Moulded chocolate
Chocolate cast into a shape and allowed to contract out of it. Everything from a bar to a hollow Easter figure, and the technique that makes tempering visible.
What it is
Moulding casts tempered chocolate into a rigid mould, usually polycarbonate, and lets it set. Correctly tempered chocolate contracts measurably as it crystallises, which is what allows a moulded piece to release cleanly — a bar that has to be forced out of its mould was not properly tempered.
The technique covers solid pieces, shell-moulded bonbons and hollow figures, which are made by coating the mould's interior and pouring out the excess. Hollow work is unforgiving: the shell must be thick enough to survive handling and thin enough to eat, and it has to release from a mould with undercuts.
The high gloss on a well-moulded piece is the mould's surface, transferred. It is a direct readout of both the mould's condition and the temper.
- Category kind
- A confection form — this describes how it was constructed
- Legal status
- Industry convention, not a legal definition
- Also called
- moulding, cast chocolate, shell moulding
- Texture
- snappy, smooth
What the percentage means here
Refers to the chocolate cast, and means what it means for that composition.
Working with it
Moulds must be scrupulously clean and at room temperature. A cold mould shocks the chocolate into the wrong crystal form; a warm one prevents it setting cleanly.
Commonly misunderstood
That a dull or streaky moulded piece means a bad mould. It almost always means the chocolate was out of temper — the mould only reproduces what it is given.
Related
Commonly confused with
- Enrobed chocolateThe two ways to build a filled piece. Enrobed pieces sit in a small foot of chocolate; moulded ones have a flat, sharp base from the mould.
- Ready-made chocolate shellsA ready-made shell is a bought-in component; moulded chocolate is the finished result of casting one yourself. Buying the first does not make the second.
Defined by
- MouldingThe step the category is named for. Correctly tempered chocolate contracts and releases by itself, which is why mould release is the practical test of temper.
- Shell mouldingCasting a thin shell, filling it and capping it. How every moulded bonbon is made, and where tempering is most visible.
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)