This is my first post. Today I tempered by seeding about 3kg of dark chocolate for dipping and molding. I did a temper test which was fine so I filled my molds and let them set while enrobing some salted caramels. I enrobed a batch of about 40 and decorated them with a small sprinkle of himilayan crystal salt. They set up nicely, I put them along with the molded cherry cordials and some dipped marzipan and ammereto truffles. I let them cool in my cold room for a few hours and came back to check on the molds for removing. Every single salted caramel was 100% covered in bloom. I'm not sure if it was sugar bloom or fat bloom but they were white!I've got two questions1) what the heck caused the bloom the molds released perfect and shiny and the marzipan and truffles look beautiful. I've only ever had bloom problems once or twice when I was impatient and dipped with chocolate I knew wasn't in temper. Was it the salt?!?2) these were to sell and I dont want them to go to waste. Can I thin down the same chocolate with cocoa butter and dip these again or will the second coat of chocolate just bloom also because of the bloom underneath it?Please help!!!
updated by @rosie: 04/26/15 01:29:31

During Easter I had something similar happen to enrobed marshmallows. The first round was good, we did a second round and hey looked good but quickly went white after setting up. We let the machine run a while longer, and tested again and we were fine. We posited that we were not really ever fully in temper, that seeding had not totally occurred and while we got a fluke good batch, the majority needed more time to settle into a temper.

You can re-temper and coat them twice but that's going to give you one heck of a thick shell. I really doubt that the bloom will come through. Blooming doesn't really operate like that afaik.

Good luck and sorry to hear about this, nothing worse than doing a production run of something to find out an endemic problem with it all.

Thanks for your reply! It's so frustrating when something like this happens. But you don't think it could have something to do with the salt? It was my first time doing a salted caramel and I know salt can do funny things with moisture.

I really doubt it's the salt. We do a few salted products and if added too early and some dissolve can create little salt blotches nothing looks close to a bloom. Blooming is such a unique look. Good luck in your continued efforts!