Making chocolate is tricky business. Technically you should be tempering the chocolate so that it resets with a healthy shine and cracks, just like when you buy it in the shops. I could write a whole separate post on just how to do that though and I'm guessing that most people making valentines chocs won't have time to do this ;-) So make these and bring them out "fresh" from the fridge, no more than 24 hours later. You should get away with it!
Just a short note: I know most things have already been done so I'm not going to say I invented these chocolates, but I did come up with the ideas myself. That's the best part about making chocolates, you can be really creative once you have some basic techniques down.
Ingredients
100ml double cream
1 tbsp Greek yoghurt
1 tbsp dark rum
lots of dark chocolate (75% cocoa solids
Some 85% cocoa solids chocolate
Some White chocolate
Cocoa powder for dusting a coating
The better quality chocolate you buy, the easier it will be to work with, the better the result and with less wastage. I'd steer clear of cheap supermarket brand stuff.
Firstly to make some truffle mix
Add the yoghurt to the cream, stir it in and heat it up a bit in the microwave so it's not chilled when you add it. Melt about 125g of your 75% chocolate in a double broiler. Always in a double broiler unless you want to waste whole bars of expensive chocolate and spend ages cleaning your pans.
Now, bit by bit add the cream and stir like crazy. The chocolate will want to separate into butter and solids and will probably start to look greasy. Just keep at it, adding a bit of cream and stirring fast to emulsify. You will get there! Half way through throw in the rum as well.
Pour your mixture into a container and put it in the fridge to cool and set.
After a couple of hours you have the perfect chocolate filler and building material.
To make a chocolate cup
Prep up your work area with a sheet of cling film, this really will make life so much easier at the end. You should be able to pick up some paper chocolate cases from a supermarket, like mini fairy cake ones. Somewhere I have a beautiful set of silicone ones in different shapes, but we're between houses at the moment and they're hidden away in a box somewhere.
Melt some white chocolate and pour it into the centre of the case, just to cover the bottom. Give each case a few little taps which will hopefully get rid of any air bubbles. White chocolate is harder to work with than dark, be very careful not to burn it.
Put these in the fridge until the White chocolate has set. Once it has take them out, melt some dark, pour a little bit on the side of the cup and rotate gently to give a very thin and even coating around the edge.
Back in the fridge, set and take out for the next bit. Scoop out about half a teaspoon of truffle mix and gently spoon into the cup.
Then top up with more dark chocolate.
Once that's set, peel away the outer case gently and turn the chocolate over, trying not to get your fingerprints on it.
Fold over some paper and cut half a heart out.
Position over the chocolate and dust some cocoa powder over the stencil. Job done!
To make a chocolate stuffed cherry
You need semi-ripe cherries for this. Too juicy and they turn to mush, not juicy enough and you'll never get the stones out.
Remove the stalk, slice around the widest part of the cherry and pop out the stone with a sharp knife.
Discard the stone, fill the cavity with melted chocolate and push the stalk back into one of the cavities to set into the chocolate.
Once the chocolate has set, pat the flesh dry with a paper towel, put a drop of melted chocolate in the middle and put the 2 halves back together.
Drop a little melted chocolate into a case, carefully lay the cherry on it's side so that the cut is facing up, and drizzle more chocolate over the top to seal it all together. Alternatively you could stuff it with a tiny ball of truffle mix and seal the edges with that too.
And finally, the easiest of all, how to make a truffle.
Roll some truffle mix into a ball, dust a plate or worktop in cocoa powder and roll the ball in the powder. Done. Do this just before you present them. Depending on how wet you've made your truffle mix the cocoa powder is likely to adsorb the wet and become an unattractive sticky dark mess. An alternative and way around this is to grate chocolate very fine and roll the truffle in that instead.
Put them all together and you'll have a nice little selection. I also made a dark chocolate only cup and cut a little chunk of stem ginger in syrup to sit on the top for that one.
As you can see the secret is to be rubbish at making boxes so it's obvious you did it yourself.
A good way to kick off Valentines Day celebrations.
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