Chocolate Discs and Gianduja Rosettes

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, in November when I flipped through Notter's The Art of the Chocolatier to find inspiration, I settled on a recipe for cointreau butter ganache pralines. The suggested method, though, was completely foreign to me. It called for piping the ganache onto a chocolate disc and then dipping the entire piece into couverture using a fork. While the book has many beautiful photos, there wasn't one of this particular confection. I found myself wondering how precisely that would work and whether you would see a ridge between the disc base and the piped ganache once it was dipped. I decided instead to use my standard truffle method: scoop the ganache and refine the shape by hand before hand-rolling in two thin coats of chocolate. Based on the feedback I received, they were a hit. But the method outlined by Notter stuck in my head and I decided that in the new year I would have to revisit it. And so tonight I am reading about chocolate discs and gianduja rosettes.

Notter suggests that chocolate discs are a common base for a variety of confections. They are formed using tempered couverture chocolate, a disc template, and a piece of acetate. It's also possible to make the discs without a template, but it's difficult to get consistent results. I've watched chocolatiers on YouTube depositing chocolate on one piece of acetate and then carefully laying a second sheet on top, causing the chocolate to spread into a thin disc. This method takes more practice to perfect (kind of like trying to pipe macarons of the same size). 

Notter has a number of recipes that employ these chocolate discs, including one that caught my eye -- "Hidden Hazelnut Pralines." It's a gianduja rosette piped around a sugar-sanded hazelnut on a chocolate disc. 

I've become obsessed with gianduja since taking my professional chocolatier course. It is the most delicious filling imaginable -- the thicker, nuttier, more mature cousin of Nutella. With roasted nuts ground into a paste and mixed with couverture chocolate, it's pure heaven. I've molded it into tiny Easter eggs that I then enrobed in chocolate, I've slabbed it and cut it into squares that were later dipped with a fork, I've pipped it into an Easter bunny. Its flavour, texture, and consistency make it ideal for so many applications -- but I can honestly say that it never occurred to me to pipe it the same way you would buttercream icing. 

Gianduja is quite fluid when it is first made, thanks to the nut paste combining with melted chocolate. As it cools, however, and the chocolate begins to crystallize, the texture thickens. By the time it is fully set (depending on the ratio of nut paste to chocolate), it can be quite firm. The trick, I would imagine, is piping it at exactly the right temperature. Just like there's a sweet spot for piping ganache, still fluid enough to be piped but firm enough to hold its shape, there will be a sweet spot for piping gianduja -- and the only way to find it will be to wait, watch, and test periodically. And of course take the temperature and record it for future reference!

And so in anticipation of an experiment in the not-so-distant future, I'm assembling the necessary tools. Piping bags and tips are no problem. My cake decorating stash has everything I need to pipe gianduja. I also have acetate (food safe, of course) from when I did my chocolatier program (it was on the list of recommended supplies, but because we could choose from a number of techniques for our various assignments, mine went unused). I have couverture and I have nuts. But a disc template? My stash of chocolate molds is pretty impressive, but there's ne'er disc template among them.  

Cue Amazon. It does, after all, have everything you need from A to Z. And it did not let me down. Sure, it took a few tries with the search terms to get exactly what I wanted, but I persevered and was rewarded with the listing for this beauty. As it turns out, you can also buy these in a variety of shapes, including long triangles. That one is used to create decorations for desserts. Once the chocolate begins to set, but before it is fully crystallized, it's possible to manipulate the acetate so that the pieces set with a curve or twist. I'm trying to resist the urge to order the triangle stencil, but the more that I think about it, the more I want to try that as well...

One of my friends always says, "You can't have Barbie without the Malibu Dream House." It's dangerous to take that advice to heart. So, because I have a plan, I'll stick with the circle stencil. For now. 

There are Hidden Hazelnut Pralines in my future.