Chocolate will stay fresh for weeks or even months if stored correctly. And yes, the spheres will stay as shiny and beautiful as you made them if you store them correctly:. So in short: A large enough foodsafe plastic container in a cool cellar or cupboard, away from sun- light and, if applicable, curious kids, pets or others that might feast on your stash in advance.
Unless you have a high humidity environment, it's not absolutely necessary that the box be airtight. But if you want to be really sure, include some silica gel packs against excess humidity. Do not stack them like nested bowls , or you could scratch or otherwise damage the glossy surface.
If you have to, place one layer in your box, cover with parchment, foil or similar, add a sheet of cardboard for stability and another layer of parchment or foil, then the next layer of spheres.
I admire your ambition. I regularly make chocolates with filled spheres piping in anything from caramel sauce and nut butters, to my own flavored ganaches. But I buy the shells already made from Chocolate Man near Seattle. They use very good quality chocolate, and their prices are very reasonable though shipping is a bit pricey, so plan ahead and order as much together as possible.
This lets me focus my efforts on the fillings, and on dipping and decorating the results. More directly responding to your question: I've used my Chocolate Man shells after storing for many months, and they've been fine.
I've even used some that were stored for almost a year stored in a box in a cooler part of my house, but at room temperature. Those shells showed a bit of bloom, but always taste one plain before using them after storage, and even those year-old ones have tasted totally fine.
Since I dip the shells in tempered chocolate afterward, a bit of bloom is not a problem—the risen cocoa butter composing the bloom just gets absorbed by the tempered chocolate couverture. So I don't see how a few days or weeks of storage of your homemade shells could be a problem, as long as they are not stored in a warm location.
By the way, I'm referring to dark chocolate shells. If you use milk chocolate, you probably want to use the shells within a few months at the most. Finally, I invested in a small wine cooler one of the thermo-electrically cooled ones; they are very quiet and use little energy so that I could safely store some of my better and more fragile bulk and prepared chocolates, esp.
These coolers only go down to the mid 50s F, but that's plenty cool enough to keep even milk chocolate safe for months, without resorting to the lower temperatures of fridge or freezer storage I tend to set it to around 60 F. Learn more about our sourcing here. Save Save. Who couldn't use a little chocolate right now? Skip to content. We recommend storing it in an air-tight container or re-sealable freezer bag in your refrigerator to keep humidity at bay.
How long does chocolate last? Why is there soy lecithin in your chocolates? Do you use Belgian chocolate to make your confections? Learn more about our sourcing here White chocolate is not really chocolate, right? Save Save Save Save.
Instead, as soon as you've finished using it, pour that chocolate straight onto a sheet of parchment, and pop it in the fridge until it's hardened through and through. If you've used that chocolate for dipping cookies or caramels, you may notice some unsightly but harmless streaks or swirls of grease in it. They're not pretty, but assuming your desserts aren't infused with the intensity of liquid smoke or a pure essential oil, those trace amounts of fat won't contribute any discernible flavor to the chocolate.
Unless you managed to stir and scrape with the efficiency of a machine throughout the dipping process, you'll probably notice a grayish bloom over the leftover chocolate—maybe not immediately, but certainly over time.
This isn't mold but cocoa butter, a telltale sign of chocolate that's come out of temper. Even if your dipped desserts look perfectly glossy, it's normal for this to happen to the dregs of chocolate scraped up from around the sides of the bowl.
Again, not great for aesthetics, but easily hidden in many desserts. You can peel up the hardened chocolate to stash in a zipper-lock bag, where it's easily broken up, but I like to chop it into bite-size pieces for ease of use. Due to potential contaminants and the likelihood that your chocolate is no longer in perfect temper, it's best to store that bag o' leftovers in the fridge.
Refrigerated, the chocolate can be kept for a few months. Whether it makes up all or just a portion of the chocolate you need, leftovers work well in any recipe in which the chocolate will eventually be subjected to some heat, like baked goods or stovetop custards. If you like, pudding and ice cream bases can be strained to remove any cookie crumbs buried in the chocolate, but as often as not, I consider such hitchhikers a bonus.
Graham cracker crumb chocolate ice cream? Yes, please.
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