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I forgot that I did have shine success when I was just practicing with some new molds I bought from @Jim D..  I made a Yuzu Ginger Ganache and Honey Mango with the new molds.  The shine was much better.

 

My 10 year old and I made played with colored cocoa butter in 8 hemisphere molds with the mint ganache and the maple pecan mentioned in the previous post.  

 

We painted with chocosphere white, then had so much fun we decided to use some pink too.  This is the first time I've used colored cocoa butter. To ready it to use, I melted it at 30 second intervals and shook in-between.  Once some of it was liquid, I took its temp (90F) and shook a bit more.  I then put some into a ramekin and use various methods to try to keep it at temp.  We used new paint brushes and had fun with that.  

 

Next, I shelled the mold, let sit for about 5 minutes, emptied, and then let sit out for about 5 minutes before putting it in the fridge for 15.  Then I filled them with ganache the next day.  I capped them soon after.  

 

I set them in covered jelly roll pans overnight in the garage where it was cool (60s).  

 

The next morning, the maple pecan ones came out easier (after 2 hours in the fridge), but the mint ones required time in the freezer before they would come out.   I wondered what the difference was.  I decided that I think I piped the mint ganache too warm, I think it was closer to 90F than 86F.  Does it make sense that if I piped into a milk shell at close to 90F that the shells would not release as well?  

 

Later,  I made I made 8 hemisphere molds and 1 dome mold half with cookie butter and half with salted caramel almond in previous post. The dome mold was a layered combo with almonds, cookie butter and caramel. I shelled all the molds in the same evening. Four of the hemisphere molds were plain molds.  For these, I following the same process as listed above.  For the remaining four hemisphere molds and the dome molds, I shelled a mold, then dropped a few of the prepared almonds inside while the chocolate was still wet.  After they set for a few minutes, I put them into the fridge for about 15 minutes.  After they were out of the fridge, I used a piping bag to pipe some of my tempered chocolate on top of the almonds to cover them.  I think as this point I was getting tired, so I placed them on table in front of the open sliding glass door which had cool air coming form our whole house fan resulting in the air being blown over the chocolates.  

 

I made the cookie butter filling, and filled 4 plus one layer in the dome then made the caramel and piped in into the rest.  Then I let them sit overnight covered in the garage until morning when I capped them.  

 

When I first got these molds from Jim, I practiced shelling with them and got cracks in most of the cavities.  I heard some of these happen when I twisted it like an ice cube tray.  I decided that was a bad way to get these out?  So, I didn't do any twisting while unmolding.  However, when I used them to make ganache filled bon bons, I also got these cracks.  This last round, I only got one or two.  

 

 

When I went to unmold them, the almond caramel came out without much work.  However, their shine was not good and they had little cracks all over them.  Any ideas on why I got these cracks?

The first were different than I cracks I got with the salted almond.  The first cracks were all the way across, these ones were more light lightening.  

 

The cookie butter ones looked still stuck to the mold and didn't easily come out.  I had to thwack them quite a bit to get them to come out.  However, their shine was better.

 

I did notice before I capped them that the temper of the chooclate/cookie butter mix was off.  I thought about melted them and re-doing, but since I'm not selling them but giving them away, I decided to just give them away anyway.  Here's a picture of them top of the shell of and what the cookie butter mixture looked like.  

 

I've been cleaning the molds as described previously but strangely the shine is very different from one mold to the next.  I wonder if it might be having more to do with my temperature or humidity as mentioned previously than with my mold cleaning process?  I see 65F as being a good temp for chocolate work, but what percentage humidity?  

 

I'm also wondering if my tempering skills need improvement if I need to thwack the mold so hard to get the chocolates out?  Is there anything you see that points in that direction?  I'd really like to take a class with a professional to measure my skills, but not sure when that can happen. I had planned to go to LA to take a class on molded bon bons with Ewald Notter that Guittard was hosting, but it just got postponed.  🙁