This time I will explain how to create a basic ganache for a moulded praline.  This is acually a base cream and can be used for lots of different tastes.  It it often used because of its long shelf life, which is about 4 weeks.

This recipe is for about 2,5 kg.  Ofcourse you change the ingredients to match the amount of cream you want to make.

Needed :

• 2 liter boiling kettle
• kitchen robot
• Spatula

Recipe :

• 125 gr cream 30%
• 250 gr cristal sugar
• 1/4 box of condensed milk
• 375 gr glucose
• 750 gr butter
• 1,25 kg to 1,75 kg dark, milk or white chocolate.  (1,25 kg dark, 1,5 milk, 1,75 white chocolate)

How :

• Cook the cream togheter with the sugar and condensed milk to 100 C.
• Stirr the glucose under your cooked cream and let it rest till cold
• Stirr the butter loose and add the cold cream with glucose very slowly
• Temper the chocolade and stirr under it fast until you have a homogeneous mass

Then you can add different tastes to the ganache like liquor or even praline / hazelnut paste.  It can be used for different purposes.  It is very good for truffels and for filling moulded pralines.

Enjoy!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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