Rum & raisin chocolate

Here’s the third part of my chocolate making reports (parts 1 and 2 can be found here and here), and I’ll have to say that this time was even more successful than the previous two.

I don’t really have much to report, but this time, I finally managed to measure the ingredients! I used about 50 ml of cocoa butter and 50 ml of cocoa powder. To this, I added a tiny sprinkling of salt and 3 teaspoons of agave syrup. That seemed like a lot of sweetener to me, but even after adding all that, the mixture still tasted quite bitter. After it had cooled down and set, however, it was pretty perfect.

One reason might be that after I'd added the sweetener and decided it was enough, I added some rum-soaked raisins. They are quite sweet, and that probably influenced the result. Either way, I have to say that this was the best attempt so far. This chocolate turned out to be a great family favourite: I loved it, my DH (a big fan of rum and raisin combo) loved it, and even my daughter loved it (don't worry; there wasn't that much rum in it). They immediately requested that I make some more. :)

Chocolate making, part 2

I did this quite some time ago already, but somehow forgot to post about it! So, here it is, another try with the wonderful "make your own chocolate" kit - report of the previous one over here.

Last time, I just experimented, didn't measure any of the ingredients, and made two kinds of chocolate. What I learned from that was that even though some recipes recommend using coconut oil, that was not to the liking of any of my family members. The other batch without coconut oil was much more popular. So, this time, no coconut oil.

In addition, this time I did my best to measure the ingredients. I had roughly the same amount of cocoa butter and cocoa powder plus a few teaspoons of agave syrup and just a sprinkling of salt - however, as I tasted the mixture, I ended up adding some more of this and a bit more of that, so... I still can't say precisely how much of what the final product actually contained (that seems to be my method in the kitchen anyway). Interestingly, the mixture had a pretty strong cocoa flavour before we (my daughter worked as an eager assistant) poured it into the mold. Once it was set and we tasted it, however, I thought it could have been more intense! Hmm.

Anyway, this time the result was very tasty! And colourful; my DD wanted to decorate the chocolates with cashews, dried apricots and dried cranberries. Also, there was no sign of the slightly grainy texture this time - the chocolate had a lovely, glossy finish - nor did the chocolate set too fast.

Finally, a picture of my highly professional cocoa butter melting equipment. :D

Friday chocolates

I just wanted to say "have a great weekend" and post this picture of chocolates I made with my daughter. Normally, left over chocolate is not a problem in our family, but sometimes we end up with small shards of chocolate or uneven pieces (when a chocolate bar or a tablet doesn't break into neat pieces) or just single pieces that can't be divided between two or three people. I collect these, then we melt them, pour the mixture into a mold - and it's like entirely new chocolate!

The mold we used now is actually from a dark chocolate box we bought a while back, simply the container for chocolate pieces, not an actual mold. I was afraid that the chocolate would never come out of it, or that it might break apart when we tried to unmold it, but it behaved very well and these turned out quite pretty, if I say so myself. :)

Chocolate making, trial run

One of the things I’ve always wanted to try is making my own chocolate. All right, maybe not always, but at least ever since I saw the movie “Chocolat”. And by making chocolate I mean more than just melting leftover chocolates and pouring the mass into molds, which is what I sometimes do.

But I’ve never quite known how and where to start and somehow never just got around to doing it. However, the other day a mysterious parcel arrived... I had no idea what it was, I hadn’t ordered anything, didn’t expect any package. It was a gift from a dear friend and it contained chocolate making materials! Wow. Just look at that gorgeous package:

There’s cocoa butter, agave syrup and cocoa powder with cocoa beans and some vanilla. And a pretty mold:

I was so excited!!! And very, very grateful to my friend who had decided to cheer me up with a surprise – and that she certainly did!

Now, I had to do some reading before I started, and I have to say I couldn’t quite figure out the correct ratio of each ingredient since every recipe I found was somewhat different. Some advised using extra virgin coconut oil in addition to cocoa butter, others used only cocoa butter. And the portions of each ingredient differed wildly. So I figured I’d start with a tiny, tiny batch and just... improvise. Which means that even though I started out measuring the ingredients, I kept adding this and that and in the end had no idea of how much I used each of them. Well. No matter. This was a trial run only, and yet, there are a couple of things I learned:

1. Cocoa butter, though it sounds delicious, doesn’t really have much of a flavour (yeah, of course I had to taste some, I was curious!).

2. If you add some coconut oil, you’ll end up with glossy chocolate that is easy to pour into the mold. However, the tasting jury strongly disliked the flavour of coconut oil.

3. If, however, you only use cocoa butter, the chocolate can become a little grainy (although that's mainly how it looked, the texture was fine when tasted) and less glossy. It also sets rather quickly – it was already becoming solid when I poured it into the mold (which explains the uneven look). I tried to warm it up gently, but to no avail. More experiments are needed to correct this. The taste, however, was far superior to that of the chocolate with coconut oil.

4. A little bit of agave syrup goes a long way, especially if you’re not trying to make very sweet chocolate.

5. If you give a seven-year-old free rein with decorative items to be added to chocolate, she’ll make an attempt to cover every inch of the chocolate rather than just sprinkle some here and there.

I wasn’t going to post a picture of the end result because I can’t get a decent photo (it’s too dark, so the chocolate looks kind of grey which it isn’t really) plus they don’t look particularly fabulous. :D And they're all in bits and pieces because, naturally, we had to sample some once soon as they were ready. However, since this was just a trial run and a learning experience, here we go...

As decorations/additives, we (my daughter was my (over-)enthusiastic assistant) used dried cranberries, bits of dried apricots and chopped almonds. The molds worked perfectly, it was very easy to get the finished chocolate out of them without breaking any.

This was a very interesting (and a very delicious) experiment and I’m already looking forward to giving it another try. Perhaps, next time, I’ll remember to measure the ingredients... And I already have soooo many ideas for different flavours! :)

Healthier chocolate treats

Some time ago, I wrote about chocolate making as a boredom buster for chocoholic parents and active children (are there any other kind?). The other day my daughter and I made chocolate treats again, but this time they were of a somewhat healthier variety. I no longer remember where I found the original recipe, but then, I've made some changes in it anyway so it isn't the same (and you can't really call it a recipe any more). For these “healthier truffles” you need

- Dates. I use dried ones that are packed into a  sort of brick shape, but I suppose it doesn't matter which kind you use.
       
- Nuts. Choose your favourite or use a combination. I often use cashews because they're fairly soft. I've also used almonds, but they were hard to reduce into powder.

- Liquid. Choose your favourite. I use rum and water – I know, not a healthy choice, but it is tasty. And there isn't very much of it. I guess plain water would be fine, coffee would be yummy and tea or apple or orange juice would work, too.

- Cocoa powder. I use dark, unsweetened kind. Raw would be ideal, I guess, but I haven't tried it yet.

- Optional: coconut flakes, oats, flax seeds...

Let the dates soak in the liquid until they soften (if you use soft dates, you migh be able to skip this part – I haven't tried though). Smash the nuts into pieces. The finer the powder, the smoother the truffles. I always end up with some bigger pieces in the mix, but that's fine. Use whatever method you prefer or any kitchen gadget you have that is up to the task. I employed a potato masher and a six-year-old with a strong babarian streak:

(Note: if you choose a similar method, put the nuts in a double plastic bag. A single bag is going to split after just a couple of hits from the mallet, there will be nuts all over the place, and a child crawling everywhere and eating them as fast as she can. Which is fine, if you have some extra nuts.)

Drain the dates (don't discard the liquid, you may need it later). Puré the dates and add the nuts. Do some more puréing (is that a word?) if needed. I use roughly the same amount of dates and nuts, but I don't measure them, so I don't know exactly. Add some cocoa powder; how much depends on how chocolatey you want the truffles to be (tasting is encouraged). Here you can also add some coconut flakes, oats, flax seeds, raisins, grated carrot or other additions. I like these simple, so I haven't actually tried any of these but I don't see why they wouldn't work. You might also want to add a bit of that date-soaking liquid if the mixture gets too stiff. But not too much: you want it firm enough to be formed into desired shapes.

So, next, form the mixture into small (or bigger, whatever you like) balls. Or logs, whatever. You can roll them in some more cocoa powder (my preferred method), or powdered sugar, coconut flakes, oats... I keep these in the fridge, just in case - but they don't keep long in my family, everyone likes them so much!

Blasphemy or creativity?

It was one of those days when my six-year-old daughter keeps whining: “I'm bored! I've nothing to do! Play with me!” Sometimes I can persuade her to listen to a story or we do some drawing or colouring, but unless I make a suggestion quickly, I'll end up playing house with her. And every time (every single time!) I get to be the mother and I get to cook. Come on, that's what I do anyway, every day!

So what do you do to keep things interesting for both of you? Witness the miraculous powers of chocolate... works every time, in any situation!

My suggestion, “Let's make some chocolates!” was met with boundless enthusiasm, manifested in happy shrieks, hand-clapping and a little dance. Well, we didn't actually make chocolate. We didn't have the ingredients. But I took out all the leftover chocolates – the sad, odd extra pieces, the bits and slivers that are born when chocolate refuses to break into neat pieces or when the squares can't be divided equally. I normally use them in baking (chocolate chip muffins etc.), but now I just melted the whole lot and blended it all together. This is probably the part that would be frowned upon by every chocolate connoisseur and would make them cry sacrilege... but I thought we were being rather creative! And thanks to this idea, no chocolate was wasted. Thus, a tragedy avoided.

I let my daughter pour the molten chocolate into tiny moulds, chopped up a few leftover pieces of white chocolate and “pink” chocolate (raspberry flavoured white chocolate) and let her decorate the pieces with those. I thought that there'd be chocolate splattered all over the kitchen when we finished, but she surprised me with her attention to detail and the precision and care with which she worked. And that was not only when she got to lick the mixing bowl and all the utensils... The chocolates turned out pretty and yummy and, most importantly, nobody was bored. :)