Hollow Molding

Most of the truffles I make are enrobed in solid chocolate. Enrobing the ganache helps to keep the ganache fresh (because it is sealed within the solid chocolate and not exposed to the air), and allows me to distinguish the different flavors, as they are all either in different shaped molds or the molds are decorated differently. I use a hollow molding technique rather than dipping the truffle centers because I have found this to be a much more reliable than dipping methods – no chocolate seizing up, or random lost truffle centers in the swirling chocolate.

I use a table-top chocolate tempering machine to temper my chocolate. It is a simple machine: there is a thermometer to maintain the temperature of the melted chocolate, there are 2 100 watt incandescent light bulbs to heat the chocolate, and a fan to cool the chocolate. The bowl spins to keep the chocolate mixing. I purchased this tempering machine used.

Once the chocolate is melted and tempered, I fill the molds completely, then drain most of the chocolate back into the machine. I invert the molds to remove the remaining excess chocolate. This chocolate will eventually go back into the machine and be re-tempered. The filled mold goes into the refrigerator for a quick cool down before filling with the ganache.

For the triple chocolate vanilla bean, a small amount of the white chocolate ganache is added to each, followed by a small amount of the milk chocolate ganache, followed by a small amount of the semi-sweet ganache.

The remaining two molds are filled 2/3 full with the peanut butter and cheesecake flavored ganaches which are then cooled for a few more minutes.

Each mold is topped off with more melted chocolate and cooled completely. This becomes the bottom of the truffle.

To release the truffles from their molds, the tray in inverted onto a cookie sheet. Most of the truffles will come out will a few sharp smacks. Look at those beautiful shiny surfaces!

I didn’t decorate the peanut butter chocolate truffles, so they are finished once they are popped out of the molding tray.

I have a second small table-top tempering machine (no stirring apparatus) for melting and tempering small amounts of the chocolate used for decorating.

Both the triple chocolate vanilla bean and the cheesecake truffles will have a white chocolate decoration. I like to keep these as simple as possible: lines and dots work well for me.