where everything appears available) some hard-to-find liqueurs or brandies for my chocolate work, primarily in ganaches. I already have a poire Williams eau-de-vie and a framboise one as well. I have German kirschwasser but am getting low on that, so am thinking of getting more while I have this chance. For new ones, I'm thinking primarily of apricot. I have heard there are some wonderful European apricot brandies/liqueurs, but don't know which really taste of apricots and are worth purchasing. And the other flavor I would like is a strawberry brandy or liqueur. Online I've found Dolceterra Marcati wild strawberries liqueur and Drillaut strawberry liqueur but know nothing about either. I lean more toward a liqueur/cordial than eau-de-vie because sometimes I think the latter does not always taste specifically of the fruit. Any guidance would be much appreciated, including ideas for fruits I haven't mentioned.

Anyone can help why this is happening to my caramel bonbon after I scrape? They are not very full and it happened to almost all of them

Hi there, Does anyone know of a good app which allows you to enter orders which come from your website to keep track of them and schedule in a calendar. View of paid invoices, unpaid and any extra features to help with online ordering?

Hi there, I am looking for a very simple vegan bonbon recipe that is just a dark ganache. I am having trouble balancing a coconut cream that has less fat than UHT cream to have a balanced recipe that can have a 3 month shelf life. My bonbon recipe had mould after one month testing. Anyone have any good solutions?

I am a new start up in chocolate making. I tried to freeze a container with my bonbons and all the caps just cracked after using my simple vacuum machine. Please help! Which containers should I use and how do you vacuum pack these containers. Anyone with a picture of the container would help. thank you

WANTED: Chocovision tempering machine. Looking for a gently used tempering machine. Anyone have one they like to sell? thanks!

Hi there, i am moving into our lab next week so excited!!!! I have one million questions but the ones popping up in my head are 1) If I have 6 moulded bonbon recipes to airbrush, fill and cover and 6 bars recipes to make for our production,how do you organise production? Can someone give me an example of their weekly plan am and pm plan just to get an idea? I have a Selmi 😀. 2) how many bonbons and bars should I produce just before we launch? I have my budgets and projections but you know those first weeks God knows how you will do! Should I be freezing from the beginning? And what is the ideal packaging way to freeze bonbons? Thank you so appreciate it!

Hi there, Anyone use any specific equipment or product to clean chocolate from floors?

I hope this isnt a dumb question, I'm super new to chocolate work and am I trying really hard to learn. I just bought Greweling's book C&C and many of the recipes call for liqueurs. I'm wondering if its possible to replace them without unbalancing them too much. Would extracts work? Thanks in advance.

So I seem to be doing the thing where the more I find out and learn about chocolate the more I realize I don't know. I'm wondering how little I can get away with spending in the very beginning. My husband is back in school and I'm wondering if chocolate experimenting is even feasible right now or if its something I should wait on. I figure I can practice tempering and molding at a low cost, but from there does it get steep?

I need some help to balance my recipe fillings for my bonbons. Anyone have time to help me? I have based myself on Ramon Moratos %

For my purposes I have mastered the art of packaging chocolate bars, but search as I might I cannot find an eGullet thread or any information on packaging chocolate eggs. I ask as I have an egg mold in transit. Assuming I can successfully fabricate an egg, how can I wrap or package it? All I can think of is cellophane. I've seen pictures so I know some of you are making eggs. Do not deny it. When I was little and still celebrated holidays the neighborhood candy establishment sold eggs in windowed cardboard boxes with cellophane grass*. That was the early 1950's. Is this still the state of the art? *cellophane grass tastes terrible. And the ubiquitous coconut cream filling not much better.

We are new Chocolatiers 3 months in business and doing well. We are looking for mentors people who are in production and can help us grow in the right direction. We need to take some decisions to invest now before the holiday season and want to make sure we are doing the right moves. If we need to pay for this service we don’t have a big budget but will try. We will try to get help to avoid any mistakes and will take a loan for this investment. Look forward to hear from you guys thks

Hello, I am new to this forum. It is nice to meet you all. For August I have 2 big custom chocolate jobs and would love to know if I can paint the molds with tempered cocoa butter weeks in advance and then shell, fill, cap, at the last minute? Will the paint hold and be shiny and beautiful? Thanks in advance