Molds
Flikr pic by Oh-Barcelona.com of vintage chocolate molds
Chocolate can be molded in a number of molds, including cheap novelty molds, silicone candy molds and silicone ice cube trays (you know those cute little novelty ice cube trays in the shape of Screams or guns or stars or dentures? Work great!). Each has its own advantages and disadvantages.
If using novelty molds, you will want a more stable base for scraping, because they won’t stay straight when you hold them. The advantage to a novelty mold is it’s cheap, about two dollars a mold, but the disadvantage is it will not necessarily give you the best gloss, it will melt in the dishwasher, it’s floppy, and it only makes a few at a time.
Flikr pic by VeganBaking.net because I don't feel like getting up and taking a picture of my own silicone molds
Silicone moldsare great for beginners because they are so easy to unmold. Many people say they are cheaper than polycarbonate, but when you factor in the number of cavities in each mold, they are about the same price because you need about two silicone molds to make as many candies as one polycarbonate mold.
But for the beginner, a silicone mold is not only much easier to unmold, but if you don’t stick with chocolate making, you have a great mold for butters, ice and juice. The downside is that like novelty molds, silicone molds are floppy, and again, you don’t get the gloss you do on a polycarbonate mold.
The best molds are polycarbonate molds – they come in a huge variety of shapes, they are virtually indestructible, you can bang away with your meat mallet and never worry, they can wash up in the dishwasher (though this is an issue of contention among chocolatiers), take the high heat of a hair dryer (for warming and/or melting cocoa butter) and the cold temp of the freezer. They run about $20 to $30 each, but most make double the number of chocolates of a silicone mold, and are more indestructible than Fidel Castro.
Always make sure your molds are immaculate. Polish with a white cloth, white cotton, or both. Do not wash with abrasive materials, because that will scratch them and the scratches will show up in the chocolates.
There are also magnetic molds for 3-D effects or using transfer sheets (which put silk screened designs on the chocolates) but I haven’t yet used those so will hold off for now.
“But where can I buy these marvelous molds?” you are undoubtedly wondering. Well, the silicone molds are easy to find in most cooking stores, and many gift shops are selling a line by Fred and others which are marketed for ice cubes. Of course, Amazon has a large variety, and while you’re ordering you can probably throw a medieval castle, a newborn baby and a prosthetic limb into your cart because they pretty much have everything.
Novelty molds can be found at Amazon too, as well as crafts stores, baking supply stores, and your mother’s junk drawer leftover from that time she got the bright idea to make soap in the shape of Christmas trees.
Polycarbonate molds can also be found on Amazon, but there are some great sources you can order from directly:
Chocolat Chocolat Based in Montreal, this company has a huge supply of chocolate making supplies and packaging. The shipping is high (usually runs about thirty dollars) if shipping to the U.S., so whenever I order, I order far more than I need or can afford “to save money” but they have amazing service, ship immediately, and sometimes even throw in some extras if they think you are reckless with your money and apt to buy more. But beware their website navigation — they have so many molds they organize them by manufacturer, with a million sub-pages and if you don’t add to your cart or make a note of where you found something, you may never be able to track it down again.
Bake Deco Another great source for chocolate making supplies with a much lower shipping rate than Chocolat Chocolat if you are in the U.S., but I have found that the shipping is glacially slow. Maybe you won’t have the same experiences I have had, though, so you might want to try them out.
J. B. Prince One of the best sources for chocolate supplies, though I haven’t yet tried them.
This is well appreciated. Can you please help me Where can I purchase this kind of molds? I have some of this at home but probably I was amazed with this. How much does it cost?
Trish recently posted..StretchMarks24
Hi Trish,
Welcome to the Chocolate Covered Kitchen. On the top of the website there’s a link to “Tools and Things” and under molds you’ll find some links. In addition to the ones listed there, you could try Chef Rubber (www.chefrubber.com). All are good sources for molds. Silicone molds aren’t very expensive, about $12 each, and polycarbonate molds run twice as much or more (but make twice as many chocolates per mold, so given how much better they are, they’re the best bet). Silicone are great for learning though, I would suggest starting with silicone because they are so easy to unmold (and if you decide you don’t want to continue making chocolates, they make great butter molds). Good luck!
Hi Janice,
My daughter recently started manufacturing chocolates. After going through your descriptive article, I realized that procuring molds from USA would be a costly proposition for me. I am from India, and the shipping costs would kill me. Can you please provide me with details of any other country from where I can purchase the molds, so that the shipping costs do not hurt me. I would also appreciate if you could feature a section on how to wrap home-made chocolates with foil or polyfoil? Thanks a lot in advance.
Even in the U.S., shipping costs are often half the price of a mold, so I imagine they would be really pricey for you. I know you can get them in England, France and Italy, but those shipping costs might be quite high, as well. I would suggest searching the Internet, and if you know of anyone travelling to Europe or the U.S., ask them to bring you back some (they won’t find them in stores, though, so you would have to have an address to ship them to in advance).
As for your suggestion on adding a seection on wrapping, that is an excellent suggestion. I haven’t worked on this blog for some time, but until I get to adding more sections and improving the content, you can find candy foils fairly easily on-line. My favorite place for boxes and packaging is Chocolat-Chocolat, http://www.chocolat-chocolat.com/, based in Canada, but I think you’ll find foils, paper liners, boxes and other packaging much closer to home through an internet search. I think simple packaging is not only much cheaper, but can be more elegant, as well.
I think your best strategy would be to have your daughter join The Chocolate Life. It is a blog, forum and resource for chocolate enthusiasts, and it costs nothing to join. You or your daughter could put a call out for anyone who might know the best resources for chocoalte makers in or near India, and you may find just the answers you’re looking for. Here’s the link: http://www.thechocolatelife.com.
Your daughter is fortunate to have your support and if you have any more questions, just drop me a line and I’ll do my best to help you out.
Janice
Hi Janice,
First of all, let me wish you & yours a Happy New Year 2013, full of sunshine, happiness, and of course… chocolates. My Manchester-based cousin is one of the leading neurophysicians of the world. He has helped my daughter quite a few times by gifting her with silicon molds. However, as you have correctly pointed out in your blog, the finished chocolates do not have the glaze that those made using polycarbonate molds offer. These molds are available at ridiculously low rates in India, but their quality is sub-standard. They tend to crack and wear out after using them for a few times.
I am experimenting with various techniques to create something unique. In fact, I have even successfully used syringes or injections (the same that are used for administering drugs) to push a filling in chocolates. However, the edge invariably cracks and the filling show up in the form of drops.
Another problem that I face while manufacturing chocolates, especially when a person orders small quantities of each in different flavors, is that the chocolate tends to freeze, especially during the winter season.
I have tried both aluminum foil and polyester-based foil for wrapping and have found that the latter is a better option. I’l try to take a few images of the finished products and send them to you. My daughter has also made some chocolate bouquets. Will send images of that as well.
I’ll request my daughter to join the forum suggested by you. In the meantime, I’ll join the same as well.
Awwwww! Thanks a lot for your kind words. However, I consider it my bounden duty to help my daughter. Hope to hear from you soon.
Take Care,
Cheers & Sunshine,
Parsi
Dear Readers,
I’ve replied to Parsi off-line, but thought I’d post his comment because he makes some important points. The first is that polycarbonate molds do produce more professional looking chocolates. The second is that he is trying new techniques, inclding injecting into the chocolates; I look forward to learning more about these efforts and sharing them on the Chocolate Covered Kitchen (even though I haven’t been keeping up this blog, I still like to add new tips and techniques when I can). The third is that he is using a polyester wrapper for his chocolates; I’ve used foils, but find them usually a bit too big for a single chocolate. When I learn more about the plastic wrappers, I’ll share that info. The fourth is that making chocolates is such a joy, it can easily become a family affair. If you make chocolates, you’ll have even more fun if you persuade others to join you in your chocoalte making madness!
Thank you for sharing your tips and experiences, Parsi, and we look forward to learning more about chocolate making in India!
I closely inspected a few popular brands available in India, like Cadbury, Nestle, and some more. I was surprised to see that none of them had the sheen one gets while molding chocolates using polycarbonate molds. Since people love these brands, I believe that home-made chocolates molded with silicon molds will be popular as well.
As far as injecting jelly or liquor into the chocolates are concerned, I simply fill the mold up to 80% of its capacity. Next I inject the jelly or liquor inside the mass using a wide diameter needle attached to a syringe prior to putting the mold in the freezer. This ensures that the side walls of the chocolates are think enough to withstand cracking.. I have yet to perfect this art, since some clients state that the percentage of the filling is not adequate.
I use both foil wrappers and polyfoil as well. The latter consists of a polyester film which is coated with a thin film (not sure about the micron percentage of the layer) of aluminum. This permits me to play with odd shaped chocolates while wrapping them… something which is extremely tough to do with plain foil.
No doubt, my entire family family enjoys the process of making chocolates. This includes my 2-year young granddaughter… she is the chief taster.
On a side note, we have many exotic oil-based flavors available over here in India. I had a discussion with the chief chemist who develops these flavors and was amazed at the amount of research that is spent on developing them. If anyone is interested, I can share details about them as well.
Cheers & Sunshine,
Parsi
P.S.: I wish more like-minded individuals would join this discussion. Here’s wishing you all a Happy New Year 2013, full of sunshine, happiness, and soft, creamy, yummy chocolates.
Thank you for the tips. I wonder if filling the molds half full, instead of 80%, would achieve better results? I’ll have to try it myself; it seems the liquor would mix with the melted chocolate, but perhaps not. For jelly, I would pipe it into chocolate shells and then cap. I think that would give you a better ratio of filling.
And I’d love to hear more about the exotic oils–do you have some links for where others can buy them?
Filling the mold half-full creates problems, since the side walls do not extend nearly to the top of the same. I make the liquor myself, melting sugar along with other stuff. However, I ensure that it has a greater density (or should it be mass?… I was never good at physics
) than that of the chocolate. I’ll try your method as well.
As far as the chocolate oils are concerned, the company is a new one and does not have a website. However, I’ll get in touch with the owner and ask them if they are interested in shipping overseas.