Thanks, Debra. I'll try your technique of applying a thin layer of white chocolate with cocoa butter &colour. I appreciate your help and insight! The troubleshooting seems to take a long time to get to a quality result. : ))
I should add that the software is still beta, as I was told by Tomric and no permanent version available...there aren't instructions, so you have to figure it out for yourself. Ask if you have any questions and I'll try to help out.
I tried airbrushing white cocoa butter directly onto the transfer sheet, so that I could apply it to dark chocolate, but the results have been flakey. Haven't mastered that yet - any ideas or suggestions?
Thanks Debra, I have the printer, I have the ink cartridges and I am ready to start experimenting with the Deco software. I will get back to Ran at Chocolate World and tell him the dilemma people are having with the flash stick. The PC/Mac transfer was very difficult, some instructions would have been nice.
Will post my results!!!
click the top image that says "NEW DESIGN"
Click the proper mold template you need. You will need to wait anywhere from 3-10 seconds for the template to open up. Be patient.
Click "PICTURES" on the left menu. On the Right side, the IMAGING MENU appears. Find your picture and click it. I usually save an image (jpeg,jpg, or png) to my desktop (i have also created a file called LOGO) because it is easy to find the image. Anyhow, click the picture you want.
Set up the image to the size you want. There is an ability to crop the picture if you want. Once you have sized the image the way you want it thenClick on left side "PRINT IMAGE". Make sure that you have the security stick plugged into the USB. Print. OR "PREVIEW " if you want to see how the image will look before printing.
Chocolate World finally got back to me, you are correct, cartridges are filled with ink and water.
So, has anyone filled their own cartridges or treated their own acetate sheets??
I don't see how the ink cartridges can be filled with cocoa butter. Cocoa butter is solid and needs to warmed to work with. I don't know of a heated printer. All the edible ink cartridges I've used are filled with the same ink used for cake decorating. As long as the sheets are treated to absorb, it works.
As far as the edges coming out ragged, I've had some issue with that. Haven't found a solid solution for it. It only happens randomly to me, but I think the cocoa butter just wasn't the best temperature when applied. Or the molds need to set longer before unmolding.
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I have a question about the finish, I airbrushed the logo on the transfer sheetwith white cocoa butter, but when I unmold the chocolates I am left with a great looking logo, but I cannot get a clean edge to the chocolate, not all of the white comes off the sheet, just at the edges. Does anyone have any advise on how to unmold so all the white cocoa butter stays on the chocolate.
As a foot note after reading people posts, I decided against buying the software & with a lot of measuring & little trial & error I formed my own template which works great
I think it runs only on PC's, not the Macs. Anyone can download the software directly from the website, but they will not be able to print without the flash stick.
Does the packaging on the transfer sheets say they are a Callebaut product? That comes as a surprise to me if Callebaut is making transfer sheets. I would guess the sheets were Deco Artist and/or Cake Art Intl. The ink is not cocoa butter, but special edible ink for printing on chocosheets and icing sheets for cakes.
All the above posts refer to this printing system.
The deco-artist software is very easy to use and I use this technology almost daily for my chocolate business.
Your first step is to use a PC for the software. Then is should be quite easy from there!
I just purchased the Deco Chocolate Artist software direct from Chocolate World and the Canon ip3600 from Amazon. The software came with no instructions as to how to download it on to the computer and connect it up to the free software off the internet from Deco, just a flash stick and that is all. In fact, all that is on the flash stick is a pin number that allows you to access the software you have already downloaded. When you plug it into the computer, nothing shows up on your screen, at least not on my Mac. It is very confusing and had to go to my computer tech to set it up. I have yet to start printing transfers and from what I can tell, I will have to have to work it out myself by trial and error. I do not mind if the end product is what I am after.
The blank transfer sheets I bought from Chocolate World were made by Callebaut and are lightly coated with cacao butter. I also purchased the cacao butter filled ink cartridges from Chocolate World. Has anyone used either of these two products?
The info in this discussion is very useful and greatly appreciated. I plan to test drive my Deco system this week, will share my results.....
WOW!! whEN i WAS IN chOCOLATE WORLD i NEARLY BOUGHT THE WHOLE SET. I was not sure so I left it. Now I think I am interested again. I need to go and read everything here and my notes from Belgiumagain. I do have some questions, but it is 1 am here and I am too tired to think. WIll be back 2moro,thank you all for all the great info.
I've attached 2 photos of chocolate business cards made at the same time. I used Chocolate World molds that have the metal backing. The metal gets much too cold and I have to heat the metal up so that the white chocolate will adhere to the image and not chill too quickly. I prefer the molds that www.dr.ca sells. They carry magnetic molds with the polycarbonate backing which I like much better because they don't get so cold. One card is using the Deco Artist via Tomric chocosheets. The other is Cake Art Intl via Home Chocolate Factory. The Cake Art sheets are thicker and have different ingredients than the Deco Artist. The Deco Artist sheets are very thin. I find that when using Deco Artist sheets for larger prints thus any transfer that has a larger surface area, these sheets show their imperfections. When using the small 12 - 15 gram molds, these sheets are okay because it is harder to see the imperfections. So, on large images such as the business cards molds or the large ovals made by chocolate world, then it is better to use Cake Art Intl. The Deco Artist sheets do make a beautiful transfer image. I have made some amazing customized pictures with them. But use them only for smaller transfers. You must make sure that the metal backing molds on your 2 piece molds are warmed to within a few degrees of your chocolate temperature...so with white 29 Celcius.
I order from Home Chocolate Factory for the Cake Art Intl chocosheets. There is an American supplier and when I did my research the price was cheaper to order from England. The American reseller did say that she prefers to sell the larger sized sheet than the smaller because it works (transfers) much better even though they say that the sheets are exactly the same except for size. After having used both sizes of sheets, I agree with her, the larger size sheet works much better. I trim the sheet and save the scraps for when I have to make some individual transfer images.
Please note that the Deco Artist card has the crackling effect (BLEMISHES) that i have been referring to. Hopefully this helps with.
INK: Icing Images is one of the places that I purchase the ink from. Photofrost was another. I have had trouble with Photofrost and have not purchased from them for quite some time and they have not given me the routine phone call asking if I need to place an order which tells me they know good and well they were in the wrong. I told them that the ink cartidge was not working/being accepted by my printer and they said "We will send you another one today" This has happened twice in a short period of time and they never, AND I MEAN NEVER sent any replacement to me. And of course that is why I don't receive any sales calls from them anymore!! Icing Images and Photofrost and Kopykake to name a few sell many many different varieties of edible ink cartridges to fit a variety of printers. If you are looking to a printer you could even call Icing Images and they would be very helpful on what they think a good printer would be. They do sell chocosheets but the sheets are very poor quality.
One last note: The business card image was scanned from an actual business card. Had I received an original jpeg or png image it would be even nicer..much better clarity...sharper image on the chocolate.
I've heard other issues with the sheets, which could have just been the batch. I still have the first original batch I ordered, so I don't know if another one would give me problems.
I don't have any secret trick, it's all been hit or miss when I first started using these. I just spray the cocoa butter the same for anything else I do.
I have used them without the cocoa butter and they worked, but I felt the image wasn't as bright as with the white. This shows without, but the logo is white, and this is way is too yellow from the white chocolate.
But, this photo is of my cat, and the white chocolate works better than white cocoa butter because it's her blond color:
Since Tomric only sells these and are not the maker, I don't know if any info from Deco in the UK or Chocolate World in Belgium would be better. They are the ones that developed it. I was going to order the sheets from them until I found that Tomric sold them.
I've never had any trouble with the printer clogging. www.tastyfotoart.com is the other place I ordered ink from. I liked them better because the came with the chips that the Canon printers have, and I didn't have to move chips between cartridges.
I can still have problems occasionally, but it's mostly been from the cocoa butter not being the right temp or something.
Tomric should tell people that unless you apply a white background, the software & sheets don't work well.
I just orderedthe sheets preprinted with my customer's logo & they worked much better. Wasted much money.
If you're familiar with design software like Photoshop or Illustrator (to name just 2) you can completely skip the clunky and expensive Deco software!
All you need are the transfers from Tomric plus the edible inks from kopykake. I use the Canon ip4700 and it works quite well. Of course you have the white issue, but that can be circumvented by using white chocolate for your prints or spraying a white background with either white cocoa butter or white edible ink. Just did some VW logos for our local club and they looked great.
Yeah, unfortunately, printers don't print in white. I tried molding with white chocolate, and for some things it works without the white. I used a photo of my cat, and molded with a layer of white chocolate behind the photo. It worked better because she's Siamese and the more golden color looked more like her coloring. I did it with white cocoa butter and she was washed out. So, it just depends on the image.
And Jackie, you can just brush a thin layer of cocoa butter on the sheet with a brush or sponge as long as the printed image is dry. I did that for a more streaked appearance on a logo I did for Infiniti (don't have a photo unfortunately). It's not as solid as the photo above though.
Thank you for the information. Have you figured out the additional cost per piece?
David
I have it and use if for logos and photos. I chose to get a printer on my own, and then ordered the software USB. I ordered the sheets and USB from Tomric.
I have a Canon MP620 and ordered edible ink cartridges from KopyKake and another place I can't remember the name of.
It works well, but the software could be better. Better editing and sizing options would be helpful. I have one scalloped round mold that the software doesn't have an option for. So, I choose the rectangle and it lines up almost perfect with it.
This is a logo from the caterer I work for. I always airbrush over the image with white cocoa butter to keep the colors true and to have it show up on dark chocolate.
I hope down the line the have some updates to the software, but I like using it.
Has anybody used the Chocolate Artist software and printer by Deco ? I have some custom applications for which this would be perfect, but I would love to know your opinions on it. Any help is much appreciated.
Thank you!
Carol:
It's easier if you do everything metric and my recommendation is to weigh everything: get away from volumetric recipes. This relies on the fact that in the metric system, for these purposes, 1cc = 1ml = 1gr (close enough; it's really only precisely accurate for distilled water at 20C/68F (?) at sea level).
If the total weight of the ganache (chocolate, dairy, alcohol, other ingredients) is 1000 grams and you've added 10gr of alcohol, then the alcohol is 1% ABV. Simple. 5gr of alcohol in 350gr of ganache? ~1.4%
However, as I think about this, that's not entirely correct, because you need to consider proof. An 86 proof alcoholic beverage is only 43% alcohol. So if you add 10gr of - say - 86 proof rum to a recipe you're only adding 4.3gr of alcohol. The rest is water and flavorings. The math is still easy. In the case of 10gr of rum in a 1000gr recipe, the alcohol content is ~.43% ABV.
Now as I said, this is not 100% accurate past the first digit. But for hobby work, it should be more than close enough. If you plan to sell commercially interstate, then the labeling laws may require more precise measurement.
:: Clay
PS. Take your existing volume measures across making the recipe 5 or 10 times and weigh them. You'd be shocked to find out how inconsistent volume measuring is. Average the weights and use the average as the weight in your recipe.
Thanks Clay. I am sorry I didn't make myself very clear. I do add my liquors to the ganache and mix really well to incorporate before filling the shells. I use a nice chocolate for the ganache.
My measurements were just an example for me to understand how to figure out the percentage of alcohol in a truffle by volume, not the fact that the truffle itself would be overpowering by taste. I do add small amounts and taste until I am satisfied by the taste of the ganache. My question is how to determine the percentage of alcohol i.e. > 1% or < 1% by volume?
I use several different liquors such as tequilla, spiced rum, coconut rum, frangelico, sambuca, kahlua, blue raspberry vodka, blackberry liquor, amaretto just to name a few. I have fun making truffles and experimenting with different flavors. I live in a 55+ community and my people here love taste testing.
Thanks, Carol
Carol:
The usual method of production is to add the alcohol to the ganache and then pipe the flavored ganache into the shells, wait for the ganache to crystallize, and then enrobe.
The right amount to add isto taste and would depend on a number a number of factors including the kind of chocolate in the ganache and the strength (flavor and proof) of the spirit you're using. You'd use a lot less of a huge peaty Scotch like Peat Monster (for example) than other alcohols because it's so strong.
Keep in mind that you subtract the amount of alcohol you're using from the amount of other liquid (milk, cream) you're using for the ganache.
:: Clay
Can someone tell me how to figure out what percent of alcohol by volume is figured out when making a batch of truffles?
Say I am making about 10 truffles using pre-made shells. About 1/2 cup ganache with about 2 - 4 TBLS liquor poured into the shell, then dipped in chocolate.
Thanks,
Carol
davy try pineapple and coconut, they go great together
Thanks guys, I have now used awhite chocolateganache compound of which the result is actualy realy good. I also added a red fruit liqueur. Currently one of my favorite pralines. I actually wanted to try it with fresh or frozen strawberries, but currently didn't do that... Any ideas on pineapple and passion fruit fillings would be great!
Thanks,
Davy
Hi Omar
I think the taste is great. I use nutifruit which I ordered it on amazon. it really is a great product i have used it bars, ganaches an this weekend I'm going to use it in some caramels. There is also another company calledAmerican Spice that carries citrus powders that you night like .
hi Anderson,
I'm curious to try those dried powder.i just googled some info.It looks like a great product to use for long shelf life chocolates.Do you get a nice natural fruit taste? What brand do you use? (i'm looking at "nutifruit")
DAvy,
would u like help with marzipan as a filling or making marzipan from scratch?
Ok the exams were realy good, next part in the course is marzipan (which I realy don't like). Think I'm gonna practise further on new praline fillings. Any tips would be apreciated!
Thank,
Davy
Hello I am looking for a good recipe for red fruit filling for my white pralines.
It's for my exams, we need to create 3 pralines, white, milk and black. The black will be with egg liqueur, the milk with butter coconut, and I want the white pralines with a red fruit filling but could find realy good, not tooooo difficult recipes.
If would realy appreciate any help. Thanks!
Davy
