Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

I make chocolates from home and had my EHO around for some advise before I
start my new venture. He forwarded me your link on Ganache and invert sugar and AW regarding the shelf life of Truffles
He would like me to use inverted sugar, I am only looking at making a
dozen or so boxes a week. The recipe I use is cream 100ml, brown sugar 40g, 110g chocolate and butter 25g, this was a recipe from the Guardian.,
Should I replace all my sugar for inverted sugar, or can I use honey instead. Is honey do the same thing as inverted sugar?
.Would it be easier just to add some alcohol?
Please help as I am in meltdown over this
thanks
Julie

Hi Julie

Honey is mainly invert sugars and will work fine without the brown sugar. If you want a very sweet recipe you can use the brown sugar with it. EHO probably recommended invert sugar because it has better keeping properties. I have a small recipe in my blog which uses glucose, to see it peek here:

Chocolate Truffles by ‘madeitwithlove’

A high proof spirit will also act as a good preservative. Please don’t have a melt down. Choccy making isn’t as straightforward as the professionals make it out to be. I’ve had plenty of heartaches but it’s a good learning curve. Experiment with different recipes, keep an eye on working temperatures and avoid moisture like the plague!

On behalf of Chocarooju:

Thankyou Madeitwithlove for your kind reply.

It was your blog on the shelf life of truffles and the problems with AW that my EHO sent me. I will try your recipe out and see how it goes, I now realize that I can’t just put fresh fruit in my truffles and expect them to keep.
Now I just have to work out how to flavour them, it’s a long way from my fluffy dream, determined to get it right.
thanks again,
Julie

Thankyou Madeitwithlove, I am trying out the recipe now, hope it all goes well for me. I am making some truffles for a charity raffle, will the truffles need to be kept in the fridge?
thanks for your help

Hi ChocarooJu

They don’t need refrigerating unless the weather is outrageously warm ( we should be so lucky!).
I make these at Christmas time in a variety of flavours and bag them up as gifts. Good luck with the truffles.

Just to let everyone know my truffles came out perfect and looked fabulous in my packaging, so very pleased, thanks Madeitwithlove for the recipe, it has given me a lot of confidence to go on with my new venture.
I seem to be now worrying about the flavours I usually put in them, having checked my essence and extracts
they all have water in them. Does anyone have any good ideas for flavouring truffles that will not affect the AW

Hi ChocarooJu

I use oil based natural flavours from Foodie Flavours, here is the link:
http://www.foodieflavours.com/shop/category/flavours/chocolate-2/
There are lots of other companies which make oil based flavours for chocolate making. To see others just google ‘oil based food flavours for chocolate making’.

To refresh your memory on AW it might help to re- read my blog which your were referred to by the EHO. With particular attention to working conditions andworking temperature.

The Shelf Life of Ganache – By madeitwithlove

If you are definitely going to establish a business in chocolate making, perhaps it would be a good idea to invest in a water activity meter. A link is provided in my blog.

I’m so happy that your truffles worked out well. Unfortunately as with any labour of love, there will inevitably be some spoilage. Experience from mistakes will steer you to success. Not even the best chocolatiers have a 100% success!