The molds finished curing overnight, and I took a look at them this morning. They’re so-so; there were places where the moldmaking compound seeped under the buttons or next to the acetate, and I had to trim with an X-acto knife. Naturally that didn’t come off perfectly, so I suspect there will be knife-cuts visible in the finished product. Chocolate, sadly, is extremely unforgiving when it comes to defects in the mold (I learned this early), so I doubt this batch is going to look professional. Still, it’s been a good learning experience, and perhaps the next batch will come out better. I think next time I will use polyclay and accept some irregularity and a matte finish.
I still intend to cast chocolates with it, to see how they turn out. If they’re nice enough I may still use some of them in my finished product. I just hate to contrast a poorly-molded chocolate with the professional molds I already own. Otherwise, I’ll just chalk this one up to experience, and continue my experiments in chocolate mold-making. I’m taking a jewelry-making class this weekend at the Crucible – it might be worth investigating making my own chocolate-mold forms from metal. Metal can be polished, see, and thus get that nice glossy finish that makes chocolate proud.
Meanwhile I will continue to look for “found objects” that are approximately bonbon-sized. I might also try casting other interesting objects, like tiny leaves, in wax. The world is not too small for all sorts of chocolate casting fun. 🙂
I’ve enjoyed this process, even though I’ve spent probably about 20 hours on a chocolate mold that will probably never see the light of day. I’m resolved to do better next time, too. Learned a lot just from this one attempt.
