Workflow for molded chocolates in small restaurant

[JesseK]

Hello,

 

hoping someone can help me with some workflow questions. I've recently taken over the pastry role in a small tasting menu restaurant and we'd like to produce molded chocolate truffles for either mignardise or take-aways. We have 5 poly trays of molds that hold 40/tray and we'd like to produce roughly that many per week (200). Time and space is tight so I'd like to do this in one go, once per week. The problem I'm having is I don't know the proper workflow for creating this many candies at once. We do not have a tempering machine so it would be stovetop tempering. Is it possible to do that in one go with one big bowl of chocolate? In the past I've made truffles, but always discarded the chocolate after filling the molds. Is it a bad idea to put chocolate from the molds back into the large batch of tempered chocolate? (i.e. fill the molds with chocolate, let the shell set (1-2 mins) then when tipping the chocolate out, can that be tipped back into the large batch?) Also, any tips for large batch tempering of chocolate? We don't have a marble slab so the seeded method is really the only one. The real question is how can I keep a large batch of chocolate tempered for the time it takes to produce 200 molded candies? We have minimal equipment for this kind of operation and I'd be tempering over a double boiler then using ambient heat from a frenchtop to maintain temperature. 

 

Is this too much to do without a tempering machine? I'm worried about maintaining the temperature of the tempered chocolate during the time it takes to fill 200 molds with filling. I know I can retemper if I lose it but I really need to work fast and efficiently to get this done in the timeframe that I have (~1hr). If anyone has some insight into a workflow it would be much appreciated. 

 

Thanks,

 

Jesse

[pastrygirl]

22 minutes ago, JesseK said:

In the past I've made truffles, but always discarded the chocolate after filling the molds. Is it a bad idea to put chocolate from the molds back into the large batch of tempered chocolate? (i.e. fill the molds with chocolate, let the shell set (1-2 mins) then when tipping the chocolate out, can that be tipped back into the large batch?)

 

Discard chocolate?  The horror!  No need to do that, you can dump it back into the bowl.  Yes, it will cool the mass a little but just keep an eye on it.  You can dump it on parchment to save for later if you want, but you have to temper a lot more chocolate to get the job done if you're not 'recycling' it.

 

5 molds isn't many, the chocolate should stay in temper for that long unless your kitchen is really cold.  A heating pad can help, or I keep a hairdryer handy so I can warm chocolate a few degrees - my kitchen has been in the 50's F lately, so I need to warm the chocolate frequently to keep it in temper.   And it's not that much chocolate.  40 pieces per mould must be pretty small, so even if you are making solid pieces I doubt you need more than 2kg per batch. 

 

Workflow:  seed/temper chocolate while polishing/decorating molds and making ganache.  Cast shells, fill with cooled ganache once set.  Do something else for a few hours until ganache is crystallized.  Re-temper chocolate and cap/bottom molds.

 

Depending on the kitchen, you may be able to find a spot perfect for keeping chocolate warm - an oven or french top with a pilot light.  Then you need to find a place to keep your finished bonbons cool and away from snackers!