Howdy. I have been working with Guittard A'Peels for about 1-1/2 years now with no problems. I have studied online and taken a few classes. I know the rules and don't introduce water, etc.

I have been using some very fresh Guittard A'Peels dark chocolates to make chocolates for Christmas and Thanksgiving gifts. The Guittard was manufactured in October 2011 and has a shelf life of 18 months. I also used up some Guittard that was about 6 months old.

I purchased some off-brand sandwich cookies that were too big for my Oreo cookie molds from Spinning Leaf, so I just dipped them. The molded cookies came out beautiful and shiny. The dipped cookies did not.

I used the same procedure for both batches. I melt the chocolate in the microwave, pour into the molds, put into the freezer for 5 minutes on a timer, check that the chocolate is completely "opaque" (separated from the mold), then remove from the mold to come to room temperature.

The dipped cookies: I just dipped them into the chocolate, tapped off excess, put on parchment, put in freezer for 5 minutes, then put on the counter to come to room temperature.

If the chocolate starts to solidify, I will put it back in the microwave for about 10-15 seconds and stir.

I often melt too much (or get interrupted) and have to pour the excess out in a puddle to solidify at room temperature. I then break it up into smaller pieces and put back into the container for later use. (My understanding is that it's not a problem to re-use left over chocolate.)

My home temperature was at 70-72 degrees, but I did have my small room humidifier on near the kitchen. The is the first time I've ever had a humidifier on while doing chocolate. The humidifier did no harm to the molded chocolates.

Why do my dipped cookies (and some dipped marshmallows from a few days before) have the dull, streaked finish?

I will try to attach 2 photos, but have never been successful attaching photos on CC. I have posted this same question with 2 photos showing the hard, shiny molded cookies and the dull, streaked dipped cookies on the Wilton.com forum. The pictures are at the bottom of this thread:
http://www.wilton.com/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=8&threadid=158060

In my life, dipped chocolates are NEVER as shiny as molded ones.

Molded chocolates "pick up" the shine from the highly polished mold surface.
Dipped ones have no way to do that.....the surface is exposed to the air and humidity. I'd guess that they cool differently from one another.

JMHO
Rae

Thanks Rae. I know that's some of it, but I haven't had this level of dullness/streaking before now. If I can't get an answer to this dilemma, I'll try doing it again with test conditions and see what happens

I continue to be amazed nearly two years into 'cake decorating' at the complexity of this hobby! I LOVE IT!!!

Well, the A'peels don't need tempering, but they can be overheated.
The fats will separate out more readily when that happens--that's when I see obvious streaks.

I can imagine that a plastic mold is "cold", compared to just ambient air. Perhaps treating the A'peels like real chocolate and dipping at a slightly cooler temp would help.

In your shoes, I think I'd melt, stir well, allow to sit & cool until a dot of product feels a bit cool to my lower lip, stir gently again, and then dip.

Hope it works out for you.
Rae

Thanks again.

Dull and streaky usually means the chocolate was too cold when you used it. it could still be "tempered", just not used at the right temperature. If you overheated it until it was out of temper, then it wouldn't be solidifying at all.

I tend to have this problem all of the time. It's nice and tempered (you can tell when you stick a spoon in, jiggle and have the entire bowl of chocolate jiggle with it... it's kind of trippy), but then it cools down to the point of streaks and unhappy things. It should look nice and glossy when using it, if it's too cool it will look kind of streaky even while it's liquid.