A couple of years ago, David Lebovitz blogged about making caramelised white chocolate – a technique he’d learnt during a training visit to the Valrhona Institute.
I was instantly hooked – whilst I’ve never been a big fan of white chocolate, this caramelised version is something completely different. It’s an easy process, but time consuming, and what you see in the jars above is pure white chocolate, with nothing added.
It’s been a while since I’ve made this, but a recent comment by Isabella on one of my old posts inspired me to cook up another batch last weekend.
I used Callebaut White Chocolate, which is slightly lower in cacao than the 30% suggested by Lebovitz, and as a result the chocolate went quite dry and grainy during the cooking process. After a few minutes resting time out of the oven, it melted a little, and the graininess sieved out as it was poured into the jars.
I began with two trays of white chocolate callets – interestingly the purple tray baked much faster than the grey one. Both went into a preheated 120C (with fan) oven…
The trays were taken out and stirred every ten minutes…
After an hour (stirring every ten minutes), the chocolate had darkened and was quite stiff…
It needed a good stir…
…and after a few minutes resting time out of the oven, it loosened up a little…
As the melted chocolate was quite grainy, we strained it through a sieve into clean jars…
The grey pan was cooking more slowly than the aubergine one, and we ended up giving it an extra 15 minutes in the oven. As a result, the chocolate was more caramelised, and you can see from the very top photo that the two jars on the right are a deeper brown than the one on the left…
One thing to note – the chocolate in the jars will set solid as it cools. It will also bloom, with the cocoa butter separating out in a slightly worrying mould-like fashion. It doesn’t look particularly attractive, but it won’t hurt the chocolate at all.
Just warm the jars slightly in the microwave (remove the lids first), and they will re-melt to gooey decadence.
Any suggestions on what to do with our new jars of liquid gold?
In the past I’ve stirred it into whipped cream, tempered and set it into bars and made a caramelised white chocolate bundt cake. I’m still trying to figure out a cookie or brownie recipe to work the chocolate into, and I’m pretty sure it would make a truly amazing icecream.
Of course, all these machinations might be for nought – we usually end up eating it out of the jar with a spoon!
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