Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

My old friend Carol recently attended a chocolate making course.

On the day, she spread liquid chocolate onto a marble bench and scraped it about with a spatula, studied temperature charts on a white board, aimed infrared thermometers at gigantic bowls of melted chocolate, and ladled into expensive polycarbonate moulds.

Then…she rang me.

“Do you work your chocolate on a bench?”

“Um…no..”

“What about the polycarbonate moulds, do you use those?”

“Um..no..”

“Why does your tempering work if you don’t do the whole
heating-cooling-reheating bit?”

“I honestly don’t know why, but it really does…”

“Will you please show me how you do it?”

“Of course!”

Carol only lives a few streets away, and just before she was due to come over, she rang and asked if her youngest son could come along as well. Nine year old Justin turned out to be a tempering star! Here are some photos of our afternoon together…

After melting the chocolate in the microwave,  a lump of chocolate was stirred in to “seed” the crystals. Once the chocolate had cooled to the correct temperature (in this case 88F, as it was a milk blend), the lump was removed…

The bowl was placed onto a towel covered heat mat, and pailleté feuilletine flakes were stirred in…

Filling the moulds took a little hand-eye co-ordination…

Thump! Thump! Knocking out the air bubbles…

Naturally, the bowl needed to be scraped clean once the moulds were filled…

The well tempered cane toads practically leapt onto the bench…

And it’s always important to taste test your finished product…

Justin was very proud and more than a little possessive of his handiwork. We may have a future Willy Wonka in the making!

If you’d like to give tempering a go, here’s a link to our Chocolate #101: Tempering at Home tutorial. Hopefully you’ll have as much fun with it as Justin, Carol and I did!

I find biscotti very addictive, especially when they’re coated in dark chocolate!

They’re a seriously hard cookie (watch your teeth), but I find them perfect for dunking in my morning cup of tea. This version – a riff on an old and reliable David Lebovitz recipe – was particularly pleasing. The ginger stayed soft despite the second bake and the flavour worked well with the dark chocolate and roasted hazelnuts.

• 300g (2 cups) plain (AP) flour
• 75g (¾ cup) Dutch-processed cocoa
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used homemade)
• 220g (1 cup) white sugar
• 3 large (59g) free range eggs
• 100g (3½ oz) roasted skinned hazelnuts, chopped
• 100g (3½ oz) glace ginger (we used Buderim Naked Ginger), chopped
• 100g (3½ oz) dark chocolate chips (I used Callebaut 811 54% dark)
• 1 egg, beaten,  for eggwash
• crystallised sugar (demerara works well, but I used Moo’s rock sugar)

For a more detailed tutorial on making biscotti, please see our earlier post here.

1. Line a large baking tray with parchment paper, and preheat oven to 175C/350F or 160C/320F with fan.

2. In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, cocoa (which must be sifted, even if nothing else is) and salt.

3. In a large mixing bowl, use a whisk to beat the 3 eggs and sugar together until combined.  Whisk in the vanilla extract.

4. Stir in the flour mixture, then add the chocolate chips, ginger and almonds. Mix everything together by hand (it will be quite a stiff dough) until all the dry ingredients have been incorporated.

5. Divide the mix into two and roll into long skinny logs. Place them on the parchment-lined baking tray.

6. Gently flatten the top of each log, then eggwash the tops and sides of each and sprinkle generously with the crystallised sugar. Bake the logs for 25 minutes until firm to touch.  Allow to cool on the tray for at least 15 minutes.

7. With a sharp serrated knife, slice each log into 1cm / ½” slices.

8. Lay the slices onto the parchment lined tray – they won’t spread any more – and bake for 20 – 30 minutes at 175C / 350F or 160C/320F with fan.  Rotate the trays halfway through the baking time to ensure the biscotti bake evenly.

Coating the Biscotti with Chocolate

1. Temper a batch of dark chocolate following the instructions here. Place the tempered chocolate on a heat mat to keep it at the correct temperature while you work with it.

2. With a butter knife,  smooth a coating of chocolate over one side of the biscotti.  It’s easier to do this than to dip the cookie, as they’re quite crumbly and can end up breaking off into the chocolate…

3. Place each coated biscotti chocolate-side down onto a sheet of parchment and press down gently. Allow to set. I picked up this tip from Jacques Pepin, and it results in a smooth flat chocolate finish. (Photo below is of almond and choc chip biscotti – I made two different batches at the same time and coated them all.)

4. Store the finished biscotti in an airtight container – they can also be frozen for ages.  Tempering the chocolate means that the finished chocolate will resist blooming, making this a perfect do-ahead gift.

There will undoubtedly be leftover tempered chocolate to play with! I dipped some shortbread rounds in ours…

…and threw chopped glace ginger, slivered almonds and cranberries into the remnants of the bowl, before spreading it all out on a sheet of parchment to make this easy and delicious chocolate bark. It’s the perfect after-dinner nibble!

. . . . .

Chocolate #101: Tempering at Home

Chocolate #101: Enrobing

Chocolate Making Posts