I am getting way too impressed with myself. I can’t believe I made these candies! In the front I have dipped some of the sour cherry zinfandel fondant I wrote about yesterday. I put a piece of the starburst transfer sheet on the top. These would be prettier if I worked the fondant at a colder temperature. I could have gotten a more crisp shape. If I used a chocolate made specifically for enrobing, the foot on the bottom of [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]