Chocolate Truffles

 I forgot to post about making these before my knee surgery on the 17th of June. I spent a sweaty Sunday producing as many as i could from the box of supplies.  Yes, I bought all the supplies from my chocolatier friend, Yelibelly Chocolates ( @yelichocolate on Instagram).  There is a video demonstrating the process which matches the included written instructions.

When it is a very hot day, the chocolate can get too melted fast.   I keep putting it back in the fridge after rolling about 8 if the truffles.  I also kept pulling off the gloves and putting on a new pair because they got so messy.  Maybe I should have put them in the fridge??

Unlike my first attempt at ganache where I melted the chocolate in the microwave then added the cream, this recipe has you heat the cream and syrup THEN pour over the chocolate.  It works quite well either way.

I will spare you the rolling part as I was way too messy to stop for photo taking.  I had various items to use for coating the rolled chocolate ganache . . . cocoa, nuts and sprinkles.  Luckily I had different sprinkles left over from the cocoa bomb class, so I was able to extend my efforts to the end of the ganache.

All nicely boxed up for gifting.   I gave all these to my friend that helped me after my surgery . . . more people in her house to eat them too.  I don't need to eat so many truffles.

Tahini blondies

 I stumbled across interesting recipes on my Google feed all the time.   Not all do I make . . . at least not yet.  Seriously, there are so many egg custard tart recipes that show up because , , , from UK, Hong Kong, Taiwan . . . I've even watched a few videos.

So I shouldn't be surprised that these blondies show up since I have been making the tahini cookies. It isn't a difficult recipe to make and it is quick.  AND quite tasty!! Tahini Blondies

One difference is that I used some of the leftover chocolate ganache from the Chocolate Custard Tarts in an earlier blog post, chocolate-custard-tarts .  I spread it on the top but might swirl it into the batter before baking next time.   I still have leftover ganache so I might do it again and freeze them.

Now I am going to make something savory so stand by for the zaatar lamb meatballs with green tahini sauce  . . .  more tahini!!  I hope these meatballs taste good because I hate to waste  lamb.

Chocolate custard tarts

 I keep wanting to improve on the egg custard tarts but I decided this time to attempt Paul Hollywood;s recipe for Chocolate custard tarts instead.

I took a rather lazy way to produce them.   I used frozen puff pastry which wasn't bad at all.   I had problems with the blind bake because I didn't have baking beans to weight down the pastry.  I only had lentils for the substitute of dried beans so they were only partially successful.  Lessons learned, lol.

I didn't have a vanilla bean pod so I used liquid vanilla extract.  That works well.  My custard turned out fine except for a bit of a brown tint from the extra cinnamon I added.  I can't help myself when it comes to the cinnamon.

Another cheat I did was to microwave the chocolate to melt it.  I have a small kitchen and it gets hot with all the heating oven and stove top custard making . . . so MICROWAVE!!   Once the melted chocolate had the heavy cream added, it seemed fine to me.  It was my first time making ganache so what do I know??  It tastes fine.

I put it all together and now I have some lopsided bumpy tarts which still taste good.

I used silicone cups instead of the muffin tin.  Maybe I could have used the smaller cups.

A big failure but always a learning experience - cherry chocolate brioche

I don't usually post a mistake but I have the series of photos that actually look good.  It was just that the results weren't so great.  I can think of at least two problem areas . . . the substitute for the dried sweet cherries and not running my mixer at an optimum speed for kneading.   

Chocolate-Cherry Brioche

I think the motor on my mixer might be feeling some strain as it is making more noise than usual.  Last time I did a brioche and ran at high speed for 10 minutes, it got really hot.  This recipe calls for 15 minutes of kneading in the stand mixer.  I don't think I have dome brioche enough to perfect this stage.

Also, I used the cherry jammy bits from KA instead of the dried sweet cherries.  In theory, they should have worked but maybe they were too liquid-y as they melted.

I do love chocolate cherry flavors so maybe I will find another non-brioche recipe to attempt.  Maybe cupcakes would be good?   I have some canned cherries (not a pie mix) I could use.  That will be later.

All this looks good. Lots of time was spent on this.  The first rose looks ok but it just didn't rise enough.

Poor miserable too flat brioche.

I tossed it after trying to taste test.

Chocolate Babka

This was on my list of recipes to try.  A friend had told me she really liked the chocolate babka at Trader Joe's so I tried that.  OK but it didn't shoot up to my "must have" crave list.  Then I spotted the recipe on the King Arthur website.   I had posted that link in an earlier post about all the chocolate recipes I had tried.  Pain au chocolat, chocolate braid and chocolate rolls were a some of the chocolate goals.

I rather forgot about the chocolate babka in my pursuit of better Italian breads.  I have made the pugliese and ciabatta twice along with those cheesy rolls.  So it was time for something sweeter. Another book I picked up at the library was The Modern Jewish Baker (Challah, Babka, Bagels and more) by Shannon Sarna.  I am still deciding on whether I will buy it or the Italian Baker.   If interested you can find it on Amazon, but she also has a blog . . . check it out at the-nosher/how-to-make-challah .

I made the Chocolate Babka on Monday. 

 The recipe makes 3 loaves.

 

Between the dough and the chocolate filling, it uses 3 sticks of butter . . . 24 tablespoons!!!  

And even with all that butter, I think the dough still tasted a bit off and my theory is NOT ENOUGH SALT . . the recipe calls for unsalted butter like a lot of recipes and, TBH, I have noticed a certain blandness in doughs.  I wonder if my taste buds are off.  I am going to test that out by using salted butter in another recipe or maybe half salted/half unsalted.

But enough about sweets!   I am planning on making empanadas this weekend . . . or whenever I get around to it.  I found recipes for both the dough and the filling.  I hate the idea of using premade frozen dough but whatever you want,

Empanada Dough

Argentinian Ground Beef Filling

THEN I might try to make another sweet bread with cardamom. Cardamom Knots the link has a paywall, so you might not be able to view the recipe more than one time so download the recipe first 

Pandemic Baking - All the Chocolate!!

 

Maybe not ALL the ingredients I have tried . . .  but there is a lot that I have tried and will try!  

These ingredients include dark chocolate sticks aka batons from Callebaut.  

Also, potato flour, dry milk, espresso powder, two kinds of fancy cocoa powder and a chocolate mix. I have spent entirely too much time on King Arthur's website.

Pie and some bread and rolls. . . so far.  

This is the Chocolate Midnight Pie for which I found the recipe on King Artur's website.   chocolate-midnight-pie-recipe

Rolling out the pie dough using a circular bag which helps to gauge the proper size and helps to control the mess.  This recipe used the espresso powder in the crust and filling.

I have bought some other baker's helpers during the pandemic which includes this bag, the pastry rolling out guide underneath, a long narrow wooden French rolling pin and a heavy pie pan.   Hard to believe I didn't have a pie pan . . .  only the aluminum ones that come with the prepared crusts you buy in the store.

The crust needs work.  It was the right size but appears to have shrunk up a bit.  It tasted fine.   I think the pie filling is a bit under baked while the crust baked too fast . . .  looks almost burnt.  Covering didn't seem to help.

Bread and Chocolate

Chocolate Filled Braided  dark-chocolate-filled-braid-recipe . . . It didn't rise enough but it still tasted good.

These Dark Chocolate rolls were sort of a run-up test and chocolate tasting of those fancy chocolate sticks.  They are tasty.   dark-chocolate-filled-soft-rolls-recipe

It didn't take me too long to get to the next phase though.

Pain au Chocolat!

I ended up resurrecting one of my  older tools (a marble board) to make "Pain au chocolate"  . . .  one of my favorite pastries.  This meant I had to attempt that flaky croissant dough after not trying for over 20 years.   Hmmmm, maybe I can make plain ones again now that I have made this chocolate ones.

pain-au-chocolat-recipe from King Arthur

My big blob of buttery dough after laminating and leaving in the fridge overnight.  It's a bit intense to get all the folding and rolling done.  The recipe calls for it to be cut in half, working with one half while the 2nd half returns to the fridge.   I might split it in thirds the next time I make it.   

 I have space limitations so it was hard to roll out to the 8" by 20".  Also, I don't think I got it thin enough so the rolls didn't show layers as much as they should.

They did rise nicely but I am inconsistent in my sizes.   I would never make Star Baker.

Not too bad looking when baked.

Then there is the second half of the dough which I thought the sizes were better . .  but I still didn't get them thin enough during the rollout.   I even had one that unrolled during baking.  They still taste as good as the first half.

Is there more chocolate baking on the horizon?  YES!!  Lots of recipes to try.

Chocolate Babka . .  kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/chocolate-babka-recipe

Chocolate Cherry Brioche . . .   chocolate-cherry-brioche-recipe

Chocolate Cinnamon Star . . . cinnamon-star-bread-recipe

Chocolate Biscotti . . . chocolate biscotti recipe