Newbie Help!! - Lots of chocolate questions

Hi,

I have just starting my own small business from home making Chocolate truffles. I make them with a ganache recipe of 400ml of chocolate with 150ml of double cream, I have been advising people that they have a shelf life of 5-7 days due to the cream content. I am now wanting to start selling them in local farm shops/delis but they all require a longer shelf life,

My questions on this are:

Does anyone have any advice on how I can make them have a longer life?

Does anyone know any truffle recipes that do not use cream therefore increasing the shelf life?

I also have also started to make chocolate lollies & chunks. I melt the chocolate and then leave to first set at room temperature then put in the fridge but my problem is when I take them out of the fridge and leave for a period of time at room temperature, they seem to look like they have separated and when you bite into them they go all crumbly. What am I doing wrong?

Please can someone help as I seem to have built up quite a few regular customers & I dont want to disappoint them.

Thanks from a new chocolate fan xx

If you are cooking the cream and adding chocolate to it for your ganache it has a longer shelf life than you think. That is how I make mine and then roll into balls by hand before dipping them, get 3 months shelf life... even longer if stored in refrigeration. Your lollies crumbling sounds to me as though your chocolate is not tempered correctly and therefor has too much crystallization.

Thanks Ryan,

I am actually melting the chocolate first then adding the cream to this. But if it means a longer shelf life then I can change this to cooking the cream first.

I managed to find out that the problem with the lollies is due to sugar bloom. I was putting in the refridgerator then bringing out intoa humid room, therefor ecausing the bloom!

In my experience, melting and tempering the chocolate being used in ganache is a ridiculously easy way to extend shelf life. Boil cream, cool to 115 degrees, THEN add to freshly tempered chocolate. Use an immersion blender to create an emulsion. It will be much more stable.

I believe a butter ganache is also supposed to last longer than a cream ganache. Even more so if you use clarified butter.

How long would you say the shelf life would be by doing it this way?

Wouldn't the 115 cream take the tempered chocolate out of temper?

Yes. Cool the cream to about 90 degrees.

I recently bought the book "Fine Experiences, Great Chocolate 3 - Extending Shelf Life" by Jean-Pierre Wybauw. This is what you need. It explains everything scientifically. I highly recommend it.

http://www.amazon.com/Fine-Chocolates-Great-Experience-Extending/dp/9020990209/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363789337&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=greay+experiences+fine+chocolates+3

That's what I thought. Thanks for confirming.

My only problem with this method is that it sets up fast. It's usually faster than I can pipe it into shells so I have to -re-warm the ganache making sure not to go over the 90 degree threshold.