Most fluid white chocolate?

[mostlylana]

Beautiful work! Tell us how you did them:-)

Sorry for the late response. I think I've finally caught up with myself! I'm not sure which one you mean in regards to method... The marble eggs are done just as you would paint a mold - different layers with different chocolates. I use sponge brushes, saran wrap to roll in the wet chocolate to get a marble effect and a piping bag. They're fun!

The nut eggs use the technique I learned from Paul DeBondt in Italy. I think Wybauw also shows that method in his decorations book - yes, I remember - he does. Add nuts to mold. Pipe over nuts carefully to create a basket for them. You want to make sure there are no big holes that the other chocolate can seep into. Add molding chocolate when the other is set.

The nest egg technique I got straight from the Wybauw decorations book. I didn't have success using a silicone egg in the mold to make the indent so I molded some nest like shapes from another mold I had into shell. I then added this shell to the mold (open part facing the mold) and piped it down all around. When set I added my molding chocolate. When they are out of the mold the egg now has an indent. To make the nest is tricky. It requires piping onto a frozen surface and scooping it up into a nest shape before it sets too much. I found the hard part not getting the nest chocolate onto the egg. It's slippery to work with! Does anyone have ideas about this?! What I did learn after doing a few was if I DID get chocolate on the egg - just to leave it and take it off when set. This gives a much better result than trying to wipe it off.

OK - back to work. That's the only problem with the nest eggs - they take some time to make.

[Sebastian]

Beautiful lana - sorry for late response, have been traveling again. The marbled eggs are my favorite, although they're all nicely done!

[Yoda]

On 9/18/2009 at 3:22 PM, Lior said:

I find Valrhona's Ivoire so fluid I have to do twocoatings for my molded items or they are so thin they don't come out.

Hi, I know I'm waking up an ooold post, but this is what I was searching for.

 

I have Zephyr by Cacao Barry and it's fluidity is really high. I don't have experience in molding with high F chocolate.

I once made my shells too thin by inverting te mold too quickly and I had to put the mold in the freezer to get the shells out.

 

How do you go about making 2 layers when shelling? Would you mind explaining the procedure (or anyone else that know how to do this)?

Do I wait for the first coat to set, or probably just so it sets a tiny bit? And then add another layer?

 

I was thinking since the chocolate contracts and that's what makes it release from the molds, I probably shouldn't wait too long in between layers so it can contract more evenly?

 

Hope my question made sense.

 

I really want to try the white chocolate but I feel a bit intimidated by the high fluidity of it

[pastrygirl]

@Yoda I'd consider Zephyr to be moderate fluidity compared to other white chocolates.  But I too have been struggling with thickness on white chocolate shells.  Instead of planning on double-shelling, try cooling and agitating the chocolate a little more and see how it thickens, and/or let it sit in the molds for a minute.

 

 

[Jim D.]

@YodaI use Valrhona's Opalys for my white.  It starts out thin (as you described Zephyr), but fairly quickly thickens.  The issue is finding that thickening point and taking steps to counteract it.  But you are interested in the thin stages.  What I do is to scrape the mold (upside down), then take a look at it.  If the chocolate looks thin at that point (any colored cocoa butter will show through the chocolate), I pour a little more into each cavity, empty the mold, scrape again.  I try to avoid filling the cavities a second time by (as pastrygirl suggested) letting the mold sit (while it is still full of chocolate) for longer than usual.  This really works, but of course knowing when to end the waiting period is the key.  When the shell looks OK and I have scraped it, I turn the mold on each of its sides, one by one, letting chocolate have another chance to crystallize on the sides as I find that is where the thinness eventually shows up.  Then I scrape again (mold upside down).  When the edges of the shell begin to over-thicken as they crystallize, I know it's time to take steps to thin out the chocolate.  I avoid making the shell twice unless the situation is really bad because you may end up with a very thick shell.  All of the above are reasons I tend to use mostly dark and milk these days.  There are some fillings, however, that seem to call for white.  And for a popular "apple crisp" I make, Cacao Barry's Zephyr Caramel is perfect.  If you think Zephyr white is difficult, give the caramel version a try for a real test of your ingenuity.

[Yoda]

@pastrygirl and @Jim D. thank you both for your suggestions.

 

I haven't actually tried shelling with Zephyr yet, but was interested in theory of technique if and when I ever do have to fill the shells more than once (seeing the fluidity is marked as highest on this bag)

 

I only made bonbons for the first time (twice!) this week and while I had some beginners luck on the first try with the shell thickness, they did take super long to release so I eventually put them in the fridge to help them - I read after that, that you actually should put the molds in the fridge when they start to set so as to help the latent heat dissipate and fully crystallize (noted for next time :))

On the second attempt, the shells were soo thin - I don't know whether I was taping the mold to release too much chocolate, or it just wasn't tempered properly, but almost all of the chocolate ran out of the molds.
I was thinking about doing another pass, but wasn't sure if it would just make the situation worse since I wasn't sure of the temper anyway.
So I decided to put them in the freezer to get them to release finally - luckily only 1 of them was a stubborn one that just wouldn't let go so I had so wash that one out with warm water. The shells were so thin, some broke when I was taking them out.

Following is a bit counter-topic, but I wanted to share:

After that I said to myself, okay, better to leave the chocolate in the mold for longer so it actually forms a shell. So I left the chocolate to sit for about a minute (took me a while to fill and tap the bubbles out, so maybe 2- 2,5 minutes overall). After that I turned the mold around and no chocolate was flowing out! I immediately started tapping the sides but a lot more chocolate remained in the mold than I was hoping  
You can see the thickness here:

(p.s. I'll have to search how to resize the pictures so they aren't so big)

Which I don't think looks that bad? (probably one of the "thinner shells of this batch") But the bottom parts were really thick and some of them had only tiny cavities for the filling.
I'm guessing I also over crystallized my chocolate as I was struggling to get it in temper.

I failed the capping a bit too as the chocolate started to set before I managed to scrape it off + I saw some leaking? You can see on the picture below the thickness of the rings around the caps

 

But overall it was fun. Now to just get the tempering right...is it true tempered chocolate sets in a few minutes??? I usually dipped the end of the knife but it showed a fingerprint when I touched the chocolate after 2 min (maybe even more) - maybe my hands were already so warm from stirring and the ambient temp was around 24C, or am I just trying to make myself feel less of a failure?.. the chocolate seemed to set and didn't look like it had any white spots or streaks, it just took a lot longer..

I'm getting really off topic so I'll wrap it up by saying that no matter how much (very highly appreciated might I add!) advice you get, it's also about the tries and failures (and hopefully some more successes, hehe) that teach you a lot!  theory and practice are waay different matters. Now to convert all of that advice into practice!  

[pastrygirl]

4 hours ago, Yoda said:

Now to just get the tempering right...is it true tempered chocolate sets in a few minutes??? I usually dipped the end of the knife but it showed a fingerprint when I touched the chocolate after 2 min (maybe even more) - maybe my hands were already so warm from stirring and the ambient temp was around 24C,

 

You are on the right track.  Your room temp is rather warm for chocolate work, most of us prefer 65-70F, 18-21C.  Chocolate will crystallize more quickly at cooler temps, which also means you need to work more quickly and warm it back up more often as it sits and thickens in your work bowl.

 

There is definitely such thing as too thin shell, I think the ideal is about 1.5 mm.  I also think the relative translucency of white chocolate makes it even trickier to tell when the shell is right.  You might be able to see CB colors through 1 mm white chocolate and freak out but it should still hold together.