Hollow chocolate figure
A moulded shell with nothing inside. Technically the most demanding moulding job, because the shell must survive handling and still be pleasant to eat.
What it is
Hollow work coats a mould's interior with tempered chocolate and pours out the excess, leaving a shell. Two halves are then joined with warm chocolate.
The difficulty is the shell thickness. Too thin and it breaks in transit; too thick and it is unpleasant to eat and expensive to make. That balance, plus the need to release cleanly from a mould with undercuts, makes hollow figures the most demanding routine moulding job — and the seasonal volumes mean it is done at enormous scale under time pressure.
- Category kind
- A confection form — this describes how it was constructed
- Legal status
- Industry convention, not a legal definition
- Also called
- chocolate egg, hollow moulding, chocolate bunny
- Texture
- snappy
What the percentage means here
Refers to the chocolate cast.
Working with it
Requires couverture and correct tempering. A figure that has to be forced from its mould was not in temper, and a warm mould prevents a clean release.
Related
Commonly confused with
- Hot chocolate bombBoth are hollow moulded shells made by the same spinning or two-part mould technique. One is meant to be eaten and one to be dissolved.
Production steps involved
- Shell mouldingHollow figures are made by spinning or by two-part moulds, both of which depend on tempered chocolate contracting cleanly away from the mould wall.
Covered in
- Easter chocolateThe format and its manufacturing constraints.
Techniques that work with this
- Making hollow figures and Easter eggsTwo halves joined, or one shell spun. Both need thicker walls than seem necessary, because a thin hollow shell cannot be unmoulded intact.
History and culture
- Easter chocolateThe product form the custom created, and the tempering it depends on.
- Christmas chocolateThe moulded figure format, which Christmas shares with Easter.
Sources
- ChocolateHQ editorial synthesis — ChocolateHQ(citation identity confirmed; passage not re-read)
- The Science of Chocolate — Royal Society of Chemistry(citation identity confirmed; passage not re-read)