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It’s been a while …

December 26th 2011 Posted at General
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December 26th, 2011

It has been a while that I posted something on this website.  That is, because, instead of creating these wonderfull and delicious chocolates, I have been tasting all kinds of chocolate and ingredients.  Now that I am almost at the end of my experiments, I will start making new creations with all the knowledge I gained the last 10 months.

You will be able to follow what I do with ingredients and you will also get the recipes so you can create the same in your home kitchen.

From January 2012, I will be back.  Thanks for visiting me again.

Have a wonderfull and chocolicious 2012

Alain

An explosive “Bombe Advocat” praline

February 22nd 2011 Posted at General
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Tuesday, February 22nd 2011

I was going through my ingredients and found out that I still have some advocaat liquor I made over 1 1/2 year ago.   Since it contains lots of alcohol and sugar you can keep it for years stored in the refrigerator.  Time to make some advocat liquor pralines.

First of all we make the advocat liquor :
- 12 egg yolts
- 400 gr fine crystal sugar
- 200 gr alcohol (95%)
- 250 gr cream (35%)
- A little vanilla sugar

Heat the eggyolt and fine crystal sugar till it’s about 35°C (! not more)
Add the alcohol, cream and vanilla
Mix all for about 10-15 min until you become a yellow homogeneous solution.
Put it in a closed container in the fridge

Now we make the advocat filling
- 175 gr butter
- 175 gr white chocolate (tempered)
- 50 gr fondant sugar
- 80 gr advocat liquor

Stir the butter till it’s smooth (don’t melt it) and add the fondant sugar
Add the advocat liquor
Add the tempered white chocolate and stir well.
Let it rest for 10 minutes in the fridge.

Then you take a pipingbag and you fill it with the solution. Spread out a piece of baking paper.
With the piping bag, you make little rounds and come up till you have little balls.  (Most of the time you can put a little round piece of flat chocolate underneath made with a stencil)  Put these in the fridge for another 15 minutes. I made all different ones to show some shapes that are possible. The idea is to make all the same rounds.

Meanwhile you can clean up and temper your white chocolate (when nog tempered anymore)

Now you cover the pralines with white chocolate and you have Bombe Advocat pralines.  You can always add some dark chocolate lines over the pralines.  It will give the praline even more class.

Enjoy

Alain

Semi soft walnut caramel with dark chocolate

February 8th 2011 Posted at Caramel, General
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Tuesday, February 8th 2011

Today was a wonderfull day with a nice 14°C, blue sky and sunny weather.  When I was looking through the window I thought about this smooth and soft walnut caramel.  For all the people that want to try it I have an easy and simple recipe.  (Be carefull that you don’t burn yourself with sugar / caramel)


Window view

Ingredients :
- 500 gr of fine white sugar
- 3 dl cream 30%
- 200 gr glucose
- 150 gr of butter (no margarine)
- 1 vanilla stick
- A sniff of salt

How to :
- Heat the cream slowly with the vanillastick cut in two
- Heat the glucose so it is fluid
- Put the sugar in a cooking pan and put on the fire
- Add the hot cream and the vanillastick with the sugar and stir a little to mix the warm cream with the dry sugar.
- Add the hot glucose (watch your hands !!)
- Add the butter and a little sniff of salt
!! Do not stir after adding the ingredients !! Just let it boil.  It will stir automatic while boiling
- Add the cutted walnuts when the caramel reaches 118-119° and stir slowly and get the solution from the stove.

Meanwhile :
- Spread a piece a baking paper and put a framework 1cm high on a marble table
- Pour in the solution and take a second piece of baking paper so you can use the rolling pin to spread it plain and leave the paper on.


Walnut caramel

After the caramel has been cooled down, cut it with a cutter (you can use a roller cutter with different blades or a very sharp knife to cut egal pieces)

Let it cool down until it’s fresh.

Meanwhile :
- Temper dark chocolate
- Enrobe the caramel squares

This is the result, a soft, chocolate enrobed walnut caramel praline.

Yummie

Wintertruffels

February 2nd 2011 Posted at Recipes
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Wednesday, February 2nd 2011

Winter is still in the country and the chocolate is hot.  Time to make some wintertruffels and share some recipes. I call them wintertruffels because they look hard as stone.  Perhaps also a bit cold as stone.

Take following ingredients :
- 500 gr butter
- 375 gr fondant sugar
- 250 gr hazelnut pralinee
- 500 grams of fondant chocolate

Howto (use a kitchenaid robot):
- Whip the butter so it is soft (Don’t melt it but you can make it a bit softer in the microwave first)
- Add the fondant sugar slowly
- Add the hazelnut pralinee
- Add the “tempered” chocolate

Use a plastic pipebag and an injectiontube of 12 Ø and make little balls the size of a big marble. Let the balls become hard (do not put in the frige !).

Meanwhile, prepare following for coverage. 1/2 cocoapowder and 1/2 white powder sugar (I also add some fine crystal sugar which will give a sort of shine – see pictures).
Temper dark chocolate and enrobe the balls with fondant chocolate and throw them in the recipient with the cocoa coverage powder and shake a bit. The balls will get a stoney shape. Let them rest for a minute or so in the recipient with powder until they are dried. Remove … and store in a dry place.

Your truffels will look as following :

When you bite the truffel, you will have a soft crunch with a tasty creamy hazelnut chocolate filling.

Enjoy
Greets Alain

Happy New Year

January 5th 2011 Posted at Alcohol, Brewing, Chocolate
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Wednesday, January 5th 2011

First of all I want to wish, for everybody that visits this page, everybody that contributed to this site and to my chocolate knowledge, a wonderfull 2011.  I hope that this year will be a year of peace, chocolate and happiness.

Meanwhile, … it’s been a few months that I wrote on this site about my chocolate experiments.  Why ?  Well a very simple answer : I didn’t really create any new chocolates or pralines.  I have been focusing on my second project : brewing beer.

Beer brewing is a very interesting chemical reaction and a lot of flavours are being created in the brewing process.  So my next goal is to bring the art of brewing and the art of making chocolates togheter.   I already created some things, but now I am getting further because I understand both the brewing process and the making of chocolates.

So stay tuned for a while and soon there will be more creations.

Cheerz

Alain

Future experiments with chocolate and beer

September 20th 2010 Posted at Alcohol, Brewing, Experiments, General, Projects
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Saturday, september 18th 2010

A sunny day for a visit to the local hop farmer in Poperinge.  Place delict is hopfarmer Joris Cambie.  He is one of the last hopfarmers in the region and besides that he is also a biological hop farmer.  Hop is “the” gold for the brewer.  Because I am looking to brew more chocolate enhanced beer, I visited this hopfarmer to see where the hop actually comes from.  It is also important to know what kind of hop I will be using.  There are lots of varieties around.

After the visit to the hop farm I went to “Het Jagershof” in Oost Vleteren.  They have the best stew with fries there of the whole region.  They also have Nunnebier.

After that meal – which was necessary – we went to the famous brewery of the Struise Brouwers.   There we had some beers that they brew.  Pannenpot 10%, Sint Amatus 12 – Quadrupel/Abt bourbon barrel aged, the Black albert – 13%.  No need to describe the atmosphere there.

I can recommend a visit there to all beer lovers.

Proost

Alain

Beerlabels and more

August 19th 2010 Posted at General
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Thursday, August 19th 2010

The last weeks were very calm.  Vacation, degustation, checking beer and more.  It was time to make a beerlabel for the American market.  After playing around with some ideas a friend of me came up with this design.  Check it out.

The label is not finished yet but it surely shows what it is about.

Meanwhile, I also made caramel candy with Masareng palmsugar.  Unsuccessfully …  The sugar did not really melt and was smelling like .. burned palmsugar.

Things start running again and soon there will be more chocolate news again.

Cheers

Degustation after a month – Chocolate beer

July 25th 2010 Posted at Alcohol, Experiments, General, Projects, Test
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Saturday, July 24th 2010

Tonight the pressure was getting too high.  I had to open one of these bottles that have been looking at me for almost a month.  The fermenting is over.  the second fermentation on the bottle should be over now.  Time to open one and check how it tastes.

I have a friend, Jim, from the USA and the first sip was left to him.

Oh yeah, and it was worth it.  Combined with Belcolade Papua New Guinea64 chocolate, the beer is dark in color with a smooth head. The flavor of oats, malts and a chocolate are balanced perfectly with the right amount of hops for a bittersweet finish.

You will hear more the upcoming days about the beer evolution.

Cheers

Alain

Hot July Nights in 2010

July 11th 2010 Posted at General
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Sunday, July 11th 2010

This summer is rocking, but not for chocolate production.  We are suffering temperatures above 32 degrees Celcius.  I ain’t complaining, it’s summertime.

While strolling the internet on a hot evening I found this item : Le Whif.  It’s some device to vaporise food instead of eating it.  I never tried it but if you can get a hold of the item, please let me know your experiences.

Meanwhile, I am gonna take a swim.  Enjoy the summertime.

Alain

Botteling of Bio Choq beer

June 27th 2010 Posted at General
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Sunday, June 27th 2010

Today I finally could bottle the Bio Shoq beer that has been brewn.  After 1 week of fermenting and 3 weeks of lagering it was ready to go into a bottle.

First of all, we added Arenga Palm Sugar and “champagne” yeast.  This makes sure that there is carbondioxide on the bottle after the maturing period of 12 weeks.  There are about 84 bottles of 70cl and 3 magnum bottles of 1,5 liter.

The barrels with beer

The beer after adding sugar and champagne yeast

Champagne yeast

Bottles

Final bottle and label :)

Corks and labeling machine

Now it’s waiting for the result.  Stay tuned for more news about brewing beer with chocolate.

Alain

Birth chocolates instead of sugarbeans

June 16th 2010 Posted at Chocolate, General, Projects
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Monday, June 14th 2010

Today I have been working on a little gift for a birth of a little human.  Instead of giving sugar beans and other stuff my friends had a more creative idea and have chosen to give a little chocolate gift.  So many ways to say thank you.

There were 4 different flavours, acasia honey-cinnamon with dark chocolate, hazelnut-pralinee with milkchocolate, fresh mint with white chocolate and nougat cream (from Vital Nougat) with milkchocolate.

Congrats to the parents of Vic !

Alain

Lagering Bio chocolate beer

June 2nd 2010 Posted at Brewing, General
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Monday, Mai 31st 2010

From now on the fermentation process should be over and it’s time to go into a next stage with the newly born bio chocolate beer.  The beer is being transferred in a new barrel.  This barrel goes into a cooler for about 3 weeks.  There were no additional herbs added.

The rest fraction of the yeast has been poured into a bottle.  If you take a closer look at the picture you can see that there is an upper dark part, which contains beer and then there is a ground of dead yeast.  The sugars have been completely changed into alcohol.  The beer has an alcohol percentage of 8,9%.  Which isn’t that bad.

The restfraction of the yeast looks like chocolate.

A first taste of the fermented liquid gave a sour taste with slight touches of cocoa.   I hope to know more soon when lagering is over.

Cheers Alain

Brewing bio chocolate beer @ Jessenhofke demobrewery

May 25th 2010 Posted at Brewing, Chocolate
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Monday, Mai 24th 2010

Today I went brewing a new beer based on chocolate.  The event took place at the Jessenhofke demobrewery

in Hasselt.  I can tell you, it was an amazing interesting day.  I can only recommend this experience.

We started out with grinding the malts used in the beer.

This malt goes into a kettle that is getting heated till a certain temperature to change the starch into sugars and then this hot soup of malt goes into a filterdevice.  The malt is being filtered from the liquid.

After filtering the liquid is being cooked togheter with the gold of every brewer : “hop”.

The cooked liquid goes through a cooling device and is then added into a sterile barrel. The secret spices are added and the yeast togheter with some sugar (the sugar is bio Arenga Palm Sugar).  In this barrel the beer will ferment for a week convert the sugars into alcohol.

Next week, after a week of fermenting, the beer is being poured into another barrel so it can lager for a few weeks.  After this lagering, I think at the end of June, the chocolate beer will go onto bottles where it can mature for another few months or years.

Thanks to Jessenhofke demobrewery for recipe and brewing and brewmaster Gert.

Lateron, the beer will b e available for tasting purposes.

Cheers Alain

Herbs and gelification

April 29th 2010 Posted at Chocolate, Experiments
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Thursday, april 29th 2010

A few days ago I was strolling in one of these flower malls and something caught my attention.  There was a stash of different herbs standing on a trolley and I found out that there was something special in it.

I found a mint plant which has a very specific mint chocolate taste.  Imagine yourself eating a chocolate with mint cream in it.  Amazing !!  I also bought a normal mint plant to compare both tastes in chocolate.  As you can see the leafs and the colors are a bit different.  I wonder what the difference will be in pralines with ganaches based on fresh mint.

Chocolate mint plant

Normal mint plant

I also bought a new product that is used in a lot of kitchens by pastry chefs.  The product name is Kappa.  It’s a carragene made from sea alges.  It has been re-invented by El Bulli in Spain.  It is used to make gels of products with preservation of the taste.  Once the product is ready I will post more about it.  (Thanks for the tip Xavier De Smit!)

Thats all for now, enjoy the last sun and perhaps a terrace and a good beer.

Alain

Healthy pralines with tea

April 12th 2010 Posted at Tea, Test
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Monday, april 12th 2010

Another healthy day today.  I experimented with tea and chocolate.

I made a few pralines with ganache based on tea.  Not so easy to find the right amount of tea to put in.

I use natural tea from the Sao Paulo tea shop in Gent.  They have a lot of different sort of tea’s from all over the world.  The experiment I did today was based on Cherry taste tea and Energy welness tea.  You can find the ingredients of the tea below.

The first one is the Energy welness tea praline.  The tea consists of dried ingredients with apple, citronella grass, carrot, roseflower leafs and grapefruit.

Cooking the cream and milk with the tea

White Callebaut chocolate

Tempering the white chocolate

The result is a smooth and a bit grapefruit taste

The second praline is  made with cherry tea wich consists of dried ingredients of cherries, apple, hibiscus, rose-hip and elderberries.  When I mixed it with white chocolate I found out that the colour of the ganache turned out grey – purple.

Grey ganache, not really pleasant to see but an amazing perfume and taste.

Cherry tea praline (I can make the colour more purple with colouring agent but I prefer not to use chemicals for the experiment)

More about chocolate and tea very soon.  Keep visiting the site.

Grtz Alain

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