Molded and Filled Chocolates: Troubleshooting and Techniques

[Kerry Beal]

Could be a stamp - might be a stencil.

[Chocolate_touu]

21 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

Could be a stamp - might be a stencil.

Yes i think its a stencil 

[Eat.Choui]

16 hours ago, Chocolate_touu said:

Yes i think its a stencil 

 

I googled “stamping on chocolate bonbons” and saw this video

 

https://www.facebook.com/ValrhonaUSA/videos/great-stamping-chocolate-technique-by-chef-salvatore-martone-from-mgm-grand-las-/10155351983106563/

 

 

[Chocolate_touu]

6 hours ago, Eat.Choui said:

 

I googled “stamping on chocolate bonbons” and saw this video

 

https://www.facebook.com/ValrhonaUSA/videos/great-stamping-chocolate-technique-by-chef-salvatore-martone-from-mgm-grand-las-/10155351983106563/

 

 

Thank you so much this video is really useful 

[Stephen Beaumont]

On 2/20/2022 at 4:26 PM, Kerry Beal said:

Yup - a ganache hides the strong fruit flavor.  Try a buttercream - mixture of fondant and cooked down puree, some white chocolate, citric acid, butter and bit of booze.

This is an interesting filling concept I haven't tried. Been playing with fondant and adding cooked down puree (mango, passion fruit, pineapple cooked to 104 with glucose) at 1/3 - 2/3 proportions which is decent, and using it for a take on a cream egg by piping a "yolk" with it into white fondant. When you make it into a buttercream with chocolate and butter, what kind of proportions do you typically use? Does it stay creamy? Should be super shelf stable I would assume.

[Jim D.]

2 hours ago, Stephen Beaumont said:

This is an interesting filling concept I haven't tried. Been playing with fondant and adding cooked down puree (mango, passion fruit, pineapple cooked to 104 with glucose) at 1/3 - 2/3 proportions which is decent, and using it for a take on a cream egg by piping a "yolk" with it into white fondant. When you make it into a buttercream with chocolate and butter, what kind of proportions do you typically use? Does it stay creamy? Should be super shelf stable I would assume.

 

I use Kerry Beal's fondant recipes for fruit buttercreams (also for rum buttercream).  They don't have as low a water activity reading as one might expect.  For one thing, fondant is made with water, but I suspect the biggest factor is the purée.  It is quite difficult to reduce it so as to remove most of the water--strawberry, raspberry, probably most purées, tend to burn and they certainly cause a dangerous splatter as the water boils off.  In the case of strawberry, I add some freeze-dried strawberries to increase the solids and so lower the water (alas, freeze-dried raspberries introduce seeds into the mixture and not all fruits are available in freeze-dried form).

[Stephen Beaumont]

5 hours ago, Jim D. said:

 

I use Kerry Beal's fondant recipes for fruit buttercreams (also for rum buttercream).  They don't have as low a water activity reading as one might expect.  For one thing, fondant is made with water, but I suspect the biggest factor is the purée.  It is quite difficult to reduce it so as to remove most of the water--strawberry, raspberry, probably most purées, tend to burn and they certainly cause a dangerous splatter as the water boils off.  In the case of strawberry, I add some freeze-dried strawberries to increase the solids and so lower the water (alas, freeze-dried raspberries introduce seeds into the mixture and not all fruits are available in freeze-dried form).

Thanks Jim - my fondant recipe itself has a very low AW. The sugar is cooked to 113 degrees and then dropped to below 50 before recrystallizing in a stand mixer. The puree is cooked to 104 with glucose and then I mix the two together in a 2-1 ratio so that part should be okay. I hadn't seen Kerry's strawberry centre recipe (missed it in the thread) so I will try some experiments this weekend with variants of that and check the AW.

[Jim D.]

2 hours ago, Stephen Beaumont said:

Thanks Jim - my fondant recipe itself has a very low AW. The sugar is cooked to 113 degrees and then dropped to below 50 before recrystallizing in a stand mixer. The puree is cooked to 104 with glucose and then I mix the two together in a 2-1 ratio so that part should be okay. I hadn't seen Kerry's strawberry centre recipe (missed it in the thread) so I will try some experiments this weekend with variants of that and check the AW.

 

You don't mention any chocolate in your recipe.  Is it just two parts fondant to one part strawberry?  Kerry's recipe came out (with my measurement) to 0.73 for Aw.  But the same recipe can differ from one time to another.

[Stephen Beaumont]

On 3/18/2022 at 7:25 PM, Jim D. said:

 

You don't mention any chocolate in your recipe.  Is it just two parts fondant to one part strawberry?  Kerry's recipe came out (with my measurement) to 0.73 for Aw.  But the same recipe can differ from one time to another.

I don't put any chocolate in my fondant, no. It's pretty sweet - sweeter than I personally like, but it is popular with my customers. I prefer to use a mango/passion fruit puree as that acidity cuts through the sweetness of the fondant somewhat more. Didn't get a chance to check AW this weekend as I was up to my ears in Easter Eggs but will get to it.

[Siobhan]

On 3/18/2004 at 4:00 AM, rookie said:

Thanks to all who responded. Your advice is very helpful. I will give it a try.

mary

Before you pour the chocolate into the bunny mold firstly take a small paint brush and paint a layer of the tempered chocolate onto the parts of the mould that appear to be weakest so you will be giving a little extra layer to give it more stability 

[kstone2016]

On 2/22/2022 at 4:52 AM, Kerry Beal said:

Find a copy of our own @Chocolot's book Candymaking to learn about fondant.

 

My strawberry recipe - 

Strawberry Center

 

160 grams strawberry puree

15 grams freeze-dried strawberry powder

6 grams shredded freeze dried strawberries

pinch citric acid

1 teaspoon strawberry compound

150 grams fondant

285 grams white chocolate melted and cooled

25 grams butter

2 tsp booze

DIRECTIONS

mix fondant and room temp butter in food processor, add melted white choclate, puree and flavouring. 

 

Kerry, sorry if this is a dumb question...is this something that would need to be tempered because of the white chocolate in it? If so would the seeding method work for this?

[Kerry Beal]

6 hours ago, kstone2016 said:

Kerry, sorry if this is a dumb question...is this something that would need to be tempered because of the white chocolate in it? If so would the seeding method work for this?

I typically wouldn't have tempered this in the past - now that I have the EZtemper - then I likely would so I could use it sooner. 

 

[Siobhan]

Hi there,

I'm wondering have any of you used Richmond Chocolate for making chocolate bon bons?I

I always use Callebaut callets and here in Ireland have no problems sourcing Callebaut but with the constant rising costs I am looking for a cost effective chocolate while keeping quality.

Thanks for any help given.

Siobhán.

 

 

[Rajala]

How would one best temper a ganache with "silk"? I never really tried and people just "well add it at temperature X" - but like what do you guys do if you do it? Just leave the ganache in a bucket and let it cool to the desired temperature before mixing in cocoa butter?

[Kerry Beal]

3 hours ago, Rajala said:

How would one best temper a ganache with "silk"? I never really tried and people just "well add it at temperature X" - but like what do you guys do if you do it? Just leave the ganache in a bucket and let it cool to the desired temperature before mixing in cocoa butter?

I use a bowl rather than a bucket - most ganaches I mix 40 degree C liquids with 30 degree C melted chocolate. Generally it cools to 33 or less quite quickly and I add my 1%,stir, and pour into frames or pipe when it’s around 28 degrees C.

 

 

[Rajala]

13 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

I use a bowl rather than a bucket - most ganaches I mix 40 degree C liquids with 30 degree C melted chocolate. Generally it cools to 33 or less quite quickly and I add my 1%,stir, and pour into frames or pipe when it’s around 28 degrees C.

 

 

 

No issues with "skin" forming on the top in that amount of time? I guess I just could try haha. Recently got a machine and tempering chocolate for molding is soooooooooo much better with this.

[Jim D.]

29 minutes ago, Rajala said:

 

No issues with "skin" forming on the top in that amount of time? I guess I just could try haha. Recently got a machine and tempering chocolate for molding is soooooooooo much better with this.

 

Which machine did you get?

[Kerry Beal]

3 hours ago, Rajala said:

 

No issues with "skin" forming on the top in that amount of time? I guess I just could try haha. Recently got a machine and tempering chocolate for molding is soooooooooo much better with this.

Not sure what you mean?

[Rajala]

23 hours ago, Jim D. said:

 

Which machine did you get?

 

Magic Temper Alpha. The size is perfect for my little kitchen.

 

Realized that I might've been unclear there. Not a tempering machine, just this for the cocoa butter.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Rajala (log)

[Rajala]

20 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

Not sure what you mean?

 

I mean like if you leave it to cool down, that it might get "dry" on the top? You know if you leave a sauce standing. Maybe I'm overthinking here.

[Jim D.]

58 minutes ago, Rajala said:

 

I mean like if you leave it to cool down, that it might get "dry" on the top? You know if you leave a sauce standing. Maybe I'm overthinking here.

 

I've never seen that happening--there isn't enough time for it.  In addition, I give an occasional stir to make the cooling even.

[Kerry Beal]

1 hour ago, Rajala said:

 

I mean like if you leave it to cool down, that it might get "dry" on the top? You know if you leave a sauce standing. Maybe I'm overthinking here.

Isn’t that what you want it to do? To crystallize?

[pastrygirl]

7 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

Isn’t that what you want it to do? To crystallize?

 

Yeah, that layer forming on top of your cooling ganache is crystallization that you can stir back in, not a milk skin protein coagulation situation.

[Douglas K]

Hi all. It’s been a busy year, and not enough chocolate making. Suddenly I now have Christmas gifts, and my first actual order of chocolate bars, and I’m cramming 8 batches into nine days. I wasn’t sure where to share this, and didn’t want to create a new thread since it’s not really earth shattering, but it was nice for me, and I wanted to share my method in case someone is looking to do something similar. I have fine tuned my process for making seed coco butter for tempering chocolate. It’s based on bits I’ve gathered from all the smart and wonderful contributors here. First, I melt the coco butter, and get it above 150 F on the stove. Then I pour it into a mason jar that I will use in the sous vide. Once it gets to 95, I add some shavings of my previous batch of coco butter seed, stir it up and let it set. The next day I put it in my sous vide set to 92.5 and leave it for 24 hours. When I take it out it’s the perfect consistency. I know Kerry calls it silk, but I call it snot ‘cause it’s kind of that way. I usually have a batch of chocolate to temper when I’m making a batch of seed, so I use it right out of the jar. Then, I usually put it in some 2 ounce bar molds to keep on the shelf.

 

The stuff works amazingly well. I’ve only had one batch not be in perfect temper, and that was because I was trying to do too many things at once, and didn’t wait long enough for the seed to melt, and didn’t stir enough. I keep using less in my tempering process, and I’m using less than .5% now. For a 1400 gram batch of 56% milk chocolate I usually use 5 grams shaved with a Microplane. 

 

My tempering process is pretty standard. Once I get the chocolate out of the melanger and stabilized in the bowl it’s usually 105 to 115 F. I let it cool to 95 F, then add the seed coco butter, stir some to get it mixed in, and let it stand for 10 minutes. I stir until it’s time to pour into molds, and I like to pour at around 89 F.  After trying different things, this works perfect for me.

 

Having said all that, if I were making chocolate regularly, (which once I retire and am in Puerto Rico I might be doing with my hobby cacao farm and chocolate business) I would definitely want Kerry’s EZTemper. Using it in silk (snot  ) form is the most foolproof method possible. 

 

[Chocoguyin Pemby]

Hi all - I am looking for some tips to make geode style mendants - I know I have seen this done somewhere but now can't find the info on how to do it - anyone able to point me in the right direction?  TIA