Caramel bonbon leaking

[eglies]

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 

[eglies]

[curls]

How long did you wait between adding your filling and capping your molds? Was there enough time for a "skin" to form on the caramel?

[keychris]

your chocolate is squeezing the filling as it contracts. did you leave the shells to contract before adding the filling? Caramels are a pain in the butt 😛

[eglies]

Yes we did overnight at 14 degrees fridge

[Chocolot]

Did they warm to room temp before closing?

[eglies]

yes we left it come to room temp

[Jim D.]

When I am sealing bonbons containing caramel, just before pouring the melted chocolate over the top of the mold, I pass a heat gun back and forth a few times over the top of the mold. I hold the gun (actually in this case a hair dryer) far enough above the mold so as not to melt the chocolate very much. The theory is that the heat slightly softens the edges of the bonbons so that the chocolate you are about to pour will bond more securely to the bonbon sides. I'm not entirely sure it works, but it seems to have lessened the leaking problem for me. Another thing I do is to take the caramel to a slightly higher temperature than "soft-ball" stage. It makes piping more difficult, but it also makes the caramel less runny and therefore less prone to leak out. If a filling is fluid, the laws of nature dictate that it will try to find a way to escape, and shells often have nearly invisible pinholes in them.

 

And ultimately, if all else fails, you can try this (which works when the bonbons are still in the mold or have already been unmolded):  Temper some chocolate and cut some small pieces of acetate. Then use a knife to spread some chocolate over the bottom of the finished bonbon that is leaking. Apply the acetate, let the chocolate set, then remove the acetate. It doesn't usually make for a very pretty bottom, but we can't all have pretty bottoms. 😉

[pastrygirl]

I always do an extra ‘beauty coat” or two to (try to) get my bottoms perfect. I won’t claim that my bonbons never leak, but another coat to fill in any thin spots may help. 

Edited April 4, 2019 by pastrygirl (log)

[akonsu]

5 hours ago, Jim D. said:

Then use a knife to spread some chocolate over the bottom of the finished bonbon that is leaking.

Thank you for this information. I did not know that people do it, I thought that it was just me and my poor chocolate skills, because this is what I had to do when I had a similar problem. The bottoms ended up thicker than I would like, though.

[teonzo]

Besides what all the others wrote, I suppose it's also a scraping problem. The caps in the photos are a bit too wavy, sign that you did not make a single firm scrape. If you scrape more than once, then most probably you are not cleaning the scraper between one pass and the other, so it will form some small holes along the caps, especially on the cavity sides. Similar if your hand is not firm and your movement is not precise. As far as I understand you are at the beginning of this adventure, so it's pretty normal to make these little mistakes, as you gain experience you'll get cleaner caps.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[Jim D.]

21 hours ago, pastrygirl said:

I always do an extra ‘beauty coat” or two to (try to) get my bottoms perfect. I won’t claim that my bonbons never leak, but another coat to fill in any thin spots may help. 

 

Do you wait until the first coat sets before adding additional ones, or do you add one immediately after the previous?

Edited April 5, 2019 by Jim D. (log)

[pastrygirl]

2 hours ago, Jim D. said:

Do you wait until the first cost sets before adding additional ones, or do you add one immediately after the previous?

 

Wait until it sets and contracts, then fill in the gaps. 

[SchiehallionHandmade]

I run a hairdryer over the mould before capping. Then once the capping chocolate is poured, place a acetate sheet over the mould and use the scraper to scrape out excess chocolate from under the sheet and leave to set. I have no issues with my home made Isle of Skye Sea Salt salted caramel.Apart from when I overfill lol

[Racing_Chocs]

I encounter this often with my caramel filled chocolate racing helmets and I believe it is down to one of 3 things:

1. Not letting your chocolate shells firm up for long enough - This is pretty much my issue as I am always so pushed for time and tend to let my chocolate set in ambient conditions.
2. Over filling the cavities - Again this is something I do on occassion when not paying attention. I then have the scrape out the excess and this usually leaves a thin coating of caramel on the chocolate shell which will not completely seal when capped.
3. Using a heatgun to warm the tops before capping - Sometimes I do this, sometimes I don't. I think I may stop doing this as I have found it can cause my 40-shore silicone moulds to expand slightly and allow small amounts of chocolate to seep inbetween the outer coloured cocoa butter layer and the mould, meaning undecorated chocolate becomes the outer most layer around the base, a very unappealing look and not what you want after spending hours airbrushing your chocolates.

Hope this helps.

 

Matthew