Archive for the chocolates Category

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Bean 2 bar contiuned

Posted in bean to bar, chocolates with tags , , on July 17, 2011 by thebrokenganache

It’s been awhile since I have posted,  I have been busy making chocolate from bean to bar. I’ve made 4 different batches of chocolate so far, two batches of 56% dark chocolate (my first batch didn’t come out as expected so I did it again), a 67% dark chocolate, a 70% dark chocolate and just last weekend a Vanilla bean white chocolate. All the dark Chocolate was made with the “La Red” beans from the Dominican Republic, which has lovely dark fruity undertones. All the dark chocolate I have made so far is completely vegan and gluten free. I used is organic cane sugar, organic cocoa butter and organic cocoa beans no fillers or lecithin. I’m not a big fan of white chocolate but  my best friend Sara is. I think it came out rather nice, very creamy, not to sweet with a wonderful vanilla flavor.  I ordered 3 new organic beans that came in this week: Venezuelan “Mantuano” which are Criollo beans, Madagascar “Sambriano Valley” which are Trinatario beans and some beans from Costa Rica “Upala” . I can’t wait to try them out. But first I plan on making a dark milk chocolate with the last bit of the “La Red” .

Homemade 56% Dark Chocolate

Homemade 67% dark chocolate 4 oz bars

Homemade 70% dark chocolate 1 oz bars

white Chocolate with Tahitian Vanilla Bean

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Day 1 of Chocolate from Bean to Bar adventure

Posted in bean to bar, chocolates with tags , , on May 1, 2011 by thebrokenganache

Today is day 1 of my bean to bar adventure. I began by roasting the beans at 400F for 10 minutes than 350F for 10 min and finally 300F for the remaining 10 min. Stirring every 5 minutes through out the process.

Roasting Beans

The whole house was scented in a yummy cloud of roasted chocolate – I did find it odd that every time I opened the oven to stir the beans my nose was assaulted by a slight acidic almost vinegary scent which quickly went away.

Cocoa beans in coco mill

Once the roasting was done and the beans had cooled completely it was time to place them in the coco mill.  Which cracks the husk from the nibs of the bean. As soon as everything was cracked it was time to move outside to begin winnowing the beans – I used a blowdryer to blow the husks away from the nibs. It felt like I was out there forever baking under the hot Florida sun. I was covered in coco husks  from head to toe and so was our patio. Luckily we still had Don’s leaf blower to blow the discarded husk into the flower beds (where they will do some good).

After winnowing

I got most of the husks separated from the nibs so now it was time to extract the coco liqueur from the nibs and remaining husks using the Champion Juicer. A very long and noisy process and after running it through twice it was time to clean the juicer to get it ready to run the liqueur through a final time (but that will have to wait until tomorrow as the juicer components need to dry 100% because if even 1 drop of water gets onto the liqueur its ruined). So tomorrow  I will run the liqueur through a final time in the juicer then place it in the  melanger to conch it with sugar and coco butter.

Extracting chocolate liquor from the nibs and husk

Chocolate liqueur

That’s it for now

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Missing Coco Mill and Homemade Thin Mints

Posted in baked, chocolates, cookies with tags , on April 17, 2011 by thebrokenganache

I felt like a kid on Christmas morning when I woke today because I was so excited about opening the packages that came from Chocolate Alchemy. The first box was filled with roasted and un-roasted cocoa beans from the Dominican Republic, cocoa nibs, organic coco butter, lecithin, and five different chocolate bar molds. The next box contained the Champion Juicer which will turn the coco nibs to liquid chocolate. The last box had the Ultra Melanger which conches and refines the chocolate, sugar, coco butter and lecithin which gives it that silky smooth texture.  Then I realized that I was missing the coco mill which is used to crack and separate the hulls from the nib. I ran to my laptop to send off an email to see what was going and within five minutes I got a response that it was on back order. I was relieved that it wasn’t lost but a little disappointed that I wouldn’t be making chocolate today. In reality I still could make chocolate, I wouldn’t have to do the first few steps and go right to the juicer to make the chocolate liquid. But I really had my heart set on experimenting with the whole process from beginning to end. So I will wait.

Melanger, Juicer and Cocoa Beans

So I was looking for something to make when I ran across a Thin Mints recipe from Heidi Swanson’s blog 101 Cookbooks which is really a wonderful blog with great recipes. Her recipe called for whole wheat pastry flour which I didn’t have so I substituted   a 1/2 cup cake flour and 1/2 cup whole wheat flour to equal ! cup whole wheat pastry flour. I also thought tempering the chocolate for the cookie was a better way to go than just melting it, that way the chocolate would not melt on your fingers when eating it. I also ended up using a 53% Callebaut Dark Chocolate since that’s all I had. They came out rather yummy and I just love the mint with that nice crisp cookie inside!

Homemade Thin Mints

Thin mints anyone?

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First attempt with colored chocolate

Posted in chocolates with tags on January 30, 2011 by thebrokenganache

I attempted to make colored coco butter to decorate my molds with.  I started by melting coco butter to 95 degrees then added powdered food color (I didn’t want to add to much color because I wasn’t sure if it would impart an after taste to the chocolate). Then I  painted the molds, at first it just pooled in the bottom of the molds so I decided to let the mixture cool more then try again. This time it was grainy, so I tried re-warming it a little which was better, since it did stick to the sides of the molds but the little design I had made just smeared together. Since nothing seemed to be working I just decided to let the coco butter set completely and poured tempered chocolate on top. They came out ok but not quite the way I had envisioned with cute little designs and things. Oh well. Next time.  Then I decided to try using some pre mixed colored gold coco butter that I bought from Chef Rubber which  worked out great with no problems. I also tried my hand at making a chocolate transfer sheet which is placing colored coco butter on acetate. I’m not sure what happened with these as the colors came out muddy and there was no sheen on the chocolate. So from now on I think I’m just going to buy pre-mixedcolored coco butter instead of doing it my self since it’s much easier to work with.
That’s it for now.

My first attempt at color.

My transfers on chocolate discs (a work in progress)

Mixing Coco butter

 

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A miserable end to 2010

Posted in chocolates, other things on January 1, 2011 by thebrokenganache

It was such a nice holiday season before Thursday evening. For Christmas I received a wonderful gelato machine  from Andy. I was thrilled with all the different flavor combinations I had come up with and was looking forward to posting about a bunch of new treats for the New Year’s, like candy canes, spicy pumpkin seed brittle, macadamia coconut buttercrunch and a ton of yummy gelato’s I had made.  But that all changed 8:28pm on December 30th. We were having a lovely dinner with our friends Karen, Denise and Nancy when I got a phone call from the alarm company telling me that our alarm had gone off and our home may have been broken into.  Shocked and devastated by the news we rushed home only to be greeted by the police at our front door. Who I must say could not have been nicer and more helpful. When we opened the door (with the police in tow) the alarm was blaring the dog was going bizerk a small table and some art work had been turned over and was on the floor and then we noticed that both laptops where missing and then we saw all the damage to the windows in the back of the house and the small hole in the bedroom window with glass all over. All of which will have to be replaced. According to the officers the thieves where on the property for sometime since they had gone around the yard to turn off all of the landscape lighting then attempted to go from the french doors to every window in the back of our home trying to break in. Luckily we have impact glass which managed to slow them down quite a bit – but in the end they still got in. The officer thinks they gained entry close to the time we all pulled up to the house and it scarred them off thank goodness because it really could have been much worse. I must say I’m still on edge and I haven’t been able to sleep much since, i’m still a bit jumpy about very little sound I hear and i’m scared to leave the house for fear that something will happen. I feel so violated. Andy has been great through the whole thing and he has secured the house well (with what he called a multilayered security protocol that he won’t discuss!). All this does give me some peace of mind. I know it could have been worse and thank God we weren’t hurt.

The reason I am posting all this is that there will be a delay in chocolates and treat postings since it’s a bit hard for me to concentrate on them at the moment and I still haven’t quite wrapped my head around  everything yet. But given a little time for those mysterious security protocols to go into effect and I will be back with new treats and posts!

Stay well and healthy.

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Caramels for a friend

Posted in chocolates on December 17, 2010 by thebrokenganache

My dear friend Liz is in town this week and she has never tasted any of the chocolates . So I made her some caramels covered in dark chocolate topped with sea salt. I really wanted to make few more things but between work and life, time just got away from me. Hopefully next time she is in town I can do better with my time management, since I did have high hopes the beginning of the week to make a lot of things for her to try, next time.

Tonight I will be attempting the candy canes again, Wish me luck.

That’s it for now

Chocolate dipped caramel

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Bean to bar adventure ahead

Posted in chocolates with tags on December 15, 2010 by thebrokenganache

I’m so excited we have booked out trip to Granada Nicaragua to visit a cacoa farm and to  learn how make chocolate from bean to bar. I’m counting down the days. I have a lot of research to do on the subject like Fermentation,  Roasting, Winnowing, Grinding and Couching. I may attempt the process before we leave so that if I have any issues with the process they can hopefully answer them. We will be staying at Hotel Spa Granada which also houses the ChocoMuseo which handles the horseback ride to the farm, the chocolate tasting class, and making chocolate from bean to bar. I just love the connivence of the whole thing, everything is right there.

That’s it for now.

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Bake sale Brownies

Posted in brownies, chocolates with tags , on December 15, 2010 by thebrokenganache

Late last night I made a batch brownie for a fundraiser bake sale  at work for Sun Sentinel Children’s Fund. I used the recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks Baked by Matt Lewis, Renato Poliafito, and Tina Rupp. They came out  quite moist, rich and chocolaty but I think I like the recipe by Lisa Sera of Cooks Illustrated that I used last time (click here to  read previous post and recipe). I do hope people buy them since it’s for a good cause.
That’s it for now.

Bake sale Brownies

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Crystalized flowers and buttercream centers

Posted in chocolates with tags , on December 14, 2010 by thebrokenganache

Tonight I made three buttercream centers to compliment the crystalized flowers that I received from Karen at the Crystalized Flower Company. They arrived while we were out-of-town and this is the first chance I have had to use them. I was thrilled when I opened up the packaging and all the flowers were still perfectly intact and beautify done. In the past I have ordered from other companies and they have always arrived with at least half of them broken. Anyway to compliment the colors of the flowers I made a Limoncello buttercream, a lavender and honey buttercream and a vanilla buttercream. All were dipped in a 64% dark Valhrona chocolate. Karen also sent Sechuan buttons, which are really cool they give a wonderful tingly sensation to your mouth. I want to come up with something really special for those. I will keep you posted.

Thats it for now!

Hand dipped buttercream centers with Crytalized flowers

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Graduation day

Posted in chocolates with tags on December 14, 2010 by thebrokenganache

My Diploma came in today from Ecole Chocolat. I would certainly recommend the school to anyone who has aspirations of becoming a budding chocolatier. The school provided a ton of useful information and the staff was always very helpful, in particular Heidi who was very kind, patient and helpful in answering all my questions. The only thing I wish they had more  video demos, other than that it was a wonderful experience. And now I can move on to studying how to make chocolate from bean to bar – which I am very excited about.

Ecole Chocolat Diploma

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