How can I get a thicker coating when enrobing something in chocolate? I'm trying to make dark-chocolate-covered marzipan balls, using Valrhona Guanaja 70%.
My problem is that the chocolate coating is too thin; the end result has a) too low a ratio of chocolate to marzipan, so the flavors aren't balanced, and b) a hole in the bottom, where I place the balls on a silicone mat after coating them. I'd really like a thicker (1-2mm) coating, including on the bottom.
My first thought was to let the chocolate cool and thicken further before dipping; below 26C/80F. That did help to get a thicker coating, but reheating it from that point, after the temperature dropped too low, seemed to cause issues with the tempering of the chocolate.
Googling this, I found endless questions about how to achieve a thinner coating, but nothing about how to get a thicker one.
It seems possible to get an arbitrarily thick coating using a spherical mold, but marzipan can't really be piped into the sphere.
Is there a trick to getting a thicker layer when enrobing? Do I just need to be more patient with my approach of letting the chocolate cool, or do a better job of tempering it in the first place?
The first suggestion is to let the chocolate get cooler - which will help in two ways:
Less runny material from the start and less time until the chocolate starts to set, resulting in less runoff overall.
Yes, it means you will be walking that fine line between just right and too firm, but my favorite trick for that is to prepare a comparatively large amount of dipping chocolate and rely on thermal mass to help me get through as many pieces as possible.
Holes at the bottom can be avoided by using a wire rack instead of a mat, although this can come with its own pitfalls.
And ultimately, you can always double-coat your marzipan to get a thicker coating.