Hi, this is my first time in this forum. We are starting a small factory,I always read your posts and comments, its been very helpful!.

We want to make something different inour market like transfer sheets painted by ourself with cocoa butter. We have researched the technique in books, some videos but it has beenvery difficult to make them. We use cocoa butter with powder colors from chef rubber, an acetate sheet. The book that we have used is The Art of The chocolatier by edward Norton and Marking Artisan Chocolates by Andrew Garrison.

Can you help us with the entire process, we dont know what is wrong!

Thank you very much.

Maria

updated by @maria-beatriz-damas: 04/09/15 11:14:54

When I do this I:

- Clean the acetate sheet with cotton wool

- Make sure your coloured cocoa butter is in temper (ie., you haven't heated it too hot)

- Paint/spray/splatter/dab it onto the acetate and let it set

- When you're ready to use your sheet, spread a thin layer of chocolate over the acetate, cover with baking paper and put a few baking trays on top to weigh it down and keep it flat

At that point, the heat from the chocolate should allow the cocoa butter on the acetate to adhere to the chocolate.

Please be more specific about the problems you are having. The answer may depend on the issue. Your cocoa butter might not betempered correctlybefore you start. You could also "work" the cocoa butter too much as you are spreading it on the acetate sheet. You could be putting the cocoa butter on too thick on the acetate sheet which can cause it to not transfer correctly. You can spread the cocoa butter a number of ways to create designs (although I findpaint brushes tend to leave bristles behind) but that is something you need to play with to achieve the look you want. Unlike Gap, I usually just cut my transfer sheets to size and use them without spreading chocolate on them first (I usually use them in magnetic molds). One other tip is that you can spritz your countertop with a bit of water to help hold the acetate in place while you are putting your color on and making your design - just make sure you keep the side you are adding cocoa butter to dry!

Thanks Gap and Andrea, we are trying to make hand dipped chocolates with acetate decoration on top.

We have done 2 methods:

- The first is what Gap said spreading chocolate (white), we dothis in order to see the colors. At this point there are2 issues: when we pour the white chocolate to the acetate it melts part of the design. Second it becomes a thick layer that is very difficult to transfer to a chocolate. So we decided to cut minisquaresand place it into the top, butthey are very delicates, when you cut themthe resultare irregular for most of them, a big % is useless.- The second method is without chocolate layer,the problem is to transfer the design to the chocolate. We make an square bigger than the size of the hand dipped chocolate, as the book says, but the result is that the entire square comes out to the chocolate.

Ifany of youhave done acetates decoration for hand dipped chocolate, canyou tell me whatyouhave donefrom the beginning toend?

Andrea, can you describe what you do with molds, so we can decorate them this way.

Thanks Gap and Andrea, we are trying to make hand dipped chocolates with acetate decoration on top.

We have done 2 methods:

- The first is what Gap said spreading chocolate (white), we do this in order to see the colors. At this point there are 2 issues: when we pour the white chocolate to the acetate it melts part of the design. Second it becomes a thick layer that is very difficult to transfer to a chocolate. So we decided to cut mini squares and place it into the top, but they are very delicates, when you cut them the result are irregular for most of them, a big % is useless.- The second method is without chocolate layer, the problem is to transfer the design to the chocolate. We make an square bigger than the size of the hand dipped chocolate, as the book says, but the result is that the entire square comes out to the chocolate.

If any of you have done acetates decoration for hand dipped chocolate, can you tell me what you have done from the beginning to end?

Spreading chocolate onto the acetate can melt/smudge part of the design - you can work that in as part of the design if you want. You need to cut the chocolate into squares before it sets. It should be partially set so that the cut you make stays acut and doesn't flow back into a single piece of chocolate, but the chocolate shouldn't be set hard- that way you don't get irregular cuts and they will fit uniformly.

I'm not sure I understand your issue with the second method. It sounds like your cocoa butter is too thick and the whole design is coming off in which case make you cocoa butter pattern thinner (but I might be misunderstanding what you have written).

I agree with Gap - if you are going to spread chocolate on the acetate sheet it has to be very thin and you need to cut it into your chosen shapes before it has fully set and the pieces will be delicate even once they are set since they are thin.

I, too, am confused about all of the cocoa butter transferring to your dipped pieces - even the parts not touching the chocolate. I am thinking, like Gap,that the cocoa butter design is too thick. I've never had this happen. I have made transfer sheets where the color is too think and pieces of the designare peeling off the sheet even prior to use. If this is happening then I wouldn't use those sheets and the color would have to bespread thinner when remaking new transfer sheets. If you are using multiple colors when making your sheets try not to layer too many colors on each other to help avoid this problem.

You temper cocoa butter the same way you do chocolate. In this case you might need to do it using the slab technique since you would be doing such a small quantity. There is a chance that if you heated the cocoa butter too high that it may not be salvagable, although it is probably worth a try. I melt my bottles from Chef Rubber in the microwave and do it very slowly (with the caps off BTW). Do not melt the contents of theentire bottle out and once you have enough liquified and ready to work with give the bottle a good shake and you should be ready to go.

Thanks...

I have read your answers, I dont know if any of you have used powdered color with cocoa butter, I am not using exactly colored cocoa butter. I think there must be differences in the mix, todayI read in internet that I have to use 1 part powder 6 parts cocoa butter, what Ive done might have beenthick to get a desirable color. If any of you have used powdered color let me know the mix please.

I read in chef rubberthat, to temper cocoa butter you have to warm cocoa butter in increments to approximately 86 degrees Fahrenheit or 30 degrees Celsius.

I use 5-10% fat soluble colour in cocoa butter (so for 100g of cocoa butter, I add 5-10g of colour). Mix very well (even using an immersion blender if you have enough coloured cocoa butter to do so) and strain through a stocking.

If you've added your own colour to the cocoa butter, you've probably heated the cocoa butter quite high to allow the colour to mix properly, so your coloured cocoa butter will not be in temper. As mentioned above, you temper cocoa butter the same way you do chocolate (actually, when you are tempering chocoalte, you are tempering the cocoa butter in the chocolate). I agree with Andrea that tempering coloured cocoa butter will usually need to be done by tabling because of the small amount used.

ok, tomorrow Ill try everything you 've said

Onlytwo more questions, how can I use the mix left? and which acetate sheets do you use?

Thanks a lot

The left over coloured cocoa butter can be re-used whenever you want. just re-melt it and it's ready to go. There's nothing special about the acetate sheets I use, just plain acetate. Thicker than what you use to wrap parcels, but i've done this with the plastic A4 pockets you use in ringbinders as well