[aldaigle]

I am not a professional pastry chef, but I have been trying to teach myself how to make artisan chocolates. Upon the recommendation from someone in this forum, I purchased the CIA Chocolate & Confections textbook, which has been extremely helpful. My biggest problem, which I have not been able to improve upon no matter how many batches of truffles I make (I've done about 15 so far), is that I can't keep the chocolate from pooling at the base of the truffle to form "feet" when I dip them. Following instruction from the textbook, I have tried to touch the truffle to the dipping chocolate to drain off as much of the excess as possible, but it doesn't seem to be doing much better than when I was just bringing the truffle up and down in the air quickly, or tapping it on the side of the bowl. Today I tried seeding the chocolate for an extra ten minutes (I'm using a revolation I machine), and maybe it helped a little bit, but there were still substantial feet on the truffles. Should I seed the chocolate for even longer? This happens with every type of chocolate I use, milk, dark, and white, and I have used a variety of the best quality couvertures--valrhona, callebeaut, guittard, etc. These are often not small puddles of chocolate...they are very unsightly. I am at my wits end, and I would appreciate any advice you professionals have to offer!!

[foodpump]

The idea of "kissing" the couveture i.e letting the truffle touch the surface of the tempered couveture is to let the surface tension "pull" excess couveture from the truffle. About 1/4 of the truffle should still be in the couveture when you "kiss" or let the surface tension do this.
You can also "wipe" excess couveture from the truffle by wiping the bottom of your fork on the baffle or revolving bowl of the machine.

Don't bang your fork against the side or vigourosly shake the truffle while it's still on the fork, as the truffle is soft and will "dig in" into the fork when you bang it, and you will have trouble sliding it off the fork.

It takes a bit of practice to master dipping and enrobing, and while you are doing great, don't be so hard on yourself--do what the pros do: B.S your way out of the mistakes! Go for the "textured" look, in that when you dip the truffle lay it on a wire screen, dip 4 or 5, and when the couveture starts to get "leathery" or still semi-soft, nudge and roll the first truffle along the screen so it forms "spikes". Roll the truffle right off the screen and onto a recieving tray, but don't let the truffle harden on the screen or you'll never get it off in one piece, then do the other remaining 4 in order and dip another batch of 4 or 5 and repeat, and repeat, and repeat......

[ChefRAZ]

making sure your final pan ( the one that the truffles will be resting on in the end) is cold will help. just a thought. I work with a lot of chocolate. when we are dipping things in chocolate I put the pan in the freezer untill it's cold.

[aldaigle]

Thank you both for those tips! When I let my truffles "kiss" the couveture, I was barely touching it to the surface, not letting it be 1/4 of the way covered. So I guess that should probably make a big difference, as well as wiping the fork on the side. And I'd never thought of putting the final product on a cold pan. I'll definitely try both of these techniques, and if all else fails I'll make them textured! I"m on a mission to be able to make them smooth and beautiful, though!