Cracking Truffles

[Desiderio]

If the ganache hasn't firm up in a few hours isn't going to firm up in days, maybe just get dry and crumbly. I would review the recipe and adjust the ratio of liquefiers and chocolate. If you want to dip it and its too soft ,you can precoat the bottom ( if it is a slabbed one to cut in pieces ) or I would roll the truffles and pre-cot them in the palm of my hand with some chocolate to create a shell , then coat them once more with dipping technique. I have done this with a very soft ganache and worked beautifully , having a nice crunchy shell and a very soft filling .

Edited January 29 by Desiderio (log)

[Stuckey]

David,

I should have been clearer with my post. I had only intended to refrigerate my ganache to firm it up so that I could cut it. After I cut the ganache into pieces, I left them to dry at room temperature for 24 hours and they were much easier to handle. Still quite soft to bite into, but definitely dippable.

The formula for this batch was simply 3/4 cup cream to 8oz dark chocolate (I use Callebaut 54%). I realised afterwards, when I realised the ganache was very soft, that I had strayed from my standard formula of 3/4 cup cream to 10oz dark chocolate. I'll definitely remember for next time. Although the softer ganache is still fine, it's a bit more work than a firmer ganache.

Thanks for your advice, David!

Desiderio,

I pre-coated the bottom of the slab with untempered chocolate, then chucked that in the fridge for a little bit to set, then cut the ganache. The pieces of soft turned out fine.

Tonight, I went to dip the centres, and could not for the life of me get my chocolate in temper. I used my standard seeding method, but it just wouldn't get my chocolate in temper. An hour's worth of much frustration later, I decide to dip the centres anyway and keep the chocolates refrigerated. It's back to the drawing board for me. I thought I knew how to temper, but it seems I still need a lot more practice!

Thanks for your advice, Desiderio!

[Desiderio]

Hey, everybody has a bad day, and even in a good day we can have a bad moment . Just keep on going.I hope today its a better day for you

[Stuckey]

Thank you

I think the problem I had with tempering was that the chocolate was a bit too old, and it may have been out of temper. It was the last 500g from a 10kg bag that I bought quite a while ago. I went and bought a new 10kg bag today, and I am looking forward to trying again with some fresh chocolate!

[KKLL00b]

I did a run of Valentine's Day truffles last week and in spite of my pre-coating of the rounds, I got about 25% cracked truffles. A few can be cut into samples, but having 50 defects out of 200 truffles is not a good thing. This is the first time I had a large amount of cracked truffles. I usually don't get any cracks since I started pre-coating the rounds, so I'm trying to figure what went wrong. The only think I can think of is that the ambient kitchen temperature was too warm or maybe the rounds were too cold and expanded as they warmed up to room temperature.

I'm going to try to patch the cracked truffles by hand rolling them with tempered chocolate. They won't have the smooth finish of the wand-dipped truffles, but maybe the hand rolled texture will provide a nice contrast to the smooth truffles when they are boxed.

I did a small test batch of a new recipe last night and the kitchen was much cooler because it was very rainy and overcast so the building did not heat up. I coated about three dozen truffles and none of them cracked, so I know my technique is fairly good.

I'll keep dipping away and see what happens as I have to crank out another 400 truffles for Valentine's Day.

[KKLL00b]

I was able to "patch" the cracks in the truffles by hand rolling them with tempered chocolate. I first spread a dab of melted chocolate along the length of the crack then feathered the chocolate to melt the chocolate on both sides of the crack. After that I put a small dab of chocolate on my fingertips and rolled the truffle so that the finish would be the same color. The disadvantage is that I no longer have a smooth finish, but at least I have 50 more truffles with no cracks/leaks.

I'm beginning to experiment with thinning the chocolate is use to coat the truffles. I started out using 10% cocoa butter by weight, but the resulting coverture was too runny. I then went down to 5% cocoa butter and it's still a bit too thick and does not flow too well. I'll try about 7% cocoa butter this weekend and see how it goes. When I patched my cracked truffles, I also enrobed about 100 more truffles and before I shutdown for the night, I noticed a few had cracked and a few and sprung wormhole leaks. These last couple of batches have me frustrated because I've not had a cracking or leaking problem for quite a while, until last week. At least I know I can patch them by hand rolling. The truffle size increase a bit, but it's not as much as double dipping with a wand. I'll live with hand rolling to patch cracks because double dipped truffles won't fit in my packaging.