White-chocolate-citrus ganache in white-chocolate shells. The candies look a little more yellow in the photo than they really were. (Click on image to see larger photo.)

Though molded chocolates are among my favorite types of confections, I’ve gotta say that they’re a big pain in the arse to make at home. Everything is hurry-up-and-wait, extremely messy, and sometimes seemingly impossible for anyone with fewer than four hands.

But I never regret making them — and I will probably make many more.

This episode’s chocolates feature a white-chocolate-citrus ganache in a white-chocolate shell. I’ve been wanting to try a citrus ganache for quite some time, so I took the gist of Dede Wilsons’s citrus truffles recipe from her aptly named book, Truffles, and applied it to an oh-so-gently adapted version of Liz Gutman and Jen King’s ganache from their book The Liddabit Sweets Candy Cookbook.

And so, the white-chocolate citrus ganache went something like this (sorry I didn’t weigh the citrus zests):

• 550 grams (about 19.5 ounces) white chocolate, chopped (I used Cacao Barry, though I’m not fond of it and will probably never buy it again. Tastes like chalk.)
• 225 grams (1 cup) heavy whipping cream
• 1 Tablespoon fresh grapefruit zest
• 1 Tablespoon fresh tangerine zest
• 1 Tablespoon fresh lemon zest
• 1 Tablespoon fresh lime zest
• 45 grams (2 Tablespoons) light corn syrup
• 1 gram (1/4 teaspoon) fine sea salt

I tend to worry about the ganache for molded chocolates being too thick to self-level in the molds, so I always add a little less chocolate than the ganache recipes specify, even if it’s a recipe for ganache destined for molded chocolates. Even with a slightly reduced amount of chocolate in this case (the Liddabit recipe had called for 20 ounces), by the time I was piping the second mold the ganache started to mound a bit. Once the filling starts to mound, it’s harder to judge just how much room is really left in the mold for the sealing chocolate. Of course, one of the best ways to learn that you’re overfilling the molds is to inspect the filling at eye level — if you see any filling sticking out, you’ve overfilled. Using the eye-level peek a little too late in the process, I discovered that at least half of the cavities were slightly overfilled. Stubbornly, I soldiered on. Long story short: the ganache could have used even less chocolate or a tablespoon or two more cream. Oh well.

As a filling proper, though, the ganache is great. I’ll always prefer a creamier ganache than what I have in paw, but I was happy with the creaminess of this ganache within the white chocolate shell, at least on day one. It’s day three now, so I should try another!!

Taste-wise, the ganache did have a mild and fresh citrus-y taste, but I wish it were stronger. Dede Wilson’s original formula included some Boyajian citrus oils, which, said Wilson, could be replaced by doubling the amount of each type of zest (I actually tripled each amount for the recipe above). But after reading a lukewarm review of the oils, I had decided not to bother to track them down. Maybe I should have given them a try after all.

Cacao Barry’s “Blanc Satin” 29.2% cocoa butter white chocolate was a disappointment in both flavor and viscosity. Flavor was all but nonexistent — I expect at least a little bit of vanilla in a white chocolate, but could barely detect any here. And, as a molding chocolate, it’s simply too thick to work with at “working” temperature — I must have added up to 4 tablespoons of Mycryo (powdered cocoa butter) to my four pounds of melted chocolate. This worked well for the shells, which, after three minutes of setting were a perfect thickness — but sealing the molds took a lot longer than I ever thought imaginable — up to 45 minutes for the seal to set, possibly because I did something wrong while tempering. Fortunately, this lag did give me extra time to patch the bottoms of the chocolates for which I had overfilled the ganache. These turned out to be not-so-nice-to-look at from the bottom, but from the top they look fine, though most of the patched bottoms do not sit perfectly flush on a plate.

Full disclosure: the tempering chocolate was about one-sixth Guittard’s “Creme Francais” 31% cocoa butter white chocolate, as I had, thankfully, run out of the Cacao Barry. Actually, for future white-chocolate shells, I wonder if I should go as high up the cocoa-butter scale as possible, to, say, Valhrona’s “Ivoire” 40.5% cocoa butter, or at least E. Guittard’s “Soie Blanche” 35% cocoa butter. Unfortunately the Soie Blanche does not come in 11-lb boxes like the Creme Francais does — I’ll probably never be willing to commit to the 25-lb box. Fortunately Chocosphere will repackage the Soie Blanche into 2.2-lb. bags.

So, all that’s left to cover here is the coloring of the shells. By far I think using a glove-covered fingertip to smoosh colored cocoa butter around the mold before filling it with chocolate works the best, at least this time around. Using a small paintbrush to add the color can work, as I tried in the heart and flower-shaped molds, but you have to get the cocoa butter at just the right thickness for smooth painting without any too-thin color pooling in the bottoms of the cavities. It’s a very short time period within which this can work. The fingertip-application is much easier (you can always re-smoosh if the color starts to pool in the center), and usually looks pretty darned cool.

My latest molded-chocolate practice session was fraught with problems, but the two-toned shell seemed to work out OK. Here, a milk-chocolate ganache was piped into a bittersweet chocolate shell with milk-chocolate striping. (Click on image to see larger photo.)

My latest molded-chocolate practice session left me with over 100 thick-shelled chocolates with too little ganache inside them, an estimated two pounds of wasted chocolate, and complete exhaustion. A quick run-thru of notes and lessons learned before I collapse:

• Valhrona’s Tanariva milk chocolate has strong caramel undertones (overtones?), so it’s not a great choice for couverture, I think, because it will compete with most fillings and centers, except maybe those of “plain” chocolate ganache, or something salty or smoky. Yet I had a nearly full 6-lb bag of the stuff, so thought I’d make a plain chocolate ganache to fill bittersweet chocolate shells.
   
• The Tanariva was very interesting to work with — upon stirring the melted chocolate with the cream, the mixture looked like caramel, smelled like caramel, and had a loose but caramel-like consistency.
   
• Guittard 58% turned out to be too thick for molding. I should research best couvertures for molded chocolate work, or good percentages of cocoa butter to add if chocolate is too thick at working temperature.
   
• If the chocolate is really thick when filling the molds, invert the molds IMMEDIATELY after filling them — don’t wait! A few of the mold’s cavities got such a thick chocolate shell they were essentially solid chocolate when done — not room for even a microdrop of ganache.
   
• Allow at least 1 pound of tempered chocolate PER MOLD — make that 1.5 pounds. The 1.5 pounds prescribed by Liz Gutman and Jen King in their book The Liddabit Sweets Candy Cookbook for THREE to FOUR molds barely filled two. Grr. I should have known better.
   
• The size of the scraper should be close to the width of the mold you’ll be scraping. If using, say, a 15-inch icing spatula, the whole length of it can get covered with dripping chocolate, leaving a lot of dripped chocolate on the counter if your mold is only 6 inches wide.
   
• Use as large a bowl as possible when pouring unused chocolate from molds back into bowl. This sounds obvious but I never think of it until it’s too late.
   
• Have several clean scrapers on hand. And you can never have enough ladles. I’d say one ladle per mold is safest. One ladle for every two molds at the very least.
   
• Using a large silicone mat to “protect” your countertop is not a good idea. For something that’s supposed to be non-stick, pans, parchment, and foil will all adhere to it – making sliding things around the countertop impossible. UNLESS it’s the bowl of tempered chocolate that you need to be held in place because you tempered too little chocolate and you’re scraping the ladle against the sides of the bowl trying to get every last bit of chocolate — THEN the bowl slides all over the place. But I digress. The silicone mat is not worth it here — it helps cleanup only a little bit.
   
• Gotta find a way to create less chocolate waste — from utensils (spoons, spatulas, ladles) alone, I picked off at least eight ounces of chocolate. In the same vein, gotta be less messy with the molds — up to 1/8 inch of chocolate on the outside of the molds is not only wasteful, it makes the molds damned hard to handle and work with.
   
• Until I have the process of molding chocolates down pat, I should have the steps listed on the wall in big print so I’ll remember to do the little but important things that I gloss over because I’m rushing to keep up with the chocolate — banging on and vibrating the molds are two key steps I often forget, which results in air bubbles on all parts of the shells.
   

Chopped toasted cashews were added to a basic English toffee recipe, then dipped in milk or white chocolate and given an outer layer of chopped cashews. (Click on photo to see larger image.)

English toffee is rather easy to make — I based my cashew-loaded version on Carole Bloom’s recipe, but most recipes I’ve found use near-identical formulas. Bloom instructs us to roll the dipped toffee in chopped nuts, coating the piece entirely. I found that to be overkill and decided to have just one side covered with nuts, with a cashew half garnishing the top.

To get the chopped cashews on just one side of the dipped toffee, have a shallow pan filled with toasted chopped cashews (about two to three cups worth) ready to go before tempering the chocolate. Place each freshly dipped toffee piece onto the cashews, gently press a whole cashew onto the top (using this pressure to also press the toffee into the cashew pieces), and let each piece sit until the chocolate is set enough for you to safely move them to another pan. As you take the set toffee pieces off the pan, redistribute the remaining chopped cashews to ensure all subsequent pieces also get a nicely cashewed bottom.

The Carole Bloom recipe I used is from her book Truffles, Candies, and Confections, Ten Speed Press, 2004, p.156-157.

The marshmallows have a nice texture and flavor, but getting the swirl right was more difficult than I had thought it would be. (Click on image to see larger photo.)

I do not plan to post the recipe here; see LaBau’s book The Sweet Book of Candy Making, Quarry Press, 2012, p.116-117 for more information.

Elizabeth LaBau’s Peppermint Swirl Marshmallows are a no-frills basic marshmallow recipe with the addition of a marbling effect on the top done with red food coloring and a toothpick.

I had gel food coloring but it was not the type you could “drizzle over the top of the marshmallow in a random pattern.” But I did the best I could. My one regret was I did not block off any time this weekend to temper chocolate and dip these marshmallows — while I was cutting the marshmallows I was thinking, GEE I REALLY WISH I HAD TIME TO DIP THESE IN CHOCOLATE — THEY’D BE AWESOME!! But they’re pretty darned good without any coating. I’ll soon test them in a cup of steaming hot cocoa.

I guess I’ll have to make another batch of marshmallows for dipping in the near future . . .

The white-chocolate-based ganache was so creamy and soft that the truffle centers barely held their shape before they were dipped. (Click on photo to see larger image.)

Unable to find a trustworthy cappuccino truffle recipe with a white-chocolate-based ganache (I was trying to please both a coffee lover and a chocolate hater), I decided to adapt truffle goddess Carole Bloom’s cappuccino truffles recipe, which in its original form has a dark-chocolate ganache base.

In my first trial, I used a white-chocolate-to-cream ratio Bloom used in many of her truffle recipes (2.5 pounds white chocolate to 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream) and slightly reduced the prescribed amount of espresso powder, since it no longer had to compete with a bittersweet chocolate.

The ganache in my first trial tasted like yummy coffee ice cream, but I was disappointed by the texture: too stiff. I like my truffles very creamy. So I increased the amount of cream in my second trial and the texture was perfect. The trade-off: the ganache was so soft, even when ice cold, it had to be handled quickly and carefully while rolling and dipping — and even being quick and careful yielded some flatter-than-a-globe shapes. But I didn’t care; I loved them anyway.

Confession: In my first trial, I was lazy and arrogant and assumed I did not need to temper the milk chocolate I was using for decoration. WRONG. Bloomed milk chocolate (and this bloomed very quickly) is not any easier to look at than bloomed dark chocolate.

Recipe source: Adapted from the book Truffles, Candies, & Confections: Techniques and Recipes by Carole Bloom. Ten Speed Press, 2004. p. 45
Yield: About 60 truffles

Ingredients

• Up to 4 1/2 pounds white chocolate, finely chopped, divided (I used E. Guittard’s Creme Francais [31% cocoa butter].)
• 3/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons heavy whipping cream
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons instant espresso powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• Up to 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 8 ounces milk chocolate

Procedure

1. Place one pound of the white chocolate in a 2-quart microwave-friendly mixing bowl. In a one-quart saucepan over medium heat, bring the cream to a boil. Remove the pan from the heat, dissolve the espresso powder in 3 tablespoons of the cream, then blend back in with the rest of the cream. Stir in the cinnamon, then pour the cream over the chocolate. Let the cream-chocolate mixture stand for one minute, then stir together with a rubber spatula until smooth. If stubborn bits of unmelted chocolate remain, microwave the mixture for 10- or 15-second intervals, stirring after each interval, until all the chocolate has melted.
2. Cover the ganache, let cool to room temperature, and chill in the refrigerator until thick but not stiff (2 to 3 hours — no worries about this ganache becoming too stiff!). Or let the ganache sit at cool room temperature for several hours or overnight until thick enough to scoop or pipe.
3. Line two half-sheet baking sheets with parchment paper. Fit a 12-inch-or-larger pastry bag with a tip with a 1/2-inch opening, or snip a similarly-sized opening at the tip of a disposable pastry bag, and pipe out mounds about one inch in diameter. Or use a small ice-cream scoop (the Zeroll #100 EZ Disher is a perfect size) to form the mounds. Cover the mounds with plastic wrap, or use a half-sheet pan cover if you have one, and chill in the refrigerator until mounds are firm enough to roll, about 6 hours.
4. Remove the ganache mounds from refrigerator. Add about 2 Tablespoons of the confectioners’ sugar to a sandwich-sized plate; dust your hands with some of the sugar as well. Roll the mounds into balls, dipping mounds into the sugar and adding more sugar to your hands or the plate as necessary to prevent the ganache from sticking to your hands, the parchment, or each other. Work quickly so you don’t overwarm or oversoften the ganache (it may be on the soft side from the get-go). These are, of course, the truffle centers. Cover and refrigerate the centers until firm.
5. Smoothly line another two half-sheet pans with aluminum foil. Melt — but don’t temper — about 1 pound of the white chocolate. Quickly hand-dip the cold centers in the chocolate and place them on the prepared pans. Return dipped centers to the refrigerator until chocolate is set. (Once the chocolate is set, you can wait several hours, or even day or so if necessary, before proceeding.) Reserve the remaining chocolate for future use.
6. Remove the pre-dipped truffle centers from the fridge and bring to cool-room temperature. Smoothly line two more baking sheets with aluminum foil, or use acetate sheets to line the sheets. Melt and temper three pounds of the white chocolate and dip each center with a dipping fork, or hand-dip the truffles a second time, making sure that you do not introduce additional flat edges to the truffles as you drop them on the baking sheet. Let set at room temperature, if desired, or proceed immediately to the next step.
7. Melt and temper the milk chocolate. Using a spoon, parchment cone, or small pastry bag fitted with a thin round tip, drizzle the chocolate over the truffles. Allow drizzle to set at room temperature. After the covering and the drizzle is fully set, place the truffles in candy cups (if desired), then move the truffles to an airtight container, preferably while you’re wearing a thin cotton glove to prevent fingerprints.
8. Bloom tells us that “in a tightly covered container wrapped in several layers of aluminum foil, the truffles will keep for one month in the refrigerator or two months in the freezer,” though other experts would say that the truffles can keep well at cool room temperature without the need for all that aluminum foil. However they are stored, be sure to bring them to room temperature before eating.

The chocolate raspberry ganache was actually creamier than it looks here—this photo was taken shortly after the truffles were rescued from the fridge, so the ganache didn’t have a chance to soften much. (Click on photo to see larger image.)

One of the confection cookbooks I’ve had great success with so far is Carole Bloom’s Truffles, Candies, & Confections, especially when it comes to truffles. I’ve tried her milk chocolate truffles, mocha truffles, and chocolate raspberry truffles — all of which yielded truffles of perfect flavor and texture — and adapted her cappuccino truffles for a white-chocolate ganache. Kudos to her for her carefully written, thorough instructions as well.

When I made Bloom’s already-fabulous chocolate-raspberry truffle recipe for the second time, I upped the amount of raspberries slightly, both for convenience — 12-ounce packages of frozen raspberries were easy to find in my area — and for a little extra raspberry zip. I also changed the procedure slightly, adding the step of an initial hand dipping with untempered chocolate. And I upped the amount of chocolate required for dipping and used a colored-white-chocolate drizzle for garnish instead of her originally prescribed cocoa powder.

To incorporate the heated cream into the melting chocolate while making the ganache, Bloom suggests using a whisk, rubber spatula, or immersion blender. I prefer using the spatula because it makes it easier to incorporate the mixture from the sides of the bowl, it won’t get clogged up by a mass of unmelted chocolate like a whisk might, and it is easier to clean than an immersion blender.

Recipe source: Gently adapted from the book Truffles, Candies, & Confections: Techniques and Recipes by Carole Bloom. Ten Speed Press, 2004. p. 46-47
Yield: About 60 truffles

Ingredients

• 1 (12-ounce) package frozen raspberries — no sugar added, defrosted. Or a generous cup of fresh raspberries.
• 1/4 cup sugar
• Up to 4 1/2 pounds bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped, divided (I used E. Guittard’s L’Etoile du Premiere 58%.)
• 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 2 Tablespoons corn syrup
• 2 Tablespoons framboise or Chambord (I used Crème de Framboise; I’m not sure how that differs from the prescribed liqueurs.)
• up to 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 8 ounces white chocolate
• Red oil-based candy coloring (Do not use water-based coloring!)

Procedure

1. Purée the raspberries in a food processor or blender, then strain the mixture to remove the seeds. Mix the purée with the sugar in a 1-quart saucepan, and cook the mixture over medium heat until it is reduced by half, about 10 to 15 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.
2. Place one pound of the chocolate in a 2-quart microwave-friendly mixing bowl. In a one-quart saucepan over medium heat, bring the cream to a boil. Pour the cream over the chocolate. Let the cream-chocolate mixture stand for one minute, then stir together with a rubber spatula until smooth. If stubborn bits of unmelted chocolate remain, microwave the mixture for 10- or 15-second intervals, stirring after each interval, until all the chocolate has melted. Add the corn syrup, reduced raspberry purée, and liqueur, and mix thoroughly.
3. Cover the ganache, let cool to room temperature, and chill in the refrigerator until thick but not stiff (2 to 3 hours). Or let the ganache sit at cool room temperature for several hours or overnight until thick enough to scoop or pipe.
4. Line two half-sheet baking sheets with parchment paper. Fit a 12-inch-or-larger pastry bag with a tip with a 1/2-inch opening, or snip a similarly-sized opening at the tip of a disposable pastry bag, and pipe out mounds about one inch in diameter. Or use a small ice-cream scoop (the Zeroll #100 EZ Disher is a perfect size) to form the mounds. Cover the mounds with plastic wrap, or use a half-sheet pan cover if you have one, and chill in the refrigerator until mounds are firm enough to roll, about 6 hours.
5. Remove the ganache mounds from refrigerator. Add about 2 Tablespoons of the cocoa to a sandwich-sized plate; dust your hands with some cocoa powder as well. Roll the mounds into balls, dipping mounds into cocoa and adding more cocoa to your hands or the plate as necessary to prevent the ganache from sticking to your hands, the parchment, or each other. Work quickly enough so you don’t overwarm or oversoften the ganache. These are, of course, the truffle centers. Cover and refrigerate the centers until firm.
6. Smoothly line another two half-sheet pans with aluminum foil. Melt — but don’t temper — about 1 pound of the bittersweet chocolate. Quickly hand-dip the cold centers in the chocolate and place them on the prepared pans. Return dipped centers to the refrigerator until chocolate is set. (Once the chocolate is set, you can wait several hours, or even day or so if necessary, before proceeding.) Reserve the remaining chocolate for future use.
7. Remove the pre-dipped truffle centers from the fridge and bring to cool-room temperature. Smoothly line two more baking sheets with aluminum foil, or use acetate sheets to line the sheets. Melt and temper three pounds of the bittersweet chocolate and dip each center with a dipping fork, or hand-dip the truffles a second time, making sure that you do not introduce additional flat edges to the truffles as you drop them on the baking sheet. Let set at room temperature, if desired, or proceed immediately to the next step.
8. Melt and temper the white chocolate. Add food coloring to the tempered white chocolate a little at a time until you get your desired shade of red. Using a spoon, parchment cone, or small pastry bag fitted with a thin round tip, drizzle the chocolate over the truffles. Allow drizzle to set at room temperature. After the covering and the drizzle is fully set, place the truffles in candy cups (if desired), then move the truffles to an airtight container, preferably while you’re wearing a thin cotton glove to prevent fingerprints.
9. Bloom tells us that “in a tightly covered container wrapped in several layers of aluminum foil, the truffles will keep for one month in the refrigerator or two months in the freezer,” though other experts would say that the truffles can keep well at cool room temperature without the need for all that aluminum foil. However they are stored, be sure to bring them to room temperature before eating.

White chocolate brownies with white and dark chocolate chunks. The dark chocolate chunks in these bars are actually Guittard's L’Etoile du Nord 64 percent semisweet chocolate wafers.
(Click on photo for larger image.)

I was seeking a relatively easy cookie or bar recipe that called for a lot of white chocolate, milk chocolate, or both. I came across this fabulous recipe in Janice Wald Henderson’s appropriately named cookbook White Chocolate. The recipe calls for 1 pound of white chocolate and 8 ounces of dark chocolate. Since I had over 5 pounds of white chocolate to use up, I baked up two batches — one batch with walnuts, one without.

Recipe source: White Chocolate by Janice Wald Henderson. Contemporary Books, 1987. p. 158. Wald credits this recipe to Mark Militello, who, at the time of publication, was “executive chef for Cafe Max in Pompano Beach, Maxaluna in Boca Raton, and Max’s Place in North Miami, Florida.”
Yield: About 32 bars

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 pound coarsely chopped white chocolate (I used Guittard High Sierra.)
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt
• 2 cups flour
• 2/3 cup chopped walnuts (not toasted)
• 8 ounces coarsely chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate (I used mostly Guittard L’Etoile du Nord 64 percent semisweet chocolate wafers, unchopped, for the most part.)

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 350°F Position an oven rack in center of oven.
2. Line a 15×11″ jelly roll pan with foil; butter the foil.
3. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Remove from heat and add half of the white chocolate. DO NOT STIR. (emphasis added). Cover and set aside.
4. Using an electric mixer at medium speed (I used a hand mixer at high-ish speed), beat the eggs and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Stir in the vanilla and the salt.
5. “Using a rubber spatula, carefully fold in the unstirred butter–white chocolate mixture. Carefully fold in the flour, then the walnuts. Fold in the remaining white and dark chocolate.
6. “Spread the batter evenly in the prepared pan.
7. “Bake until the center of the brownies springs back when lightly touched, and they are golden brown, about 35 minutes; do not overbake. (Brownies should be moist.) Transfer the brownies in the pan to a wire rack and cool completely. Using a sharp knife, cut the brownies into 32 squares.

Notes

• The run-of-the-mill supermarket-issue pan I used was a cookie sheet measuring the specified dimensions. (My “jelly roll pan” as I knew it was too small. Go figure.) The specified pan size is perfect for the amount of batter, so it’s worthwhile to seek out such a pan if you don’t already have it. I don’t think the traditional brownie vessel — a 9×13 baking pan — would work well.
• The brownies stuck to the foil in some spots, despite a generous buttering of the foil.
• I’m not entirely sure why we’re instructed to not stir the butter and white chocolate mixture, and further instructed to carefully fold it into the flour mixture. My best guess is that, as in puff pastry, some chunks of fat (here, the cocoa butter in the white chocolate) dispersed throughout the batter (or dough) makes for a flakier pastry.
• In the recipe’s headnote, Ms. Henderson recommends eating these chilled or at room temperature, as opposed to straight from the oven. With this, I agree — even days after baking, the chilled bars were delightfully moist and chewy. But I disagree with her assertion that they “taste equally great in their frozen state,” for they were too hard to bite into and thoroughly enjoy at that point. They do freeze well, and I did freeze both of my batches before slicing and serving.
• The batch baked with walnuts was easily the winner — the walnuts added a dimension of flavor that the non-nutty version did not have. I don’t think they added much texture, though, since the chocolate chunks were generally larger than the walnut pieces.

Honey and tahini ganache with toasted sesame seeds, from Paul A. Young's "Adventures with Chocolate." (Click on photo for larger image.)

I received Paul A. Young’s Adventures with Chocolate as a birthday gift. I’d never heard of Young before, but by perusing the text and images of this entertaining book, I discovered he’s a serious chocolatier with a bold streak of whimsy, as evidenced in part by such recipe titles as “Fig and Date Tarts with Cumin-Chocolate Syrup,” “Basil and Lemon-Thyme Ganache,” and “Honey-Cured Bacon, Stilton, and Chocolate Sandwich.” Most of the recipes in this book are must-tries, but I started with the Honey and Tahini Ganache with Toasted Sesame Seeds because it looked easy [read: required no tempering or dipping] and called for ingredients easily found at the supermarket — or at least I had initially thought so. . .

Recipe source: Adventures with Chocolate by Paul A. Young. Kyle Books, 2011. p. 52
Yield: About 40 pieces

Ingredients

• Scant 3/4 cup water
• 2 1/2 tablespoons strong clover or heather honey
• 1/3 cup tahini
• 12 1/2 ounces Caribbean 66% dark chocolate, chopped
• 3/4 cup sesame seeds, lightly toasted

Procedure

1. Put chopped chocolate in heat-proof bowl. Mix honey and water together in a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Add tahini and simmer for two minutes. Pour the hot mixture over the chocolate and whisk until smooth. Young says to then “allow to cool before refrigerating for at least 2 hours to fully set the ganache,” but I’m not sure if that means to let it cool for two hours or refrigerate for two hours, or if it really makes much of a difference either way.
2. “Take the ganache out of the fridge, and, using a teaspoon, scoop out uneven quenelles and immediately roll them through the toasted sesame seeds.”
3. “Serve at room temperature and eat within 3 days.”

Notes

• Not that I had time for an intensive honey search, but I had no luck finding heather honey, and I have no idea what “strong” clover honey is. I happened to have some Whole Foods Amber Wildflower honey on hand, so I used that. It has a much sharper taste than regular supermarket honey, but I don’t know if it’s a good substitute for the specified honeys.
• The ganache kept breaking, even after a good, long whisking. So as it cooled, I re-whisked it every five minutes or so. Finally it cooled off and stopped separating, at which point it looked like and had the texture of yummy chocolate frosting. I put it in the fridge overnight, which was apparently a big mistake because . . .
• The next morning the ganache was nearly rock-solid, and letting it sit at room temperature for two hours did not help soften it. When I’ve faced thicker- or harder-than-desired ganache in the past, I re-heated the ganache, added more cream, and let it cool again. This time, though, I had no time for such shenanigans and I wasn’t sure what actually caused the ganache to solidify so — was it the incessant whisking while it cooled, the overnight stay in the fridge, or perhaps the brand of tahini? It couldn’t be the type of chocolate I used, since Valrhona’s Caraibe 66% pretty much hits the chocolate mark specified by Young.
• Even if I were experienced in forming quenelles (and I certainly am not!), there’d be no way to get a teaspoon into the ganache, let alone have it slide through the solid mass easily enough to get a pretty quenelle going (the book has a photo of what the finished quenelles should look like). So, I took out my trusty ganache scoop and started making regular truffle-sized portions. Wearing food-service gloves, I rolled the portions into balls and immediately rolled them in the sesame seeds — apparently the hand-rolling warmed the outside of the balls enough to allow the seeds to stick. The ganache never saw the inside of a fridge again!
• I really liked the light, nutty flavor of these chocolates, and the sesame-seed coating lent a nice visual and textural contrast. But I was initially disappointed by the super-firm texture of the ganache, as it was more like a fudgy, slightly crumbly brownie than a smooth, creamy filling. Though I’ve never made ganache that wasn’t poured or spread over something or wasn’t dipped in chocolate, I realize that ganache that you can eat with your fingers has to be firmer than ganache used in these other applications. But I don’t know what the optimum texture should be. Either way, I started to become more and more enchanted with these chocolates and came to enjoy them as slighty out-of-the-ordinary fudgy, nutty treats.
• The ganache, which was permanently removed from the fridge on Saturday morning, was still perfectly fine by Tuesday evening, when I devoured the last one.

White chocolate, cherry, and ice-cream-cone bark. With chocolate sprinkles. (Click on photo for larger image.)

Source or inspiration for recipe: Original recipe inspired by fond memories of jimmie-coated ice cream scoops in cones.
Yield: Two large (approx. 11×17″) slabs of bark (This is actually a double recipe that is easily halved.)

Ingredients

• 2 lbs. white chocolate couverture, tempered in an extra-large bowl
• 12 sugar cones (usually one package), broken into medium-sized pieces (about 1 inch each)
• 8 oz. dried tart cherries, such as Trader Joe’s
• 3 – 4 oz. (a generous 1/2 cup) real chocolate sprinkles (Not the supermarket variety made with wax, please. Try Guittard’s, which you can get via King Arthur’s Flour Catalog, among other places.

Procedure

1. Line two half-sheet pans (12 x 18″) with parchment paper.
2. Reserve 3/4 cup each of the cherries and cone pieces.
3. Mix remaining cone pieces and cherries into the tempered chocolate.
4. Spread chocolate mixture over the two sheet pans, trying to get the amount of chocolate on each pan as equal as possible. Using an offset spatula, spread the chocolate evenly over the parchment so the thickness of the chocolate is between one-eighth and one-quarter of an inch.
5. Sprinkle chocolate sprinkles evenly over the chocolate slabs. Sprinkle the reserved cherries and cone pieces evenly over the two slabs and press them gently into the chocolate.
6. Let set at cool room temperature for several hours or overnight.
7. Break the bark into pieces.
8. Store in an airtight container at room temperature. Should be good for at least a few weeks, perhaps a few months. (White chocolate has the shortest shelf life of all types of chocolate.)

Notes

• Chocolate used. I used a mix of Guittard High Sierra and El Rey Icoa, with some Michael Cluizel Elianza Mini-Grammes. (I had a lot of odds and ends to use up.)
• I tempered the chocolate in a medium glass bowl, so tempering went very slowly. I’ll stick with metal bowls for now on.

Most of the toppings on this pretzel-peanut bark are loose and will soon fall off! (Click on photo for larger image.)

Ingredients

• 2 lbs. milk chocolate couverture, tempered
• 4 cups thin salted pretzels, broken into medium-sized pieces (about 1 inch each)
• 2 cups unsalted dry roasted peanuts

Procedure

1. Line two half-sheet pans (12 x 18″) with parchment paper.
2. (optional) Mix pretzel pieces and peanuts together in large bowl.
3. Reserve about 1/2 cup tempered chocolate for drizzling over bark.
4. Pour tempered chocolate over the two sheet pans, trying to get the amount of chocolate on each pan as equal as possible. Using an offset spatula, spread the chocolate evenly over the parchment so the thickness of the chocolate is between one-eighth and one-quarter of an inch.
5. Sprinkle the pretzels and peanuts over the bark, trying to get as much topping to actually hit the chocolate as possible. Lightly press toppings into chocolate.
6. Let set at cool room temperature for several hours or overnight.
7. Carefully break the bark into pieces as to not dislodge too many peanuts or pieces of pretzel. If neater pieces are desired, try cutting or scoring the bark with a sharp knife — be sure not to damage your knife if it hits the pan!
8. Store in an airtight container at room temperature. Should be good for at least a few weeks — if not a few months.

Notes

• Chocolate used. I used mostly Guittard Belmont dark milk chocolate (35% cocoa min.) with some Michael Cluizel Kayambe Mini-Grammes (45% cocoa). (I like to have Cluizel Mini-Grammes on hand for seeding the chocolate while tempering — great for those times when I cannot be bothered to chop up, say, Guittard wafers in the food processor. [WHY I like tiny seeding pieces is a topic for another day.])
• I tempered the chocolate in a very large steel bowl, which allowed the chocolate to come to temper more quickly than a smaller or a glass bowl would.
• Though the chocolate tempered quickly, I’m not sure how well it was tempered. My bark had just a slight snap, though I recognize that I’ll never get a dark-chocolate snap from a milk chocolate, no matter how well-tempered or “dark” it is.
• The most distressing result is that much of the toppings did not attach properly to the bark, so I lost a lot of pieces during breaking and handling, resulting in unsightly craters over much of the surface and robbing eaters of a satisfying crunchy experience! Next time I’ll either just mix the additions into the chocolate (or most of them, leaving some to sprinkle on for garnish), or make sure the additions have a little more surface texture to help them adhere to the chocolate. Perhaps I could find pretzels with more salt crystals attached to them, or, as I’ve seen in some other recipes, try honey-roated peanuts.