What the Heck is Fondant? I am making fondant. Here’s the funny part: I don’t even know what it is! Of course I have to go and change the recipe, too. I’m not even going to know if it turned out ok! It is a pretty simple recipe: water, sugar, cream of tartar, bring it to soft ball temperature. So, I figure I’m going to want it flavored. I use zinfandel instead of water. This ball of goop is soooo sticky. [...]
Oh! Very Good! Inspired by Vosges Haut Chocolat, I mixed bacon into my 60% dark chocolate. I’d say there were about 2-3 slices of bacon which I cooked until completely crunchy. (95% Fat Free Turkey Bacon is my favorite!) Then I used my mini food processor to grind the bacon to a fine ground. I melted about 5 ounces of chocolate. I poured the melted concoction onto a sheet of textured plastic… Look what happened! It is textured! It came [...]
I came up with my first 2 recipe entries in the Jots & Tittles book. 1) Coconut Curry & Caramel in milk chocolate. It was pretty good. I’ll keep it in the line-up with some adaptations… maybe raisins instead of caramel. The milk chocolate wasn’t perfectly tempered. That was a disappointment. It was hazy. 2) Strawberry & Walnut in white chocolate. I used the freeze dried strawberries, which are slightly sour & crunchy, too. I was very pleased with this [...]
Last Tuesday I was telling my friends Colin & Rebecca that even though I am not a writer, and I’m not a chocolatier, I would like to write a book about making chocolates. I am exploding with recipe ideas. I told them I even have a name for the book: “The Amateur Chocolatier”. Rebecca very wisely stated, “Take a lot of careful notes.” I knew I would have to be thinking of recipes in order to write this book. Rebecca’s [...]
Oh, what Joy! Another box of chocolate supplies arrived today. I got a new mold in the shape of a cocoa pod. Very charming! I bought it at Chef Rubber. I also got unflavored pop rocks from this website. Holy Moly! This is the most fun chocolate recipe. I added a healthy dose of the pop rocks into dark chocolate, and added cayenne pepper and alaea Hawaiian salt (course ground) into the mix. I broke in the cocoa pod mold [...]
Some of the tools and supplies that I ordered have arrived. Here are some photos of my first round of experiments. I was fairly pleased with the items in the top photo. In the future I will try crushing the strawberry into powder. I think that will be more attractive. I was in a hurry. I’d like to let the chocolate drip more next time so the foot of the nugget is smaller. On the left is a 1/2 marshmallow [...]
I’ll let you in on a secret ingredient: Fruit Crunchies! It is tricky using fruit in chocolate because of the water content. Ha! This fruit has been freeze-dried. It is fabulously crunchy when fresh, and gets softer as it absorbs moisture after being open for a few days. Either way, it has intense fruit flavor. I’m not sure how I will use my fruit crunchies yet. One idea that keeps popping up is to crush them on top of dipped, [...]
Here are photos of the two items I couldn’t decide on. Like Hamlet said, ”To buy or not to buy, that is the question.” I like the idea of the chocolate thermometer spatula, even though it has a gimmicky feel to it. I checked my candy thermometer, and it doesn’t go low enough to help me with chocolate. So it turns out that if I want to temper chocolate, I need a new thermometer. Have you ever melted chocolate? It [...]
I have spent the last couple of weeks looking at a lot of chocolate tools and supplies companies. I have done a lot of research on where to shop and what to buy. I bought stuff! Ha! What fun! Within the week I should have some REAL chocolate tools, and some molds, and transfer sheets to decorate the tops of pieces. I was toying around with the idea of getting some really good chocolate tools. Oh boy, did I ever [...]
I am overwhelmed by chocolate. The outrageous number of people making fine chocolates around the world is incredible. Visit the chocosphere.com website and stand in awe with me. •Bringing Fine Chocolates from Around the World to your Doorstep! They feature 49 chocolatiers from around the world, including my favorite: Vosges! Share on Facebook