Forms for chocolate: what are there and how to choose them?

Adults and children alike love it when cake, pastry and other goodies are decorated with various chocolate figurines of different shapes and sizes. It is always tastier and more interesting to eat fancy-shaped chocolates in the form of animals, cars, bows, hearts and others. In this article, we will tell you how to please your family and friends with home-made sweets.

Almost every second housewife is now experimenting with homemade recipes for chocolate and chocolates. For its preparation, special skills are not needed, there is nothing complicated in the recipes, but those who have come across manufacturing know that molds for casting are an important tool here. They differ in the material of manufacture and are:

• silicone;
• polycarbonate;
• metal;
• plastic.

Which one is better to choose and how they differ - let's take a closer look.

This material is famous for its environmental friendliness and low cost. In addition, it is ideal for both casting chocolate ornaments and ice shaping. Silicone is not afraid of either cold or hot drops. It can be used both for the oven at 230 degrees Celsius and for the freezer at minus 40 degrees, the material will do its job perfectly.

The advantages also include the fact that silicone molds do not absorb odors, are easy to clean even without detergents, and do not react with other products.

And also it is convenient to store it because of very plastic base. It easily rolls up into a tube, while the product will not lose its shape and will never be deformed. And also this form is convenient when removing products - you can simply turn it inside out, without fear of tearing. This is good for beginners, as there are often problems with this, and it is difficult to pull out the confectionery at first.

With the help of a silicone mold, you can cast a large egg, geometry, nesting dolls, hares and many other figures.

More suitable for professional pastry chefs. This form has a price ten times higher than molds made from other materials. But for a person keen on the process of casting all kinds of chocolate decorations and sweets in large quantities, it is this form that will make this activity very fast, because such a container does not need to be oiled before use.

Polycarbonate molds have a number of advantages:

• easy to clean;
• with frequent and long-term use, they have no deformation;
• they do not care about high or low temperature conditions;
• polycarbonate does not give a smell and taste to products and itself is not impregnated with any odors;
• easy to operate.

In addition, there are molds made of polycarbonate with a so-called magnetic bottom. They are used by confectioners in factories. Very convenient to use if you need to make a large number of twin sweets. Previously, when there were no such blanks yet, confectioners had to manually apply a drawing or 3D figure to each candy and they did not always turn out to be the same, because no one canceled the human factor.

With the help of polycarbonate mold, you can cast such figures as a chocolate bunny, candies in the form of letters of the Russian alphabet, foreign letters and numbers, various flowers such as a tulip, chamomile, rose. You can also cast various geometric shapes, such as a ball, star, rhombus, hemisphere with various notches, which makes sweets even more beautiful.

At the moment, such forms are already can hardly be found in stores and even on the Internet, because silicone and polycarbonate are more popular. Although the market price of the metal fixture is much lower than other analogues. This shape is also resistant to different temperatures and can be washed in the dishwasher. When washing you can use a metal brush if necessary, and this will not harm her in any way... It is durable and will last for decades.

This is what is used to cast a bar of chocolate. It is made of flexible plastic, easy to use and quite cheap, but it should be borne in mind that this shape deforms over time. And she is also small and you cannot prepare filled chocolate in it, unlike all other varieties of chocolate molds.

First of all, a new product for pouring chocolate must be thoroughly washed in warm water, using a detergent, and then dried completely, otherwise the chocolate will stick to the walls and bottom.

Melted chocolate pour not to the brim, but 1/3 of the cells and check for air bubbles. To get rid of these bubbles, as well as to evenly distribute the mass in the entire curly cell, you need to lightly knock the shape on the table.

To make it easier to reach the candy, the silicone mold can be turned out... And on plastic, polycarbonate and metal, you just need to knock on the bottom, turning the mold over, so that the products spill out on a towel or soft cloth.

See below for how to use the chocolate molds.