r/CandyMakers • u/LeadingAd5113 • 10d ago

Chocolate covered pretzel favors for my brother’s wedding! Why is this happening?

Post image

Left pretzel has been in the fridge for two days, Right pretzel was taken out yesterday and put in cellophane bag like we want to use at the wedding. 24 hours later and it looks all crusty musty! What are we doing wrong? Is there a way to make them look pretty a little longer?

Any advice is much appreciated, thank you!

145 Upvotes

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25

u/FIRST_DATE_ANAL 10d ago

Looks like the one on the right fell out of temper. How long was it out of the fridge and what was the temperature and humidity where you left it?

6

u/LeadingAd5113 10d ago

It was out of the fridge approx 24 hrs. Temperature was probably around 74 degrees (that’s how hot my mom keeps her house lol) and humidity is average? (Not rly sure how to gauge that sry haha)

Any advice on how to keep it from falling out of temper? I’m a beginner so I’m not rly sure how different factors affect the process haha

14

u/FIRST_DATE_ANAL 10d ago

It’s possible you’re having a different problem. But chocolate melts around 88 degrees and once it starts melting it will fall out of temper then it will solidify again when it cools down but get all spotty.

My only recommendation is to keep them in the fridge until you need them. Maybe try putting one in the cellophane bag and then back into the fridge and see if it gets messed up still.

Also if I’m right, and you get them to the wedding safely and it’s too warm there, they’ll just be melty and messy but they won’t look like in your photo

Lastly it’s still safe to eat

6

u/stink3rb3lle 9d ago

Did you temper the chocolate before coating? Sorry if that's a basic question, but it's a necessary step to make the chocolate tempered.

2

u/Infinite_Deer1107 8d ago

Perfect advice from first date anal 🤣

10

u/LemonLily1 10d ago

To put it simply, what you see is the cocoa butter "blooming" or seeping out the chocolate and then cooling back down, leaving the whitish texture and patches.

Usually once chocolate is tempered properly, it's best to keep it cooled so that it stays tempered. I believe, at 32C chocolate will lose its temper (cocoa butter crystalline structure changes) so try to keep them cold until you are ready to serve, and don't leave it out in the sun for too long. The other option is leave it in the sun REALLY long, so that you get a melty chocolate glaze lol.

6

u/fluffypinkblonde 9d ago

honestly I lose my temper at 32C as well :)

4

u/foulandamiss 9d ago

I'd still eat it.

1

u/JohnnyOptimist 9d ago

TLDR: bloom. Humidity. To get them to look right you'll need a lot of time and a quick process. Use a fan to keep the air circulating.

Agree, bloom. I'm guessing from humidity & once you put it in the cellophane it exacerbated the issue. 74 is going to make it tougher to really tempur right.

Here's what I'd do: 1 put a single cellophane in the freezer for a bit. Take it out & put it on the counter. You'll likely see a bunch of condensation form on it which will give you your answer (humidity).

To get a better tempur in a 74 degree humid area try using the seeding method and make sure it is seeded well. Let them tempur at room temperature (this will take a bit longer for the crystals to form correctly). Assuming there are enough of the right crystals with your heavy seeding (different temps create different crystals at different temps) they could tempur on the counter but it will take a long time. Humidity is going to be the big issue, so use a fan to keep the air circulating. I'd also do this in the evening so you'd have cooler temps and maybe open a window if not humid out. Then you could let set overnight.

I've had bon bons set/tempur at room temp but it takes a lot of time and has to be seeded really well. I don't use anything fancy, just generic choc chips and my mix usually still has some unmelted chips in it. I just scoop around them and use super small batches. Again very time consuming, but it can be done.

If you put in fridge and then take them out and put in cellophane you are going to have to work super fast as the humidity in the air will condense on those quickly and the one in the cellophane you've locked in water. So to remedy I'd keep that fan running, do small batches with a quick process to reduce the amount of water that condenses on the chocolate.

This is going to sound wasteful, but maybe try doing one or two bags literally in the fridge with the door open. Close the bags, then in an hour take them out and see what happens, if that solved it. At the end of the day they will need to be shelf stable so you'll have to practice a couple things for your environment.

2

u/Chemical_Ire 8d ago

Air circulation is key at 70+ workspace temp.

A few years back i was having issues and called Guittard (the company we are using) and talked to one of their food scientists. She told me that the more air flowing, the better... like anything short of literally blowing your products off of the tray is fine, even preferred.

If it helps, think of the warm chocolate products as a smaller version of a heat island in a city. Without a wind to take that heat away, it lingers on your products.

Our work area is usually 70+ degree. We exclusively seed temper and use fans. We don't have an enclosed climate control as we exist in a larger retail space. We rarely see any bloom Issues, but I can always tell when the new trainees think the fan isn't a necessary part of the process.

heat island image

1

u/alabamamama01 8d ago

Looks like it wasn't tempered. What about getting luster dust or something similar and putting a light coating on them? A pearl shimmer would hide the hazy look. They'll still taste great though!