Chocolates with that showroom finish, 2004 - 2011

[Truffle Guy]

Below are links to some of the chocolates

[HeatherM]

Very cool! Beautiful chocolates!

[Sugarella]

bon bon's

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Those look terrific! I love how you blended your colours.

I'm particularly impressed with the green squares on the left, with the black veining being so distinct and not blending into the other colours like that. Did you apply the cocoa butter in layers and chill between coats to do that, or did you do something else?

[Truffle Guy]

bon bon's

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Those look terrific! I love how you blended your colours.

I'm particularly impressed with the green squares on the left, with the black veining being so distinct and not blending into the other colours like that. Did you apply the cocoa butter in layers and chill between coats to do that, or did you do something else?

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Here is another picture...not sure if it is better. The lighting in the pictures is bad. The chocolates are much more vibrant and shiny than the pictures. The green squares actually have dark green but it does look black in the picture. What I did is first use dark green cocoa butter to streak the mold. After it set I then came back with orange, yellow and a lighter green in layers with an airbrush. Here is another picture...not sure if it is clearer.

[Africa Flores]

After reading your comments I would like to share with you a discovery I made while searching for an artisan chocolate maker online. Check out www.chocolatfl.com

The chocolates were delicious (intense flavors).

I wouldn't be surprised if we hear about this company in a national publication very soon. I have ordered before from Norman and Jacques and these chocolates were just as good, or better and more affordable.

[sirch1980]

I wanted to produce a chocolate that has two layers of color, with bronze powder on top and some green color sprinkled underneath. The mould was half-circled shape.

First of all I polished the chocolate mould, then I tempered the colored cocoa butter to 96-97F, then sprayed it inside the mould using an airbrush. then I used a small knife to tip up a little shiny bronze powder and sprinkled it in the mould. I waited for about an hour or two, then I poured chocolate into the mould.

After I released the chocolate from the mould, there were some cocoa butter sticking to the mould, causing the surface of my chocolate to crack. There were also some shiny bronze powder stuck to the the cocoa butter inside the mould, causing the surface of my chocolate to have big holes on the area where there should be full of shiny powder.

I have tried not to use any shiny bronze powder and only finger painted the mould with the colored cocoa butter, as the result there was no problem at all and there were no colored cocoa butter sticking to the mould.

The mould was bought from Chololat-Chocolat, the colored cocoa butter was from Chef Rubber, and the shiny bronze powder was from PCB.

Did I do anything wrong throughout the process? Exactly why did my finished products resulted in this way?

[Sugarella]

I wanted to produce a chocolate that has two layers of color, with bronze powder on top and some green color sprinkled underneath.  The mould was half-circled shape.

First of all I polished the chocolate mould, then I tempered the colored cocoa butter to 96-97F, then sprayed it inside the mould using an airbrush.  then I used a small knife to tip up a little shiny bronze powder and sprinkled it in the mould. I waited for about an hour or two, then I poured chocolate into the mould.

After I released the chocolate from the mould, there were some cocoa butter sticking to the mould, causing the surface of my chocolate to crack.  There were also some shiny bronze powder stuck to the the cocoa butter inside the mould, causing the surface of my chocolate to have big holes on the area where there should be full of shiny powder.

I have tried not to use any shiny bronze powder and only finger painted the mould with the colored cocoa butter, as the result there was no problem at all and there were no colored cocoa butter sticking to the mould.

The mould was bought from Chololat-Chocolat, the colored cocoa butter was from Chef Rubber, and the shiny bronze powder was from PCB.

Did I do anything wrong throughout the process?  Exactly why did my finished products resulted in this way?

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Those look great sirch. Apple green and gold goes so well together, doesn't it?

I suspect your problem with the cocoa butter sticking in the mold has to do with it not being totally solidified. Sure, it may look solid, but it isn't quite. Try chilling the molds with the cocoa butter in it, then bringing them back to room temp, then filling them. See my post on page 4 of this thread with the steps for these truffles.

As for the powder.... I suspect you just had too much in there. Try adding just a light dusting of the powders with a large brush, then blowing any excess out of the mold before chilling, resting, and filling.

Edited to add: And welcome to eGullet, by the way!

Edited March 27, 2006 by Sugarella (log)

[Kerry Beal]

I wanted to produce a chocolate that has two layers of color, with bronze powder on top and some green color sprinkled underneath.  The mould was half-circled shape.

First of all I polished the chocolate mould, then I tempered the colored cocoa butter to 96-97F, then sprayed it inside the mould using an airbrush.  then I used a small knife to tip up a little shiny bronze powder and sprinkled it in the mould. I waited for about an hour or two, then I poured chocolate into the mould.

After I released the chocolate from the mould, there were some cocoa butter sticking to the mould, causing the surface of my chocolate to crack.  There were also some shiny bronze powder stuck to the the cocoa butter inside the mould, causing the surface of my chocolate to have big holes on the area where there should be full of shiny powder.

I have tried not to use any shiny bronze powder and only finger painted the mould with the colored cocoa butter, as the result there was no problem at all and there were no colored cocoa butter sticking to the mould.

The mould was bought from Chololat-Chocolat, the colored cocoa butter was from Chef Rubber, and the shiny bronze powder was from PCB.

Did I do anything wrong throughout the process?  Exactly why did my finished products resulted in this way?

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I suspect that you might have had better luck mixing the bronze powder in with the cocoa butter then applying that to the mold. I think that the bronze powder has formed a sort of cleavage plane between the cocoa butter on the surface of the mold and the chocolate on the other side of the powder, so instead of the cocoa butter releasing from the surface it stayed behind.

[sirch1980]

Thank you so much for your reply. I will try your suggestion, but how much cocoa butter should I use to mix with the bronze powder? And should I wait till the sprinkled green cocoa butter is all dried inside the mold before adding the bronze-powdered-cocoa butter mixture?

[Kerry Beal]

Thank you so much for your reply.  I will try your suggestion, but how much cocoa butter should I use to mix with the bronze powder? And should I wait till the sprinkled green cocoa butter is all dried inside the mold before adding the bronze-powdered-cocoa butter mixture?

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I usually just melt an ounce or so of cocoa butter, pour some out on my marble, sprinkle over some powdered colour or metallic powder and mix with my offset spatula until it looks well mixed. If the colour isn't intense enough, I add a little more. I then keep it in a glass baby food jar, so that I can reheat in the microwave as required. I would experiment with when to add it to the sprinkled green cocoa butter, you will probably get two different effects if you do it before and after the green is dried, both might be amazing.

[sirch1980]

Thank you so much for your reply.  I will try your suggestion, but how much cocoa butter should I use to mix with the bronze powder? And should I wait till the sprinkled green cocoa butter is all dried inside the mold before adding the bronze-powdered-cocoa butter mixture?

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I usually just melt an ounce or so of cocoa butter, pour some out on my marble, sprinkle over some powdered colour or metallic powder and mix with my offset spatula until it looks well mixed. If the colour isn't intense enough, I add a little more. I then keep it in a glass baby food jar, so that I can reheat in the microwave as required. I would experiment with when to add it to the sprinkled green cocoa butter, you will probably get two different effects if you do it before and after the green is dried, both might be amazing.

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I've just tried your suggestion. I used 1 ounce of cocoa butter and apporximately 1 teaspoon of bronze powder and mixed them together. But after mixing for a long time, the color of it is still not well balanced, some of it are obviously deeper in color and other's are lighter (as the picture shown). Did I add too much or too little bronze powder? Usually what would be a normal ratio of the bronze powder and cocoa butter in the mixture?

I'm sorry for having so much questions and thank you so much for your help.

[Kerry Beal]

Thank you so much for your reply.  I will try your suggestion, but how much cocoa butter should I use to mix with the bronze powder? And should I wait till the sprinkled green cocoa butter is all dried inside the mold before adding the bronze-powdered-cocoa butter mixture?

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I usually just melt an ounce or so of cocoa butter, pour some out on my marble, sprinkle over some powdered colour or metallic powder and mix with my offset spatula until it looks well mixed. If the colour isn't intense enough, I add a little more. I then keep it in a glass baby food jar, so that I can reheat in the microwave as required. I would experiment with when to add it to the sprinkled green cocoa butter, you will probably get two different effects if you do it before and after the green is dried, both might be amazing.

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I've just tried your suggestion. I used 1 ounce of cocoa butter and apporximately 1 teaspoon of bronze powder and mixed them together. But after mixing for a long time, the color of it is still not well balanced, some of it are obviously deeper in color and other's are lighter (as the picture shown). Did I add too much or too little bronze powder? Usually what would be a normal ratio of the bronze powder and cocoa butter in the mixture?

I'm sorry for having so much questions and thank you so much for your help.

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That looks OK actually. It never totally mixes together because it is metallic. Try a smear of that on your molds, if it is too light add some more powder to the melted mixture.

[Truffle Guy]

You can actually just brush the dust in the polished mold to go effect. On the bottom right are molds with just an antique gold dust. The color of this dust is not bright but when I use copper, brass or a colored metallic is does pop. If you use Chefrubber colored cocoa butter...some already has dust in the cocoa butter. I've also had problems when trying to layer colored cocoa butter and luster dust so I know keep it simple and think the results are great.

Also, be careful with the amounts as neither colored cocoa butter of luster dusts have a "pleasant" taste and can compromise the flavor of the chocolate if you coat to thickly. The cocoa butter is actually very bitter. I just use a large artists brush and "pop" the dust in the mold and spread around. Sometimes I turn it over and release the extra dust but I actually like the depth of having different concentrations (though not too much).

Here are the pics.

Chocolates - bottom right are metallic dusts

[Sebastian]

I second that. Whenever i work with dusts, i simply brush them into the moulds. If you're having problems with large clumps (from techniques other than brushing), you might wantt o consider rubbing in a thin layer of cocoa butter into the mould with your fingertip and letting that solidify prior to adding the dusts. Usually when you get partial demoulding, it's due to the moulds not being clean or the chocolate not being in temper.

[Trishiad]

I agree that your luster layer was probably too thick and the chocolate had a difficult time adhering to it. When I layer cocoa butter and luster dust I use a fluffy brush to dust the inside of the colored cocoa butter shell and then add my tempered chocolate. To give the luster more punch and dimension I would splash it with white cocoa butter from behind. The white will give the bronze a more opaque effect which is I think what you're after.

[jturn00]

Does it make much of a difference in using a thin layer of cocoa butter before applying the dusts to the molds or just apply the dusts and then fill the molds with tempered chocolate?

[Trishiad]

I can only say that I've never polished a mold with clear cocoa butter.

[Kerry Beal]

A tiny bit off topic, but still playing around with PCB colours in cocoa butter. These were a couple of experiments I was playing around with this weekend.

[Trishiad]

Kerry, those are adorable. They would be perfect for a window display, especially if they have ladies. I wish critters like that were time effective enough for regular production.

[David J.]

Ok, I've got my basic set of Chef Rubber Artisan Colllection colors and a Badger external mix airbrush on the way and I am excited about achieving some of the great effects I've seen in this thread.

I have a couple questions:

1) Are there any specific techniques to this beyond smearing and/or then spraying colors, working from the highlights down to the background? Wendy mentioned an article in "Pastry Art and Design". Does it have any specifics or does it just give the idea of using an airbrush with cocao butter?

2) I read that the external mix brush has too wide a stroke to do anything resembling detail work. Has anyone experimented with stencils? I'm thinking in particular about food grade silicon mold rubber being used to coat the inside of a cavity, then taken out and a pattern cut or stamped out of it. I'm wondering just how fine a line one could achive with that approach.

[sirch1980]

i have a question about why my product like this?

i would want to make chocolate shell

i clean and polish my mold stay in room temp, after, i use green cocoa butter spray (88F) in, chill for 5 min.

then spary yellow cocoa butter (88F), chill for 5 min.

then i use bronze-powdered-cocoa butter mixture spary little dot, chill for 5 min.

then spary red cocoa butter (88F) in, chill for 5 min.

then use temp white chocolate (84F) fill in the mold

may i know any wrong i did?

pls help me :<

Edited March 28, 2006 by sirch1980 (log)

[Trishiad]

Sirch, I'm reaching here but are you certain that your chocolate is in temper? Was your filling cooled before filling the shell? I both answers are yes then I would try again once more and this time pop the whole mold into the freezer for a few minutes just to ensure shrinkage and a better release.

[sirch1980]

Sirch, I'm reaching here but are you certain that your chocolate is in temper?  Was your filling cooled before filling the shell?  I both answers are yes then I would try again once more and this time pop the whole mold into the freezer for a few minutes just to ensure shrinkage and a better release.

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Thanks for your reply

yeah the chocolate is in temper. and i didn't put in any filling, i just wanted to do a chocolate shell.

would the reason it turned out like this be that I sprayed too much cocoa butter? but at least it didn't form a pool. I tried my 3rd experiment today, i released the chocolate from the mould about 10 hrs later, it turned out the same.

then I tried using very little green and used mostly the red and yellow from PCB (the green was from other brand) and it turned out okay. I'll try more to see if it's the problem of the green.

Thanks again.

Edited March 29, 2006 by sirch1980 (log)

[Kerry Beal]

Kerry, those are adorable.  They would be perfect for a window display, especially if they have ladies.  I wish critters like that were time effective enough for regular production.

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Glad you liked my critters, I checked the JVK website to see if they had a similar item in a female variation, and unfortunatly there doesn't seem to be one. I seem to remember seeing a rabbit mold with a female rabbit with an umbrella but it was nowhere to be found. They certainly do take some time to mold up, not the sort of thing I would want to be obligated to make on a regular basis.

[Trishiad]

Sirch, I'm stumped but please do let us know if it's the green and where you got it so we don't have the same problem. bummer.

Kerry, I flipped through my Tomric catalog and found a girl bunny with an umbrella. She coordinates with a boy bunny just slightly different than yours so maybe she'd be a good match.

Page 114, #H872. 10.6 oz, 6.75 x 3.5 x 2.25