Spattering Chocolate?

[rlevine]

Can any of you suggest how best to spatter tempered, colored chocolate into a mold? I've tried fingers and assorted body parts, various utensils and brushes of a range of stiffnesses, but I can't seem to get a decent, predictable spatter. Varying the temperature gets me a range of striginesses, but no real spatters.

Might be the chocolate, too, but I figured I'd ask before I go too much further. (I grabbed some Callebaut CW2NV for my experiments, which is fairly high yield/viscosity...hmmm...)

Ideas? (Yeah, you're going to tell me to get out the airbrush, but I'm hoping for a simple mechanical solution not needing all the setup and takedown for each color. :-)

Thanks!

rick

[CanadianBakin']

I don't know if this will work, but have you tried a toothbrush? We used them for spattering paint when kids.

[Kerry Beal]

Can any of you suggest how best to spatter tempered, colored chocolate into a mold? I've tried fingers and assorted body parts, various utensils and brushes of a range of stiffnesses, but I can't seem to get a decent, predictable spatter. Varying the temperature gets me a range of striginesses, but no real spatters.

Might be the chocolate, too, but I figured I'd ask before I go too much further. (I grabbed some Callebaut CW2NV for my experiments, which is fairly high yield/viscosity...hmmm...)

Ideas? (Yeah, you're going to tell me to get out the airbrush, but I'm hoping for a simple mechanical solution not needing all the setup and takedown for each color. :-)

Thanks!

rick

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Add lots of melted cocoa butter to what you are going to spatter, a good stiff toothbrush raked across a finger seems to work for me. I suspect your chocolate is way too vicous to splatter nicely.

[Wendy DeBord]

Can any of you suggest how best to spatter tempered, colored chocolate into a mold? I've tried fingers and assorted body parts, various utensils and brushes of a range of stiffnesses, but I can't seem to get a decent, predictable spatter. Varying the temperature gets me a range of striginesses, but no real spatters.

Might be the chocolate, too, but I figured I'd ask before I go too much further. (I grabbed some Callebaut CW2NV for my experiments, which is fairly high yield/viscosity...hmmm...)

Ideas? (Yeah, you're going to tell me to get out the airbrush, but I'm hoping for a simple mechanical solution not needing all the setup and takedown for each color. :-)

Thanks!

rick

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Do you mean tempered white chocolate that's been colored or colored cocoa butter?

Cocoa butter, I like to use my plain ole rubber spatula to spatter with. I just touch it into the butter and don't worry about keeping it all on the table, hint, hint. If you control it too much it looks controled. You also want to make sure you repeat the same movement in your arm so it's all going the same dirrection.

Splattering regular chocolate is rarely done into chocolate bonbon molds........

Can you show us the look your trying to achieve? That would help alot.

[rlevine]

Add lots of melted cocoa butter to what you are going to spatter, a good stiff toothbrush raked across a finger seems to work for me.  I suspect your chocolate is way too vicous to splatter nicely.

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Ya, that was my first thought, as that's the look I'm trying for. The chocolate is too viscous for it to work.

Do you mean tempered white chocolate that's been colored or colored cocoa butter?

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I've been using tempered white chocolate tinted with colored cocoa butter. Cocoa butter by itself didn't give much contrast against the dark base, and when I upped it to get more opacity, it was tastable. I could probably drop the mold temperature and make sure the cocoa butter is well set to get less diffusion into the dark chocolate, didn't pursue that with the straight cocoa butter attempts.

Can you show us the look your trying to achieve? That would help alot.

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Here are two snaps of this afternoon's experiment. If you see green spots in the images they're cell phone camera artifacts, and I've overdone the splattering a tad:

And here's the direction I'm trying to head, Pollock wtih more spots than streaks:

Thanks to all for your suggestions!

rick

[Trishiad]

If you add some white cocoa butter to your yellow it will be more opaque and stand out well against the dark chocolate.

Welcome to eGullet, by the way.

[Wendy DeBord]

Sooooo..........if I was going to try to reproduce that Pollack spatter exactly the following is how I'd do it: First, I use a rubber spatula to spatter with. Works fine for me.

His first layer appears to be the dark chocolate splatter.It's opaque slightly thinned down semi sweet chocolate. Let that dry/cool completely.

Next, splatter white colored chocolate thinned down quite abit with cocoa butter.

Then apply your yellow (just straight cocoa butter) and let some of it bleed into the white. You can lift and turn your mold to fasilate the bleeding. Also spatter some red (straight cocoa butter) into parts of the white and parts with theres not spatter under it. Let cool.

Last he seems to have some straight opaque white spattered and cooled.

Very last I'd apply the background color. In this case it would be opaque white chocolate colored with grey oil based food color (not thinning it with cocoa butter colors).

HTH......

[filipe]

Those were gorgeous, Wendy

For a non-pro like me, and living in Portugal, it's not easy to find coloured cocoa butter... I'm sure there will be someone selling it, but probably only in huge quantities and just for the industry...

Does anyone happen to know where I can find it in LONDON?

[alanamoana]

filipe:

i don't know about london...sorry, but...here are a couple of web-sites who sell colored cocoa butter. i guess you'd just have to find out if they ship to your location. pcb probably does since they're in france. chefrubber might not.

pcb

chef rubber

these seem to be the industry standard (at least everyone on eGullet uses either of these brands...) i hope this helps. they don't seem to be in crazy quantities. 200g bottles is the usual size.

[filipe]

filipe:

i don't know about london...sorry, but...here are a couple of web-sites who sell colored cocoa butter.  i guess you'd just have to find out if they ship to your location.  pcb probably does since they're in france.  chefrubber might not.

pcb

chef rubber

these seem to be the industry standard (at least everyone on eGullet uses either of these brands...)  i hope this helps.  they don't seem to be in crazy quantities.  200g bottles is the usual size.

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Thanks a lot! I knew chefrubber, but ordering from the US allways cause troubles and delays on customs... But the other site is french that's gr8!

[Wendy DeBord]

Filipe............your going to LOVE PCB company. I wish I was rich, I'd buy tons of things from them.

[filipe]

Filipe............your going to LOVE PCB company. I wish I was rich, I'd buy tons of things from them.

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I did LOVE PCB! It has things that I didn't even thought they exist!! I need to try some of those! The problem is what to choose... where to start... how to balance the budget....

Edited April 7, 2006 by filipe (log)

[rlevine]

Wendy, thanks for the great tutorial! Your suggestions and pictures gave me a boot in the right direction. I tried a spatula, and it works fine, as long as I'm just spattering plain cocoa butter. I'll try adding some white to increase the opacity of the cocoa butter as soon as my white from Chef Rubber gets here.

Trishad, thanks for the tip on adding white, and for the welcome in!

rick

[filipe]

After looking at so many fantastic examples I've decided to do some experiences.

This was the first time I've ever tried something similar,and i wasn't that unhappy with my results. I've used a brush for the white and a spatulla for the dark.

What do you think? For home baked cookies, I mean....

Edited April 12, 2006 by filipe (log)

[chiantiglace]

All I can suggest, after all that has been said is:

Make sure your spatter contents are hot and loose. Instead of drizzling using gravity, use your natural forces. Tilt the mold straight up and, using whatever you want, project the spatter outwards towards the mold. (ie) with the spatula wave it back and forth vigorously to get small dots spattered against the surface. If starts to run down, take the mold and bang it upside down to release loose ends.

Tell me something, does rain hurt more straight down or side ways? And why?

[rlevine]

If starts to run down, take the mold and bang it upside down to release loose ends.

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Chilling the mold for a few minutes before spattering will reduce the tendency to drip.

Here's the revisted spattering. Heading in the right direction. Thanks again for the white tip!

rick

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(And around here, it's not the rain that hurts, but the drought! :-)

[Kerry Beal]

If starts to run down, take the mold and bang it upside down to release loose ends.

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Chilling the mold for a few minutes before spattering will reduce the tendency to drip.

Here's the revisted spattering. Heading in the right direction. Thanks again for the white tip!

rick

***

(And around here, it's not the rain that hurts, but the drought! :-)

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They are certainly getting there, not quite the Jackson Pollock yet, but closer. Look quite gorgeous just the way they are.

[Desiderio]

If starts to run down, take the mold and bang it upside down to release loose ends.

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Chilling the mold for a few minutes before spattering will reduce the tendency to drip.

Here's the revisted spattering. Heading in the right direction. Thanks again for the white tip!

rick

***

(And around here, it's not the rain that hurts, but the drought! :-)

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Gourgeus colors and effect compliments