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Making Chocolate Bars


John DePaula

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I want to make some 2 tone chocolate bars - milk and dark.  Paul DeBondt does his fleur de sel bars in this manner.  I'm attaching a few photos of a half eaten DeBondt bar.  I caught myself before I finished it!

Notice that he has both colours on the back side of the bar.  How is this accomplished?  Normally when I do 2 tone - I squeeze in 1 colour and let set and then pour in the other.  I did my Easter bunnies this way - but the inside doesn't show.  The inside was all 1 colour...

Can I squeeze in both chocolates at the same time to get both colours throughout?  Does anybody do this technique?  How?!

Thanks all.

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Sort of looks like you pour chocolate from both sides at the same time.

Hi Kerry,

Can you please explain what you mean by 'pouring chocolate from both sides at the same time"? I'm not following... Sorry!

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Hi Kerry,

Can you please explain what you mean by 'pouring chocolate from both sides at the same time"?  I'm not following...  Sorry!

Let me play with it later today and let you know.

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To get two different colors in the bar, simply fill two pastry bags with different chocolates and pipe them simultaneously.

I'm not sure, but there might even be special two-compartment pastry bags you could buy for the task.

John DePaula
formerly of DePaula Confections
Hand-crafted artisanal chocolates & gourmet confections - …Because Pleasure Matters…
--------------------
When asked “What are the secrets of good cooking? Escoffier replied, “There are three: butter, butter and butter.”

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I'm not sure if I'm not seeing it clearly, but to me it looks like only one side has the 2 tones. It looks like the bottom (in the picture) is all dark, and the top has dark and milk.

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I wonder if this would work:

Pour/pipe in one color - half to three quarters filling up the mold. Then using a piping bag with a different color, stick the tip inside the poured chocolate and squeeze while moving the tip around in some random or not design, finishing at the top of the mold (which is actually the bottom) Kind of like the almond butter cups that Kerry gave us a link for (Schmidt's demo in the bowl thread).

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Pam, I bought a few of these baby bars from DeBondt and this one did, indeed, have a dark base (top!) but not all of them did. The other 2 I had were mottled throughout.

John, I had concluded that the way you described would be the technique I would try. My concern was that the 2 chocolates would blend rather than having distinct divisions (which is what I want) - especially when the molds are vibrated. I'm working on bars all this week so I'll give it a try.

Ilana, your technique also sounds very interesting. I hadn't thought of that. I just watched the video. I actually didn't watch that one during the bowl thread - just the basket one. I'll definitely try this technique too.

Can't wait to see what you come up with Kerry!

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Yeah, I was thinking along the same idea as Ilana. Start with the dark, then pipe in the milk. Somebody else would have a better idea of how long or if you have to wait for the dark chocolate to set just a little (or not) before piping in the milk -- but it seems like that would work.

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Ok - so valuable lesson - two pastry bags with big holes in them - one in each hand - are a little like fire hoses in the hands of a small child.

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My suspicion is that handling one pastry bag at a time would have given a more desirable effect.

Once the bar has had a chance to fully crystallize I'll get out my varnish brush from Lee Valley and see how much I can reduce the unmolding marks on the bar.

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Ok - so valuable lesson - two pastry bags with big holes in them - one in each hand - are a little like fire hoses in the hands of a small child. 

gallery_34671_3115_9923.jpg

gallery_34671_3115_5953.jpg

My suspicion is that handling one pastry bag at a time would have given a more desirable effect. 

 

Once the bar has had a chance to fully crystallize I'll get out my varnish brush from Lee Valley and see how much I can reduce the unmolding marks on the bar.

Kerry, I love it! Especially the second picture. That's art! Did you do side by side piping like John was describing or did you do 'injection' like Ilana talked about? I'm going to try it today. Can't wait!

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Kerry, I love it!  Especially the second picture.  That's art!  Did you do side by side piping like John was describing or did you do 'injection' like Ilana talked about?  I'm going to try it today.  Can't wait!

Actually I did the two fire hose approach. Cut big holes in two pastry bags, held one in each hand, then tried to control them!

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There are two-compartment pastry bags out there.  Do a google search on dual color striping bag.  You'll find entries like this one

Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking. Thanks for the link.

John DePaula
formerly of DePaula Confections
Hand-crafted artisanal chocolates & gourmet confections - …Because Pleasure Matters…
--------------------
When asked “What are the secrets of good cooking? Escoffier replied, “There are three: butter, butter and butter.”

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Any chance it was marbled like a marble cake? Put in both kinds of chocolate (either in layers or in blobs), and swirl with something like a plastic knife or a popsicle stick, but not too much?

MelissaH

MelissaH

Oswego, NY

Chemist, writer, hired gun

Say this five times fast: "A big blue bucket of blue blueberries."

foodblog1 | kitchen reno | foodblog2

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  • 1 year later...

I'm working on a bar series and would love to do a take on a 'turtles' bar - caramel, pecans and chocolate. I have never tried this before and have some questions...

1) My first question might be obvious but I'm drawing a blank! How do you pipe the caramel into the bar mold?! If it's thin enough to pipe - it's too hot for the chocolate! I'm hoping to have a chewy (yet soft) caramel - not runny. I don't do a lot with caramel so I'm hoping someone will say "silly Lana - this is how you do it..."

2) My other question is regarding shelf life. I want this puppy to last - months. If I can't meet this criteria I'll have to come up with a different take on this project.

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Does it have to be a moulded bar?

For a chewy caramel I can only imagine doing a hand dipped or machine enrobed bar where you cut the caramel to size and then dip.

The turtle bars in Schott's book have a very soft caramel but they look good.

If anyone knows how to do this in moulded bars I will buying some bar moulds straight away, I love chocolate & caramel but my dipping skills are rubbish!

Lapin

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Does it have to be a moulded bar?

Yup. I want it to match my other bars. I'm glad I'm not the only one scratching my head over this! I looked at Schott's recipe but his caramel is combined with white chocolate - not quite what I am after. I'd rather have plain 'ole caramel. My bar mold doesn't have breaks so it would be easy to do a layer of caramel if I could somehow pipe it in. But then again there is the shelf life issue...

.

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I don't know how deep your bar moulds are. You could set your caramel between rulers, let it cool and then cut into rectangles. Then make the shells in your bar mould, fill with whatever filling, drop in a rectangle of caramel and back off.

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Try cooking your caramel to a lower temp (you lose 2% of your water for every degree you raise the temp). A lower cooked caramel would be more fluid and therefore pipe-able. I do this all the time for my caramels - not in bar shape, but in molds. Plus, as I'm piping the chocolate into the mold, my hands help to warm the caramel to assist in keeping it fluid. You'd have to experiment with your particular caramel formula to determine what the proper temperature would be.

If you're experienced with a funnel, you could also use one of them to fill the bar. If the caramel begins to harden, take a heat gun to the outside of the funnel just to warm it up a bit - not enough to take your chocoate out of temper, just enough to keep the caramel fluid.

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I don't have a recipe on hand, but try cooking the sugar: deglazing it cream/milk and then recooking it to 107-110C. Let it cool to 30C then add butter. That should give the result you're after: when it cools you should be able to pipe it into the mould.

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Thanks HQ - that sounds like a good idea. I actually do a maple caramel something like that - I forgot about it! Robert, I will also try a softer caramel. Does anyone have any idea of shelf life for enrobed caramel?

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Thanks HQ - that sounds like a good idea. I actually do a maple caramel something like that - I forgot about it! Robert, I will also try a softer caramel. Does anyone have any idea of shelf life for enrobed caramel?

I've always gotten at least several months out if it - as long as I keep it away from hubby!

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Thanks Kerry - I'll do some shelf life tests with my experiments. Wybauw writes so much about shelf life but I don't recall any mention of caramel?? Does anyone talk about it? It seems as though the shelf life would be longer than ganache.

Hey Kerry, can you zap your next batch of caramel with your Aw meter and let us know what it say?!

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Thanks Kerry - I'll do some shelf life tests with my experiments. Wybauw writes so much about shelf life but I don't recall any mention of caramel?? Does anyone talk about it? It seems as though the shelf life would be longer than ganache.

Hey Kerry, can you zap your next batch of caramel with your Aw meter and let us know what it say?!

Will do - too bad I made a few batches 2 weeks ago for pretzels for the fun fair. None left lying around!

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  • 10 months later...

Hi Kerry, is there a recipe recommended for caramel to be piped into molds that could be found somewhere. And what is the approximate shelf life for chocolate filled with caramel? Thanks a lot for your help, again.

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