CHOCOLATE

We fooled around with chocolate all last week. There was truffles with fruit ganaches and pistachio gananches. Caramel coated in chocolate. Nougats and the like.

We learned that traditional French style truffles and usually scooped out of the ganache and hand rolled into balls then dipped into tempered chocolate and rolled in either cocoa powder or icing sugar. While those other fancy looking things you pick up at chocolate shops are little chocolate shells that's the ganache is pipped into and then rolled in anything you desire. The latter freak me out a little cause if the shells are not properly filled; air pockets in it, there's room for bacteria and mold growth which would obviously cause the eater some serious diarrhea.

Making the caramel was honestly the most fun I had. Though I could be bias cause I always eat the caramel flavors first out of the Quality Street Chocolates you always seem to receive around Christmas. Adding different goodies like nuts and dried fruits made for some pretty looking chocolates while adding salt to a butter caramel I made tasted the best.

And tempering chocolate is an art in itself. You have to heat your chocolate up to 45 degrees over a bain marie(double broiler) then cool it back down to 25 degrees which proper chocolatiers will call it's crystallization stage. To get t back down to the crystallization stage you either work out chocolate on a marble slab to temper it, add more chocolate to cool it down or what I prefer to do it your chocolate over an ice bath till it reaches your desired temperature. And I hate to bore you but that's not all. You then have to reheat your chocolate back up to 30-32 degrees and that's when you can have fun with it.

I made up little goody boxes for my favorite people so be expecting a parcel sometime soon.