Making your own chocolates

Name: Making your own chocolates
Prep time: 60 min
Total time: 60 min
Yield: 1
Cuisine: Switzerland
Ingredients: 40 g heavy cream; 10 g glucose; 5 g sorbitol; 5 g butter; 40 g fruit purée | of choice; 140 g white couverture; 600 g dark couverture | tempered

Making your own chocolates – step by step

The art of making pralines is a true delight for all the senses and offers a wealth of creative opportunities for self-expression. Whether you’re an experienced chocolatier or just taking your first steps into the world of chocolate, making moulded pralines is a rewarding and enriching experience.
Moulding pralines allows you to create exquisite chocolate creations in various shapes and sizes. You can let your imagination run wild and make beautiful pralines in the shapes of flowers, animals or even geometric forms. The possibilities are endless!
Making moulded pralines is another exciting step on your journey as a home chocolatier. All you need are professional polycarbonate moulds and perfectly tempered couverture. The shine and perfection you see in moulded pralines are the result of precision and dedication. You must ensure that the couverture is properly tempered to achieve the desired structure, texture and beautiful shine. This requires patience and an eye for detail, but the effort is well worth it when you remove the beautiful, glossy pralines from the mould and can present them with pride. To make things easier for you, we’ve also put together a detailed blog post explaining the correct tempering process step by step.
The great thing about making your own pralines isn’t just the chance to improve your culinary skills; it also offers scope for your creative self-expression. The freedom to combine different ingredients, colours and shapes allows you to create unique masterpieces that reflect your personality. Among other things, you can colour the moulds with colourful cocoa butter dye, sprinkle them or airbrush them, or dust your chocolates with metallic glitter once they’ve been demoulded. Whether you’re making chocolates for family celebrations, anniversaries or simply as a special gift for your loved ones – or even for yourself – the love and care that goes into every chocolate will be evident in every bite.

Key figures

Quantity: 24 pieces

Difficulty: Medium

Shelflife:1 month

Fruit ganache

Double cream		40 g
Glucose		10 g
Sorbitol		5 g
Butter		5 g
Fruit purée \| of your choice		40 g
White couverture chocolate		140 g

Chocolate box

Chocolat de couverture \| dark, tempered		600 g
Cocoa butter colours		A little

Glucose, 350g

Ready-to-ship quantity: 0

CHF 8.90

Cassis fruit puree 1 Kg

Ready-to-ship quantity: 8

CHF 24.50

Lindt Couverture White 0.5 kg

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF 19.90

Making the fruit ganache

Put the white couverture drops into a metal bowl and heat the remaining ingredients together in a small pan (we used blackcurrant purée, but you can use any other purée you prefer). Then pour the hot mixture over the couverture drops and leave them to melt for about 1 minute. Then whisk everything together until you have a smooth mixture. Transfer the finished ganache to a piping bag and leave it to cool at room temperature for about 20 minutes.

Chocolate mold hemisphere Ø 3 cm, 24 pieces

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF 29.90

Cocoa butter strong glitter honey gold

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF 15.90

Silicone brush, 20 cm

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF 16.90

Making the chocolates

Polish the chocolate mould thoroughly with a kitchen towel. This will make the chocolates shine even more once they’ve been removed from the mould. Place the cocoa butter colouring in a bain-marie (no warmer than 40 ºC) and then pour a little of the melted cocoa butter colouring into a small bowl.

Now dab the mould with the cocoa butter colour. This is best done with a silicone brush. However, you can also colour the mould using your fingers or other objects to create an interesting texture or pattern. Leave the colour to set for about 5 minutes at room temperature, then scrape the surface of the polycarbonate mould with a metal scraper to remove any excess colour.

Lindt Couverture Dark 0.5 kg

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF 17.50

Metal horn

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF 14.90

Silicone brush, 20 cm

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF 16.90

Next, brush the mould with dark tempered couverture. It’s best to use a silicone brush for this, as it doesn’t shed any bristles and you therefore won’t run the risk of finding any bristles in your chocolates. Once again, scrape the mould with a metal scraper to ensure the surface is nice and clean.

Then fill a piping bag with the tempered couverture and fill each cavity of the mould completely with the liquid chocolate.

Now tap the mould several times on your work surface to remove any air bubbles, then pour the couverture back into the container. As you do so, tap the sides of the chocolate mould with the back of a spatula, ideally rotating the mould slightly to ensure the chocolate layer is as thin and even as possible.

Next, remove the mould to clean it, then place it in the fridge for about 10 minutes. Once the couverture has set, you can fill the now-cooled ganache into the pre-poured praline shells. Just leave about 2–3 mm of space at the top, as the pralines still need to be sealed. Before you can seal them, however, you must leave the pralines to stand at room temperature for at least 2 hours so that the ganache forms a light skin. This makes it much easier to seal the pralines. If you don’t have the time or patience for this, you can simply place the mould in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Once the praline filling has formed a skin, you can pour the tempered couverture over it (ideally using a piping bag again), tap the mould gently on the work surface so that the chocolate spreads evenly, and then scrape off the excess chocolate with a metal spatula. This also ensures that you can remove the pralines from the mould more easily and cleanly at the end. Finally, place the mould in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Once they’ve cooled, you can take the chocolates out of the fridge and give the mould a sharp tap to release them onto your worktop. The chocolates will practically pop out of the mould by themselves. If a few stray chocolates are still stuck in the mould, you can tap it gently or put the mould back in the fridge for another 5 minutes.

Storage & Shelf life

If you have sealed your chocolates properly and no filling is visible, they will keep for up to a month. It is best to store them in a chocolate box at room temperature.