Cracks in dark chocolate coating

[Aria]

Hello everyone,

I'm getting quite frustrated!! When I'm making dark truffles ( dark ganache enrobed in dark chocolate - Lindt couverture ), even though the ganache is room temperature, the coating gets cracks. Why is this? It doesn't happen to the milk chocolate! I then have to re - enrobe and that batch is bigger than the rest. Please help!

[JayBassin]

It may be cooling too quickly.

[Aria]

How do I stop that from happening, I mean the coating cooling too quickly? Thanks!

[Trishiad]

Check your room temp. I like to work somewhere between 65 and 70. I never work with chocolate in a room cooler than 60 degrees. I dread working in a room higher than 70.

Also, your dark chocolate is likely thinner than your milk chocolate and you may need to give your truffle a SLIGHTLY thicker coat. Are you letting your ganache balls get a little crust so that they don't melt (thus changing shape and putting pressure on the cooling shell) under the heat of the chocolate?

Edited December 17, 2005 by Trishiad (log)

[Truffle Guy]

What temperature are the truffles? Did you put them in the fridge/freezer? If the room temperature is the same as the milk chocolate..I wouldn't expect such a drastic difference but good point by Trish in case you did them on another day with a more suitable temp.

I've seen this happen when the truffle center itself was too cold...it cools the couverture almost instantly. If your truffle center is different than the milk chocolate truffles and you've had to freeze them to make them more solid...that is probably the issue.

Hello everyone,

I'm getting quite frustrated!! When I'm making dark truffles ( dark ganache enrobed in dark chocolate - Lindt couverture ), even though the ganache is room temperature, the coating gets cracks. Why is this? It doesn't happen to the milk chocolate! I then have to re - enrobe and that batch is bigger than the rest. Please help!

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[Aria]

Thanks everyone for your advise. I think that the coating is too thin, I'll try a thicker coating and let everyone know!

[Aria]

Hey all,

I tried everyone's recommendations and I still got cracks but 1/3 the amount of last time!! I realise the coating's too thin so what I did was double dip before the first coating set. Also, I fixed my previous cracks by double dipping set chocolates, messy but it worked. Thanks again.

[Linda Grishman]

It's in the way you dip your truffles. If you want to learn how to avoid the cracks, no matter what temperature you are working in (excluding over 85 degrees obviously), then come and take a chocolate class with me. Not only will you learn how to produce crack-free truffles, but I will teach you how to do it fast, so that you can produce larger quantities in a short amount of time...... and Vermont is a beautiful place to visit. Go to my website or call me.

Best, Linda G.

http://www.vermontchocolate.com/