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?

You Spin Me Right 'Round, Baby, Right 'Round

With vacation to burn before the end of fiscal, I extended my birthday weekend by two days and decided to devote one of them to making hidden hazelnut pralines. Armed with 35 chocolate discs made the week prior, which I had arranged on a wax paper lined cookie sheet, I was ready to move on to the next step.

First I put 300 grams of hazelnuts onto a pan and toasted them in the oven for about 10 minutes. I then wrapped them in a clean towel and let them steam for a minute, before rolling them around in the towel to remove the skins -- an effective, if messy, process. I set aside 35 hazelnuts and then weighed out 225 grams from the remaining nuts, setting them aside to cool.

I then melted 50 grams of dark chocolate using a direct tempering method. Using a dot of chocolate on each disc, I attached a hazelnut to the centre of each one.

Next I tossed the hazelnuts with an equal weight of powdered sugar into my food processor. The instructions in Notter's The Art of the Chocolatier said to process them "until the mixture has a runny consistency." Now, I've made nut butters before, so I knew the process would take at least 15 minutes. But the addition of the sugar really slowed down the process. I scraped down the sides. I stared at it. I scraped down the sides again. I tried walking away. I scraped the sides. And after 30 minutes the nut paste was finally "runny."

It was about this time that I decided it would be a good idea to grab a towel and wipe the powdered sugar away from the food processor. Unfortunately, I forgot that I'd used it to remove the skins of the hazelnuts. Grabbing it without thinking, hazelnut skins rained down across the counter and the floor. Clean up on aisle one? I paused my work to clean up the mess I'd just made.

Back on task, I transferred the nut paste to a bowl and added 225 grams of tempered dark chocolate to it. I stirred it every few minutes, monitoring the temperature of the gianduja and checking the consistency for piping. Somewhere around 20 degrees Celcius, the consistency appeared correct, so I transferred it to a piping bag fitted with an open star tip. Then I commenced piping.

And that's when I realized my critical error. Yes, worse than hazelnut skins raining down on my kitchen from a towel. As I attempted to pipe a rosette around each hazelnut, the chocolate discs -- shiny side down on a piece of wax paper -- starting spinning right 'round, like a record baby. I had no way to control them and no easy method to hold them in place without getting gianduja everywhere. Undeterred, I experimented with different piping styles and then decided to just chase the discs around and hope for the best. Lesson learned -- next time I'll put them on a silicone pad or similar surface to prevent them from spinning quite so much.

I also learned just how tricky it can be to pipe gianduja. The heat from my hands started to melt it while I was piping, so a few pralines were too soft and didn't hold their shape quite as well. At the end of the day, it didn't matter all that much because they did set up. 

Behold! Hidden hazelnut pralines. These are insanely delicious and, despite the piping challenges, very pretty. They also have an incredible texture with the snap of the chocolate disc, the crunch of the nut, and the creamy gianduja.

I would probably consider a few modifications if I were to make these again. First of all, I would probably use a milk chocolate disc instead of dark chocolate. I personally don't like the appearance of the gianduja against the dark chocolate disc -- even though the gianduja was made with dark chocolate it looks like milk chocolate because of the added nut paste. That said, I also don't think anyone who ate one looked at the bottom, so maybe it doesn't matter. I also might try a slightly smaller piping tip for the rosettes or I might use a large French pastry tip instead and pipe more of a bullet shape. 

Will I be hiding nuts inside gianduja again in the future? 

As sure as I'm sitting here singing, "You spin me right 'round, baby, right 'round, like a record baby, right 'round, 'round, 'round..."

Using a Chocolate Stencil

Hidden hazelnut pralines sound like a delicious treat and they're an opportunity to try a technique that I've never used before. But they also have multiple steps, so about two weeks ago, in anticipation of making these pralines on my next vacation day, I completed the first step: making chocolate discs.

I've made a type of chocolate disc before using a mold. They were archery-themed chocolate coins. I bought the mold so that I could create a special gift for Jay at Highland Bow & Arrow, who taught me how to shoot and got me hooked on archery. I've made these coins a few other times as well, as a prize for a friend's Biggest Buck competition and to celebrate a few fellow archers' accomplishments at a tournament. These coins, however, are too large to form the base of praline. Cue my newly acquired stencil.

I wiped down my countertop and while it was still wet I placed a piece of acetate on top. Then I put my new chocolate disc stencil on top of the acetate. I also dug out my large Ateco offset spatula that I received in a prize package from How to Cake It after tweeting one of my creations (a cake ball that looked like a cupcake). Equipment assembled, I then tempered 250g of dark chocolate. 

After checking the temper, I poured some chocolate at the top of the circle stencil and pulled the chocolate across it with the cranked spatula. I definitely poured too much chocolate on this first go, so I did a second pass of the spatula to remove as much chocolate as possible. Then once I saw that the chocolate was starting to set, I removed the stencil. I walked away for fifteen minutes and when I returned, I had 35 chocolate discs. 

As is my usual method, I put the chocolate into the fridge for a few minutes just to be sure the chocolate would crystallize properly, and then popped them from the acetate. The side of the chocolate that was against the acetate had the most incredible shine.

Grade? I'll give myself a B. 

These aren't perfect. A few are too thick because I used too much chocolate and didn't manage to remove it all evenly with the spatula. I also feel like I can see a few tiny pieces of chocolate that didn't fully melt out in the tempering process. But they are chocolate discs and they do have a great shine, so they are going to work well when I make the hidden hazelnut pralines. Next time, I'll use less chocolate and try to keep it to only one pass of the spatula. 

They say practice makes perfect, so I'll just have to make more chocolates, right? 

In the words of Ina Garten, how bad can that be? 

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. 

 

"I do not think it means what you think it means."

Back when I did my professional chocolatier program, I wrote a blog post titled, "What the heck is a truffle anyway?" On the surface, the term seemed simple, especially for anyone who's enjoyed a Lindt milk chocolate truffle at Christmas (perhaps following a Festive Special at Swiss Chalet, but I digress). 

Throughout the course, "truffle" was used to refer to both bonbons of a particular shape and ganache-based confections generally (including those cut into squares and those molded into a variety of shapes). I remember discussing this with my friend and colleague, the late Robert Campbell. He felt it didn't matter what a truffle was made from, so long as it was produced without a mold and resembled a truffle (the fungus). But the proliferation of "truffles" made from cookies, cookie dough, cake, and other ingredients that are coated in candy melts -- and devoid of any real chocolate -- give me pause. As my thinking on it has evolved, I believe it's part form and part formula, so for me it's a hand-formed, ganache-based confection in a spherical or conical shape. 

As I continue reading Notter's The Art of the Chocolatier, I once again find myself questioning a word I thought I understood: praline. I've always known the term to refer to a caramelized, nut-based confection (one that, in my mind, is crunchy) -- yet in front of me is a recipe for a butter ganache praline that doesn't contain any nuts and definitely isn't crunchy. 

In my head, I can hear Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride saying, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

And so down the rabbit hole I go -- it's hard not to as a researcher. 

As it turns out, there are multiple uses of the term praline. It can indeed refer to a nut-based confection, usually almond or hazelnut, as I had thought (turns out that one is French). There's also an American praline, where pecans are combined with sugar and cream, resulting in a fudge-like confection. And in the Belgian use of the term, praline can refer to any soft centre contained within a chocolate shell. Regarding the latter, pralines have apparently always exhibited significant variety in terms of shape and flavour, are more sophisticated in their decoration than truffles (which tend to be simple, more rustic), and are popular in gift boxes. 

Now, that last description has me thinking. That blueberry iceberg bonbon that I made during my chocolatier program? That seems closer to a praline than a truffle, given that it was comprised of a molded dark chocolate shell hand painted with coloured cocoa butter and filled with a soft blueberry white chocolate filling. 

That leads me to two thoughts:

First, there should be a game called Truffle, Praline, or Bonbon? and the prize should be chocolate.

Second, I wish I could pick Robert's brain in the cafeteria one more time and discuss in depth the term praline. 

Rest easy, friend. You will be missed.

 

Getting Nutty With Fillings

Up until now, I've worked almost exclusively with dark chocolate in this professional chocolatier program (the exceptions were a ganache centre and a piped decoration). Considering many of my friends prefer milk chocolate, I was very excited when the opportunity to work with milk chocolate came about. I was required to make a molded chocolate with a nut-based centre that was decorated with a transfer sheet on the bottom. I chose to make gianduja, otherwise known as the original nutella.

Gianduja is a combination of hazelnut paste and couverture chocolate. I was excited to make it, because it would surely be delicious and because I had been meaning to try making nut butter in my food processor for a while now -- and it's the same basic process. I bought hazelnuts, roasted them, removed the skins by rubbing the nuts in a clean tea towel, and then put my KitchenAid to work. Everything I'd read noted that the process should take about 10 minutes, and sure enough at the 10-minute mark, the consistency changed and was just about perfect.

I melted my couverture chocolate and then combined it with the hazelnut paste. I was thrilled with the end result. Yes, it's a pale version of nutella (there's no cocoa powder added), but it tastes absolutely incredible. It started out very fluid, but as it sat and the chocolate began to crystallize, the texture thickened.

I then set about tempering my milk chocolate and preparing my mold. I decided to try a technique in which you combine luster dust with vodka and paint the mold before proceeding with the shelling process. It had a very different consistency from the cocoa butter I had used in an earlier chocolate and I determined that it was best used for a splatter-type of painting. After painting half of the mold and letting it dry, I shelled my bonbons, piped the gianduja into them, and then capped them using a transfer sheet, as per the assignment guidelines.

I must say, I had been a skeptic in regards to the transfer sheet. Perhaps it was a bit of snobbery on my part -- it's a piece of acetate that has been printed with a cocoa butter design that you apply to chocolate, so the end product isn't really "hand-decorated" unless you paint your own transfer sheets. When I ordered mine, I deliberately bought a golden swirl pattern because I've seen it on so many chocolates -- it's clearly popular and it looks good on milk chocolate. Using the transfer sheet in the capping process resulted in an absolutely perfect bottom on my chocolates -- and as one of my friends noted on facebook, Who doesn't love a perfect bottom? (In retrospect, that probably should have been the title of this blog post, but I'm not sure it would attract the right sort of attention.)

I think I would likely use this process in the future -- even with clear acetate -- just for the aesthetic appeal of the finished product. Alternatively, I could have custom transfer sheets printed with my name and brand everything I make the way that Kate Weiser does. I've no idea how much that would cost, but I'm sure I'll soon find out.

After all, I'll soon be in the business plan portion of this program.

Stay tuned!