Trash to Chocolate Mold

You may remember my Peppermint Patty Showdown from last month. On Christmas morning, I received a package of Waterbridge Mint Creams in my stocking. Well, when the package was empty, I couldn't help but think that the plastic tray the creams had come in would make an interesting candy bar. And so instead of tossing it into the recycling, I set it aside for an experiment. 

So what was interesting about the tray? It was a square tray that had held nine creams. Each circular well was embossed with a sort of geometric basket weave pattern. And the nine wells were connected by narrow channels. It made me think of modern décor, like bubble lamps or candles. 

I tempered a very small amount of chocolate (less than 100g) and initially was going to pour a solid bar. But then I remembered that I had dried blueberries in my cupboard that had been bought for a Christmas recipe that wasn't made. I tossed a tablespoon or so into the chocolate. This, naturally, triggered thoughts of the Cadbury Fruit & Nut bar that my nan loved, and I decided a little crunch would go a long way. I quickly chopped up a small handful of cashews and tossed those in as well. After mixing, I poured chocolate into the tray and tossed it into the fridge for a few minutes to set.

Now, I'm not going to lie. This makeshift chocolate mold fought me as I tried to release the bar. While it was easy enough to unmold the outer circles because the plastic was so flexible, the centre one was like it was vacuum sealed into place. But I persisted and eventually the bar popped out. 

Other than the recycling logo in the centre of the bar (which I knew would be visible before I started), I really like the look of this bar. And it is surprisingly easy to break off a piece for sharing (if you believe in sharing your chocolate, that is -- I personally think it's overrated). Molds with these sorts of fine details work better with a more fluid chocolate, so if I were to do something similar in the future, I would consider adding a little cocoa butter to improve the appearance. 

On flavour, however, I have no notes. Who knew that dried blueberries and cashews were so good together? A match made in heaven. So perfectly suited that they could have gotten married during Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Halftime Show. (Okay, that might be taking it a bit too far.) In terms of texture, the chew of the dried fruit and the gentle crunch of the nuts (cashews are a little softer than peanuts or almonds) enhances the sensory experience. 

Honestly, this combination is so good that it just might find its way into the 2026 Christmas assortment.

Minus the recycling symbol, of course.

 

Blueberry Gummies

Over Christmas, I gave some thought to how I could continue challenging myself to work on my chocolate and candy-making skills in the new year. As the great day for resolutions approached, I was compiling my annual list of intentions when an ad popped up in my Instagram feed. It was for an online chocolate course. I scrolled past it knowing there was no way that it could compete with the professional chocolatier program I'd done about five years ago. But then every time I went on Facebook or Instagram, the same ad was there, taunting me. Finally I gave in and followed the link to see what it was about. The Now You Know course was comparatively inexpensive to begin with and at the time discounted by 50%. Ambivalent about their chocolate course, I started browsing their other offerings and stumbled upon one dedicated to candy making. Bingo! I bought the course.

Now, I purchased the course knowing there would be nothing in it that I couldn't find for free on YouTube. But that wasn't the point. The point was the structure a course would provide, with lessons to work through on a weekly basis. 

The first lesson focused on jelly and gummy candies. The lesson consisted of a few videos where techniques were demonstrated by Tony Morris of ToMo Candy. The course resources included two recipes. When I was finished reviewing the materials, I made a mental note to acquire a new candy thermometer (since I'd had difficulties with mine while making cremes in December) and added gelatin to my shopping list so that I could experiment with his recipe. 

You see, I've tried making gummies a few times before. There are several recipes floating around online that have you add plain gelatin to flavoured Jell-O. There's even an episode of Pioneer Woman where she makes homemade gumdrops to give as part of a Christmas cookie platter.  Do these recipes work? Yes. Do the have the consistency of a gummy? Sort of? It's more like really firm jello (maybe I'm splitting hairs). They also have no shelf life whatsoever. They begin weeping the same way pâte de fruits do and quickly spoil (within 2-3 days at room temperature). Don't get me wrong -- it's a fun activity on a snow day, to be sure -- but that's about it. 

And so this week, armed with a new candy thermometer, some blueberry flavouring, and the largest box of gelatin I've ever seen (and gave me sticker shock at the cash when I bought it), I set about my task. I measured and prepared ingredients. Then, I boiled the sugar mixture 265F, the hardball stage. After adding my flavouring, I stirred in a few drops of food colouring. Next, I heated the bloomed gelatin in the microwave until it melted before adding it to the sugar. I transferred the mixture into a measuring cup to make it easier to pour and worked as quickly as I could to fill my molds. 

This is where I encountered a minor snag. I hadn't taken out and prepared enough silicone molds, and had to go back to my stash to grab another (twice!). There can be a great deal of variation in terms of the yield of a recipe as a result of many factors, including how big the cavities of a mold are. For this recipe, which was supposed to make 50 gummies, I prepared four molds totaling 68 cavities. When done, I had 81 pieces. I left them to set overnight and cleaned up the incredibly sticky mess left behind by utensils. 

The next morning, I unmolded the blueberry gummies and dropped them into a sour sugar mixture. It started out ok, but as sticky residue built on my fingers, it became more and more difficult to remove the gummies and drop them into the sugar. I washed my hands several times before finishing the task. I arranged the majority of them in an airtight container and popped a few into bags to share with product testers (friends who enjoy sour gummies). I also couldn't resist trying one myself. 

The result? The texture is much more like that of a commercially produced gummy and I'm hoping that they will have a longer shelf life as a result (since I believe there is less water activity in them). The sour sugar coating creates the perfect pucker and as that subsides, the blueberry flavour emerges as a second wave. It could be stronger, but it is definitely present. All in all, I'd say this was a successful experiment. I can see the wisdom, however, in pouring a slab and cutting it into pieces. I suspect it would save time compared to peeling 81 jellies out of their molds.

I can't wait to see what's next in my 2025 candy-making adventure. 

Fruit & Nut Bars

After a brief break from my chocolate study, in pursuit of other kitchen adventures (like Oven Porcupines and Cranberry Orange Muffins), I decided it was time to get back to it. This week's endeavour: transform the remains of a delicious milk chocolate Easter bunny.

Now, you may be wondering why one would want to transform an Easter bunny instead of just eating the Easter bunny. That's a fair question. The bunny was mostly solid and quite thick, so biting into it felt like it might damage the teeth. Instead, I found myself attacking it in rather gruesome fashion to chop it into more manageable pieces. I decided the best thing to do would be to melt it down and turn it into something else, like chocolate bark. And that's when I started thinking about some inclusions I had on hand in my chocolate stash. 

Over the years, I've experimented with a variety of freeze-dried fruits and berries. Most commonly, I've ground them into a powder and used them to create truffles and other chocolates, but I've always wondered what they would be like used whole or chopped into pieces. Would the texture be too dry and unpleasant? Would it be chewy or sticky? Could it be used to create a naked chocolate bar in the same way that dried fruit is? There was only one way to find out. 

I took a knife to the bunny and chopped it into small pieces. The milk chocolate chunks weighed 130g. Now, that's a very small amount of chocolate to work with and almost impossible to temper, but I decided not to add callets because I didn't want to waste ingredients if the experiment failed. With the chocolate prepared using the direct tempering method, I added about 8g of freeze dried blueberries and about 15g of chopped walnuts. I stirred them in and then poured the chocolate to a silicone bar mold. I had enough to make four small bars. I popped them into the fridge for 15 minutes and once they were set, I unmolded them. 

The result? Four tasty chocolate bars. While they have some of the characteristic shine of well-tempered chocolate, they also have a bit of a mottled finish as a result of using a silicone mold that can't be polished in the same way that polycarbonate molds can. Since these are a test, that doesn't bother me. The focus of this week's experiment, after all, is texture. 

I'm quite surprised to report that the freeze dried fruit is delicious in this application. As hard as it is to believe, I wasn't really able to tell that the blueberries were freeze dried. They had a bit of a chew, but not unpleasant, and they weren't dry or chalky at all. My fear that they would be unpalatable was unfounded.  

Fruit and nut is a classic combination. And using freeze dried fruit and berries is definitely worthy of further experimentation, particularly in chocolate bark. 

What fruit and nut combo would you like to see? 

Now I Want An Airbrush

After making the marzipan espresso bonbon, my next assignment in the professional chocolatier program was to make a flavoured ganache and use it as filling for a hand-painted molded shell. Drawing inspiration from Newfoundland, I decided to make a blueberry white chocolate ganache filling and pipe it into dark chocolate shells painted in shimmering white and blue.

I melted my cocoa butter very carefully to ensure that I didn't over-heat it, since that would take it out of temper. First I painted the white, deliberately leaving some unpainted spots. Then I painted the blue. Once it was set, I filled the mold with dark chocolate, vibrated it to remove air bubbles, then tipped it over to remove the excess chocolate, leaving a shell. That set for about 5 minutes. Then I piped blueberry ganache into the shells and capped them with more dark chocolate.

After letting them set up in the fridge, I turned them out onto my marble slab. I had hoped for more white than blue, and there were a few tiny air bubbles in the surface of a couple of bonbons, but nevertheless I was very happy with the results. Better yet, after letting the ganache crystallize for 24 hours, I bit into one and it truly was the perfect bonbon -- a thin, crisp shell filled with creamy deliciousness.

I realized during this process that I much prefer painting and molding chocolate to enrobing centres. More importantly, now all I can think about is buying an airbrush and compressor to try airbrushing molds to see what sort of result I get. This is one of the biggest trends in chocolate right now, and I feel like it's a process that I'd enjoy just as much as the hand-painting.

Let the research begin!