Savouring Craft Chocolate

Around Easter, I made a pilgrimage to a local grocery store having learned that they stocked Hummingbird chocolate. I was disappointed to find that they only had Easter eggs available and none of the single origin bars. While I enjoyed my chocolate tasting experience, I was a little disappointed -- but not for long! My friend Dennis, who I've known since my undergrad days at Memorial (thank you Dennis!) mailed several of Hummingbird's 28g chocolate bars to me. They were the perfect size for sampling and for savouring.

I actually tried the first one, the PB & Joy bar, several weeks ago and the second one, Fleur de Sel, this week. I'm pacing myself, difficult though it is, but that means there will be a second blog in the coming weeks. 

For now, let me tell you how surprised I was by the PB & Joy bar. It was incredible and I've had nothing like it before. I expected something similar to the peanut butter filled Easter eggs that I had tried in March -- that is, a dark chocolate bar with peanut butter filling. It was nothing like that. The wrapper says they "roast and grind peanuts with cocoa beans from the Dominican Republic with lovely fruity notes." Grinding peanuts with cocoa beans? This bar is next level!

To be honest, I had no idea that such a process was even possible, despite my previous training.  Different fats aren't always compatible, but obviously this combination and their technique works. The chocolate is in perfect temper. (And as I reflect, I do remember reading that gianduja, a mixture of chocolate and ground nuts, could be tempered, but I've never tried it. We'll add that to the list!) 

The resulting bar isn't as intense or sweet as commercial peanut butter chocolate treats, but instead has a satisfying earthiness. If you love the combination of peanuts and chocolate, this is definitely worth trying. 

The Fleur de Sel may be more divisive, although I very much enjoyed it. A 70% dark chocolate bar with Canadian sea salt, the Fleur de Sel is has a very pronounced floral flavour. While it teeters on the edge of too floral, it isn't unpleasant in the way that other chocolates with strong floral notes can be (click here to read about my first chocolate tasting experience). 

When first trying this bar, it is difficult to taste the salt at all -- and to be clear, they indicate that the salt is meant to enhance the floral notes, not to overpower them. That said, when you let the chocolate dissolve slowly on your tongue, the salt becomes more pronounced and the flavours much more complex. 

A word of caution, though: the floral flavour does linger for a few minutes (or more) after tasting. 

In short, these are really unique, well-made artisanal bars that are worth trying (and you can order them here if you don't have a Dennis of your own). The PB & Joy bar, in particular, is outstanding and would probably be delicious with a rich cup of coffee. I highly recommend it!

But more than that, I strongly encourage you to step out of the box. Treat yourself! Try something new. Challenge your taste buds! And support a small chocolate producer at the same time. Their fine chocolate is worth the premium price. 

Malted Graham Sandwich Bar

Last week I blogged about the Moirs Malted Graham Sandwich Bar that both a friend and a cousin had remembered and mentioned in conversation. And this week, I'm presenting my take on that same candy bar. Why? Well, life is short and when my brain fixates on something, it's best to just go with it. 

So here we are.

Graham crackers, I thought, would be the easy part of this endeavour. I located a recipe that looked good and had solid reviews. I mixed up the dough, using Bourbon Madagascar vanilla and Newfoundland honey that I've been saving for a special occasion. I followed the recipe to the letter and even chilled the dough before and after rolling. I selected what I thought would be the perfect size square cutter and I spaced them generously on the cookie sheet. And you guessed it! By the time they finished baking, my graham squares were a full half inch larger than intended. Note to self, next time choose the smallest cutter size. 

Next I turned to the malted cream filling. After giving it some thought, I decided that a whipped ganache was the way to go. It was an interesting decision considering that I've never made whipped ganache before, but from what I knew about it, I thought it would produce a creamier texture for the filling and, by whipping it, it should turn lighter in colour. So I researched malted ganache recipes. Finding some made with white chocolate and some with milk, I wasn't quite sure how to proceed. But knowing that white chocolate is often sickly sweet, I decided to try something new yet again and made the ganache with two parts white chocolate and three parts milk chocolate. I dissolved the malt powder in the heated cream before pouring it over the chopped chocolate. After leaving it for 5 minutes, it whisked into a beautiful ganache. The malt flavour is a little light, so I might increase the powder if I make it again, but the flavour is so delicious that I'm wondering why malted milk truffles aren't a thing. 

The following day, after the ganache had fully set, I brought it back to room temperature and whipped it with a hand mixer. Sure enough, it became paler in colour the more I whipped it. I put the ganache in a piping bag and sat down to begin the process of matching graham crackers of a similar size and sandwiching them together with the whipped ganache. Then I put them in the fridge for a few minutes to set up. 

Next I tempered a lot of milk chocolate. More than I normally work with because I knew these chonky sandwiches would require a lot of chocolate. What I hadn't quite sorted out was how to dip them. I had a large fork used for dipping Oreo cookies that I thought would work, but the chocolate was a little too thick. While many recipes will instruct you to thin out the chocolate with Crisco or paraffin wax, in the chocolatier world, the viscosity of chocolate is more commonly altered using additional cocoa butter. That's not something I've ever tried and I also didn't have any on hand. And I couldn't bring myself to add a lesser quality ingredient to my expensive couverture chocolate!

And so I decided to try a technique I've seen while watching Hercules Candy on YouTube. "Quick Steve," as he is called, uses a puddle method for tempering chocolate and coating items, like snack clubs (pretzels coated in peanut butter enrobed in chocolate and rolled in crushed potato chips) or turtle pops (marshmallows covered in caramel coated in chocolate and rolled in pecans). I grabbed a few latex gloves from my pandemic allotment and thought it couldn't be that hard to fill one's hand with chocolate and coat a cookie sandwich.

I was wrong. 

This is not as easy as Quick Steve makes it look. I guess, like everything, it takes time to develop the technique, the coordination, the feel (and he's had a lifetime of practice). I did the best I could coating them, but it was messy as all heck. I also struggled to get good coverage on the edges. My kingdom for an enrobing machine!

Seriously, though, the hand coating worked better than the fork and I imagine if I did a few hundred of these, I'd get it down to a science. On a few I added a decorative swirl with my finger. And then I popped everything into the fridge to crystallize. 

The end result?

That's one delicious sandwich. I can understand why people still talk about them. I'd probably make a few tweaks if I made them again -- a smaller cookie cutter, a chocolate with a higher fluidity, a little more malt in the whipped ganache -- but I'm not angry at it. 

I'll be very curious to see how these store. One potential issue is the graham cracker absorbing moisture from the whipped ganache and softening as a result. If that does happen, then some sort of barrier, like a thin coat of chocolate on the graham cracker before sandwiching, might be necessary. Time will also tell if these will survive a freeze-thaw cycle. I've had a few requests to bring these home next month, and the whipped ganache won't be stable enough to sit for a month, I suspect. So into the freezer go a few of these for sure. 

Hopefully the recipients will enjoy them and savour a memory from childhood while they're at it. 

So much power in such a small sandwich.

Postscript: On day four, my boyfriend tried one and the graham crackers were completely softened, not unlike a wagon wheel. He still thought they were good. I personally have no idea if the original was crispy or firm when biting into it, or if it was softer and chewier. But maybe softer and chewier is ok? Someone who had the real deal will have to let me know! 

Chocolate Memories

When I started my professional chocolatier program several years ago, there was a great deal of discussion about fine chocolate in contrast to commercial chocolate, as well as the development of taste and preferences. As I planned to host a chocolate tasting, I remember posting on Facebook and inviting my friends to tell me their favourite chocolate of all time. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of posts were about commercial chocolate. Interestingly, though, many were memories of discontinued candy bars from childhood. It was a fascinating discussion. 

While I recognized some of the candy bars referenced, there were several that were new to me, so I searched for pictures and descriptions of many of them online. One that stood out was a comment about a 4 Flavours bar. 

My research revealed that it was a Neilson creation, sort of like a Caramilk bar, but with four different fillings -- vanilla, caramel, chocolate, and bordeaux. Having no idea what "bordeaux" referred to, I researched that as well and discovered it was a butterscotch flavour. Fascinated by this, I ordered a chocolate bar mold and began planning how to recreate the experience for my friend for Christmas. I was thrilled with the results (but it will probably be a very long time before I do it again, given the work associated with making all of those fillings and keeping them at the right working temperature). 

More recently I've had discussions about a particular chocolate-coated graham cracker candy bar -- first with a friend at work and then again with a cousin on Facebook (completely unrelated and in a time span of about 2 months). 

What was this mysterious treat? Described as two graham squares with a mocha-coloured, cream-type filling in the centre, covered in chocolate, and sold two pieces in one package, it was reportedly delicious. But try as I might, my googling didn't lead to any images of such a bar. And, frankly, this seemed strange to me. Until we figured out the actual name of the bar.

Graham Bar? Graham Square? Graham Sandwich? Graham Sandwich!

Malted Graham Sandwich Bar to be exact. They were manufactured at the Moirs chocolate factory in Dartmouth, which closed in 2007. I found the full product name in the appendix of a master's thesis on Moirs advertising (Thank you Holly Hanes!). Sadly, the thesis didn't have any images associated with this bar and, given that it seems to have been a regional product, it isn't all that surprising that none of us have yet found photographs of one or its packaging online. 

Now, as someone who never saw or tasted a Graham Sandwich, there are a lot of unknowns. I don't have a good sense of how big they were or how thick the cream between the two graham crackers was.  I'm not sure if they were perfect squares or rectangles. And I certainly don't know how malty the malted filling was or what sort of texture and consistency it had (beyond the description that it was a cream). Nevertheless, the flavour combination sounds divine and my interest has been piqued! 

The truth is, I can't help but wonder if this should be my next retro candy bar re-creation.

What do you think? Should I make a modern, hand-crafted version of the Malted Graham Sandwich Bar? 

Leave a comment below! And if you remember this sweet treat, then please share your memories of it. 

Hazelnut Cookie Bar

Last night I was watching a seasonal baking competition on Food Network. One of the competitors decided to make a candy bar for the first challenge and I was surprised to see he chose a square silicone mold that I own. I bought it several years ago thinking it would be the perfect size for a chocolate bar. 

I hear you: Great minds think alike (and fools seldom differ). Which are we? It's hard to say, but it was the kick in the pants I needed to actually test out the mold. 

And so this week for my chocolate study, I started by making a simple vanilla sugar cookie. I found a recipe in my small batch baking book that said it holds its shape well and doesn't spread. I mixed it up, cut four square cookies that should fit perfectly inside the mold, and popped them into the oven. And of course, as I should have predicted, when I checked on them, they had spread to giant squares of bubbling cookie lava. I pulled them out of the oven and recut them (removing about a 5mm perimeter from each), and popped them onto a rack to cool.

Next I tempered 200 grams of dark chocolate. I poured about 50 grams into each of four wells and then brushed the chocolate up the sides of each. After tapping it on the counter a few times to ensure that any air bubbles had risen to the surface, I popped the silicone mold on a cookie sheet and tossed it in the fridge for 15 minutes to set.

Then I grabbed some gianduja that was left from another chocolate adventure and heated it gently until it became fluid again, stirring well. I poured 15 grams into each well, then added a cookie to each, and topped them with another 15 grams of gianduja each. I was careful to spread the gianduja so that it completely covered the bottom of the cookies and popped everything in the fridge to set.

Finally, I tempered 250 grams of dark chocolate to cap my bars and poured it over the set gianduja. And you guessed it: back in the fridge for 15 minutes!

The result?

This is a chonky hazelnut cookie bar. 

I like the size of the mold for a square bar (here cut in half diagonally). One big advantage is that you could pour a bar thin enough that it could be mailed in a slot box to anywhere! But the mold is also deep enough to allow for some layering of fillings -- which is great if shipping isn't a consideration. It would also work well for individual-sized chocolate bark instead of pouring the larger slab and snapping it into pieces. 

While I didn't quite nail the temper on the shelling of the mold (I rushed it -- my mind was somewhere else and the chocolate sensed it), the flavours are great together. The chocolate is probably a little too thick, but I don't know anyone who ever said no to more chocolate. The cookie adds a nice texture between the creamy gianduja layers. 

Frankly, these are very moreish. 

And since we'll soon hit that time of the year when all chocolate production ceases due to high temperatures (there's no AC in my apartment), it was nice to test out something new (or a variation on a theme, as it were). 

Have I mentioned how much I love gianduja?