Making Chocolate covered Macadamia nuts.
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Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques
I have a couple of thoughts:1) Temperature of the nuts will make a difference: Too cold and the chocolate will set too quickly; youll end up with a blocky mess. Too hot and obviously, they will throw the chocolate out of temper.2) 75F seems a bit hot to be working with chocolate. Others have different experience but my optimum range is 68F-72F (tops). Outside of that range, for me at least, things get more difficult.3) Is it possible that youre seeing fat migration from the macadamia nuts? You may not be able to do anything about that unless youre prepared to use some kind of vegetable gum based glaze as a barrier. I dont know much about that sort of thing.If it is fat migration, then try a thin coat of milk chocolate before finishing with the dark. The milk fat in milk chocolate may form a partial barrier so that it wont come through to the dark.4) You can thin any chocolate by adding melted cocoa butter prior to tempering.5) After a quick review of your post, it seems that you may want to review tempering. If youre new to tempering, it can take a while to master but its not difficult at all. 95F is just too hot your chocolate will not be in temper when its that hot. Try the Seed Method and use the manufacturers suggested working temperature of 88F (max).Anyway, try monitoring your working environment first. Make sure your chocolate is actually in temper and that the nuts are very close to, but cooler than, the temperature of your tempered chocolate. Once theyre enrobed, and just beginning to set, pop them into the refrigerator for 5-10 minutes or so. When you remove them from the cooler, cover them so that they dont condense ambient moisture. If you still get streaking, try enrobing with milk first, then dark.But really, it sounds like your chocolate wasnt in temper to start with. I think theres an article here on TheChocolateLife about tempering and there are many online elsewhere, too. Oh, and be sure to keep the chocolate well mixed so that the beta-crystals are well dispersed.Hope this helps.
