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Posts Tagged ‘making chocolate at home’

Chocolatey Things

Posted in Food & Friends, tagged , , , on March 28, 2012| 66 Comments »

My lovely friend Joanna sent me these fabulous blocks of Willie’s Cacao…

I’ve grated up the Venezuelan Black, ready for use…

To keep the small people in the neighbourhood happy, I made chocolate lollipops from a 50:50 blend of Callebaut 823 Milk and 811 Dark.  The sticks reduce the likelihood of chocolate hand prints on the walls…

For the grown-ups, I blended Callebaut 811 (54%) with small quantities of Tanzanie, Sao Thome and Manjari origin chocolate.  The golden ticket moulds continue to be popular…

These fleur-de-lys are a new shape for me. I think they look quite elegant in both dark…

…and milk chocolate…

And finally, big dark (70%) chocolate pills, for emergencies…

Easter is just around the corner, so I thought it was worth doing a practice run – it’s been a while since I’ve tempered any chocolate.  More posts coming soon!

PS. As always, our moulds were purchased from Candyland Crafts in the US.  They’re just $2 each, but the shipping nearly doubles that if you’re ordering from Australia.  Be warned, their online catalogue can be addictive!

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Two New Chocolate Bars

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , , , on July 25, 2011| 38 Comments »

A couple of new chocolate bars we’ve been experimenting with…

This somewhat rustic looking block is the result of scattering chopped chunks of cold, tempered caramelised white chocolate over the mould before filling it with our 74% Tanzanie blend.  It’s a nice flavour combination…

We’ve also been trying to perfect a mint crisp bar…

We began by boiling up mint leaves in a little water before blitzing and straining them to create a very green mint tea.  We added some peppermint oil to intensify the flavour and then boiled the liquid up with sugar to create a crystallised mint-flavoured candy.

When cool, the candy was pulverised in the food processor and incorporated into a batch of tempered chocolate.

The end result was a dark chocolate bar with little nuggets of mint candy throughout – a great after dinner treat!

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Hazelnut Chocolate

Posted in Recipes, tagged , , , on July 29, 2010| 32 Comments »

These chocolates are made very simply, by mixing Nutella with milk chocolate.  I rarely weigh the ingredients for this, and usually only make it when I uncover half a jar of open hazelnut spread in the back of the pantry.  As Pete pointed out, the combination is better than either the milk chocolate or Nutella on its own!

I start by tempering a bowl of Belgian milk chocolate (Callebaut 823) and once it’s at the right temperature (86 – 88°F), I quickly stir in several heaped tablespoonfuls of Nutella.  There needs to be more chocolate than spread to ensure that the bar sets well enough to cut – I probably use about twice as much chocolate to Nutella by weight.

The mix is then poured and scraped into a parchment-lined cake tin, and allowed to set in the fridge.  Allow it a little time on the bench before you slice it. The slab might crack anyway but, in our house at least, there’s never a shortage of people to eat the broken bits.

The end result is a delicious sweet confectionary which tastes a little like Italian gianduja and a little like Ferraro Rochers.  The whole neighbourhood loves these!

Addendum: If you’re not au fait with tempering, you could try making these by simply melting the milk chocolate gently in the microwave or over a water bath, and then letting it cool to lukewarm (about 31C/88F) before stirring in the Nutella.  Pour it into the parchment lined tray as above and set it in the fridge.  I tried this today and it worked quite well, but the chocolate is more likely to melt and bloom at room temperature than the tempered version, so it’s best to keep the finished pieces in the fridge.

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