[original posting follows reply]



Hi Wendy,



A friend loaned me his temperer last spring and suggested the following
method for coating ganache (making truffles.) the clever bits are 1)
coating the truffle while it's in your palm -- that keeps the melted
chocolate warm and encourages a thin coating and 2) do multiple (at least 2,
and maybe 3) successive coats of chocolate -- that eliminates the bald spot
problem.



1) put on some plastic gloves (i use regular rubber gloves for washing
dishes) and wash your gloved hands with warm soap and water. rinse very
well. the gloves let you play with the chocolate without worrying about
sweat or oils from your hands.



2) put a dab (about a teaspoon) of the tempered chocolate in the palm of
your hand and then take one of your nascent truffles and roll it around in
the chocolate by either (or both)

a) poking it around with a finger

b) scrunching your palm so as to roll the truffle in the chocolate



3) keep rolling until the truffle is coated thinly with the chocolate, then
gently slide the truffle onto the cooling rack.



4) continue in this manner with the rest of the ganache, adding more
tempered chocolate to your palm as needed.



5) once the coating is hardened, repeat the process being mindful of not
setting the truffle on the old bald spot.





As for your white and dark ganache issue, i can imagine (I'm guessing here)
several tweaks that might help -- two involve modifying your white chocolate
ganache recipe so as to make the melting point closer to that of the dark
ganache. the third messes with the way you combine the white and dark
ganaches.



The first tweak, and easiest, would be to see what effect reducing the
amount of butterfat would have on the recipe. for example, use the same
volume of half and half, or whole milk, instead of cream and see if that
doesn't result in a ganache that doesn't melt as easily.



The second tweak would be to increase the amount of cocoa butter in the
recipe, by substituting pure cocoa butter for an equal amount of the white
chocolate.



The third tweak would be to start with the white ganache, make little balls,
chill them severely, then coat them with dark ganache. then chill and coat
with chocolate as usual.






pete


--

My mail address is plock at tokla dot com.
"frood" > wrote in message
.com...
> Hi, I'm new here. I did read the FAQ, but I didn't see any post etiquette
> sections, so please forgive me if I mis-step.
>
> I just got a Revolation I chocolate tempering machine for Christmas. I
made
> ganache, using a recipe I have used many times before with great success.
I
> tempered the chocolate for dipping, following the instructions that came
> with the machine. The machine said it was done, but it was still very
thick.
> While dipping the centers, they became covered with a very thick layer of
> chocolate, more than I am used to. Also, I had lots of problems with the
> ganache centers sticking to the dipping tools, then having a bald spot
when
> released onto the cooling rack. I applied some tempered chocolate to these
> areas. Is this just a matter of practice? Or am I doing something
> fundamentally wrong?
>
> Before I got the machine, I made some truffles that had both dark
chocolate
> and white chocolate ganache centers. the centers were made individually,
> then pressed together, gently rolled in the palm, chilled then dipped. I
had
> major problems with the white chocolate melting while being assembled with
> the dark centers, and again while being dipped. I used white chocolate
from
> a supplier I have had excellent dealings with before, so I am fairly
> confident it was of high quality. Any suggestions as to what went wrong
with
> those? Is this common in using white chocolate?
>
> The final result was delicious, however somewhat misshapen. I would like
to
> try again, but I need to figure out how to avoid this problem.
>
> --
> Wendy
> http://griffinsflight.com/Quilting/quilt1.htm
> de-fang email address to reply
>
>
>