NM-Bruce wrote:

> Chocolatier comrades-in-arms,
>
> On a trip recently to Chicago, I had the opportunity to sample the
> products at Vosges Haut Chocolate, an upscale chocolatier that
> specializes in unusual ingredients in their truffles such as spices and
> cheese and so on. What impressed me about their products was that they
> had perfectly spherical shapes to their truffles.
>
> How do they get such perfectly round shapes? From visual inspection,
> the chocolates are not molded: they don't have the high gloss of
> molded chocolate, they don't have any seams that I can see, and they
> have a flat 'foot', so it appears they are enrobed or dipped. But
> they are perfect spheres and very smooth. And the ganache is pretty
> soft, which would seem to be difficult to form into spheres.
>
> Can perfect sphere shaped truffles with a soft-ish ganache be done by
> hand? Or is this some "trick-of-the-trade" using some kind of mold
> system that assures uniformity? It's probably my lack of skill, but I
> find I need to use a pretty stiff ganache for hand-rolled-dipped, and
> my truffles always have a certain slightly non-spherical quality. I'd
> love to be able to do better.

Personally, I use a device that is something like an ice cream scoop that
holds about 1 1/2 TBSP of ganache. It has a little "sweeper" in it that
forces it out while leaving it in a perfect shape. I can't remember what
the thing is actually called. Then I freeze the balls for 30 minutes or so
while I temper the chocolate.

Jeff