Turn on any baking or dessert challenge on the Food Network and you're likely to find the competitors incorporating ube into their creations. Ube ice cream, ube cake, ube pie, ube donuts... The results are usually a vibrant purple colour. As for the flavour, I can't personally comment, since I've never tried making a yam-based confection or dessert.
Before ube, it was yuzu (a citrus flavour). And before yuzu, matcha was all the rage. You get the picture.
Now, as I work my way through The Art of the Chocolatier by Ewald Notter, I find that very few of his recipes incorporate what would be considered trendy flavours. The majority are what I would consider to be standards or classics. But there are a few that reflect flavours that were likely trendy at the time of publication in 2011 -- including passion fruit and "exotic" curry pralines.
I haven't been one for trendy flavours in my chocolate, but during my professional chocolatier program, I got it in my head that one of the recipes I would develop was a matcha truffle. I had forgotten about this idea until recently. Remember that decluttering kick I've been on? Among my baking supplies, I found a bottle of matcha ginger powder I had bought for that very purpose. I remember making a latte with it one day and enjoying it, but the matcha truffle never materialized. You see, the program outlined requirements for different centres and decorations, and as I worked through the combinations, I didn't need another truffle. The matcha ginger powder went into my cupboard for later. And later never came.
Until now.
Today, I was contemplating what to do with some leftover white chocolate. I didn't have a lot of it -- only 42 grams. It wasn't enough to make a bar, but I also didn't want to buy more. So I just stared at it for a bit and that's when I remembered my idea for a matcha truffle. It's a little unconventional to make such a small batch of truffles, but if you understand the ratio of chocolate to cream/butter and have a kitchen scale, it's doable. I dug into the back of my spice cupboard and pulled out the matcha ginger powder.
I tossed the white chocolate into a small bowl and added an appropriate amount of salted butter. Then I melted the two together using a very low heat to ensure the white chocolate didn't burn. I stirred until the two were perfectly combined and then I added some matcha ginger powder. I wasn't sure how much I would need to achieve the right flavour so I started with one rounded dash (side note: if you didn't know, a dash is an actual measurement you can buy measuring implements for dash, pinch, and smidgen). I tested the flavour and then added another rounded dash. Another taste and I was happy with the flavour. The colour, however, was another story.
Any time I've seen matcha, it's been a fairly vibrant green colour. The mixture in front of me looked more grey than green. It was not appetizing. So I did something I don't normally do -- I took some green food colouring out of the cupboard and added one drop to my tiny bowl of ganache. It mixed in quickly and made the colour slightly more palatable.
Verdict? Not bad. The ginger hits you first and then mellows into the matcha. The powdered sugar helps to balance the "spice" of the ginger and the "earthy bitterness" of the matcha. The texture of the ganache isn't quite perfect because of the matcha ginger powder (and maybe the food colouring), but it isn't unpleasant. Next time (if there is one), I might try a cream-based ganache.
All things considered, I think this was a pretty good flavour combination. And I'm happy to finally have taken the time to bring the idea to life.
And that's what this year of chocolate is all about.
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