I have made truffles a few times the old fashioned way of letting the ganache firm up and then rolling balls and dipping them. Just wondering if I can pipe the ganache into a candy form instead and let them firm up that way? I'd like to avoid all the touching and rolling and make them look more uniform. Is this how you do it?

You use a plastic mold. First you coat the inside of the mold with chocolate to form the outer shell, then fill with the ganache, you want the ganache to be warm enough to pipe/squirt in, but not so hot that it melts the set shell. Once the ganache has set, you do the bottom of the chocolate shell by doing a coat of chocolate across the bottom of the molds. Let set, demold and you can then decorate the tops.

HTH!

Thanks...do you have to paint it in? Does it take for EVER? What would happen if you just piped the ganache in and then dipped the truffle?

The ganache may not release nicely from the mold on it's own. You can try a couple and see. I think I'd get that brownie bit pan from Wilton and do the chocolate coating liek suggested above. Nice pretty, and no dipping involoved.

I used to paint the sides of the mold with a little paint brush. And then I discovered that you could take a little squeeze bottle and put the chocolate in it. And then squeeze some chocolate into all of the cavities in the mold. Then you take the mold and twist it in all different directions. So that the mold is coating in chocolate. Then I went back in and put the ganache and then filled the rest of the mold up with chocolate. Hope this helps.

okay, yeah that sounds like a fine idea!

the easiest way for me to fill a mold is to laddle in the melted chocolate, making sure it covers all of the mold, then turn it over and let it sit over the bowl so that the excess drips into the bowl. after the chocolate hardens, pipe in your ganache then use more melted chocolate to colse the molds off.

i've never tried piping ganache stright into the mold but i would think it would get stuck in there. and if i did come out it would be dull, the molded chocolates have a very shiny finish