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.
>
> Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
>
> -Bruce
> PS: Yes, I realize I could have just asked the nice woman at the
> Vosges counter, but of course it didn't occur to me until I was back
> home.
>
I have seen a source of hollow truffle balls that are perfectly round.
You just fill them with genache before it hardens. I believee out of
Houston.

Problem is..... who wants perfectly round truffles? I admit I only sell
mine to a limited number of people mainly to offset the cost of the
chocolate. I might sell 15- 20 dozen a month. The point is the people
that buy my truffles like to see the little imperfections that tell them
they were hand made. They like that some aren't perfectly round and that
there is a small puddle of chocolate at the base. I believe if I molded
mine, they wouldn't appreciate them near as much.