TECHNIQUES IN CHOCOLATE

May 30, 2013

After making molded candies yesterday, we moved on to other chocolate confections such as truffles and candied orange peel. My team was assigned to make marshmallow. This was a good learning experience for me as I completely messed up the first batch and had to make it over again.

What I learned was that you beat the egg whites with only a little bit of the granulated sugar.  I poured all the granulated sugar into the egg whites. This does not allow the egg whites to whip up to the proper consistency.  Also the formula required water and sugar be heated between 240 and 265 degrees.  I put the corn syrup in the water and heated the mix. Without having any of the granulated sugar in the water mixture, the mixture simply just boiled down and would not reach the required temperature.  



Second time round, a small amount of sugar went into the egg whites, the rest into the corn syrup, water mixture and everything turned out great in the end.  It tastes just like the marshmallows bought from the store. 



I also was able to work with gelatin sheets, which I have never used before. These were soaked in water for 5 to 8 minutes and then once the sheets absorbed the water, the water was squeezed out by hand and added to the egg white, sugar syrup mixture.  

After the marshmallow was made and piped, we moved on to the next chocolate. We took some of the hazelnut ganache that was left over from yesterdays chocolates  candies and mixed with more chocolate. Then we piped them into strips on a tray and added a macadamia nut to the top. We tempered more dark chocolate. Then rolled the piped ganache in the chocolate, removed with a dipping fork on to a parchment tray, and applied a transfer sheet strip on top. Removing the ganache from the chocolate with the dipping fork and placing on the tray without it having feet (excess chocolate that forms at the bottom when placed on the tray) or marks all over the chocolate was quite a challenge. After doing a tray full though, I was beginning to get the hang of it. 

Different candies, truffles, and other confections were made by each team and in the end we had a wide variety of chocolates. 

Pistachio Covered Truffles, Chocolate Clusters, and Pona (Orange Cream-Filled Chocolates) 

Chocolate Covered Orange Peel and Coconut and Almond Covered Truffles

Samba (Anise Ganache and Nougatine), Vioni (Milk Chocolate and Vanilla Square), and  Nut Clusters (nitrogen mist in background)

Havana (Milk Chocolate  Rum Ganache), Caravelle (Marzipan, Raspberry and Hazelnut Chocolates), and Seville (Milk Chocolate, Hazelnut, and Orange Ganache Chocolates)

A chocolate display was created for the window and of course we were each able to take some home to enjoy.