I Ran Out of Chocolate

This week, I made the final piece for the four-piece assortment -- a truffle. It required dark chocolate, for both the ganache and the shell. As I measured out 350g for the ganache, I was surprised that it took the entire bag of leftover chocolate pieces from the week before. I glanced at the callets left in my Cambro container and had a moment of concern before proceeding. I'd never run out of chocolate before. Surely I wouldn't this time...

I prepared the ganache and let it sit for about 90 minutes before scooping the truffles. Once the chocolate had crystallized a little more, I refined the shape into spheres. While they chilled in the fridge, I turned to tempering the chocolate for the hand-rolled shell. This is when panic set in.

I knew I'd need to coat all 50+ truffles twice. I also knew that the more chocolate you temper, the longer your working time is. I figured I'd need about 400-500g to accomplish the task. I had 350g. There was a good chance that I could make it work if I had to, but it meant that there was no room for error. If the chocolate wasn't perfectly tempered, I wouldn't have any chocolate remaining to fix it by seeding. I started contemplating workarounds and concluded that I could always add milk chocolate to the dark if necessary. It wouldn't be ideal, but it was an option in the worst case scenario.  I took a deep breath and told myself to be patient. 

And so I started. Heating and stirring, heating and stirring. When I thought I had the chocolate at the right temperature, I tested it with parchment paper. While waiting for the results, I continued stirring the chocolate. Uncertain if the first test was going to successfully set, I tested the chocolate a second time to confirm it was indeed in temper. It was was ready for coating. 

Armed with a pair of latex gloves, I put a small amount of chocolate on my fingers and rolled each truffle by hand. In the past, I've gotten impatient or tired going through this process, so I kept telling myself to keep it a small amount of chocolate and do 3 truffles before adding more chocolate. After the first coat was done, I repeated the process, this time doing 2 truffles at a time. As I progressed, my upper back started to hurt and I slowed down. By the time I was coating the last five truffles, the chocolate remaining in my bowl was rapidly solidifying. I was out of time.

I moved the two trays of truffles into the fridge for 5 minutes to help the crystallization process along. And after that, I popped them into paper cups so that they would be ready for packaging. 

While I managed to finish the fourth piece for this year's assortment, I still had a few more seasonal chocolate projects to complete. I had run out of chocolate -- not milk or white, but dark -- and on the day after all of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales ended. Of all the luck! I checked each supplier I could think of. All of them had raised their prices again and their offers of free shipping were just a memory. Not only would the price be exorbitant, but it would take at least a week or more to receive the shipment. 

As a final Hail Mary, I checked Costco. When I looked at their site last week, they only had milk chocolate callets available. Much to my surprise, the 811 formulation was suddenly available. I added it to my cart and checked the shipping estimate. It would arrive within a few days. Naturally, I checked out as quickly as possible. 

So production at the chocolate factory was temporarily paused. The weather on Thursday and Friday delayed the delivery, but UPS came through and a 5lb box of chocolate appeared on my front step on Saturday. 

Costco has saved Christmas! 

Discounted Chocolate

How many of you wait until the day after Valentine's Day or Halloween (or any holiday for that matter) to buy discounted chocolate? Maybe you go for a box of Turtles, or a bag of Lindt truffles, or the can of Quality Street that you couldn't afford before Christmas. Almost always, it's industrial chocolate that you're buying. And to be clear, there's no judgement here. Industrial chocolate is delicious. (I'm looking at you, Reese peanut butter cups.) It's not normally ethically sourced, single origin chocolate made by a small business.

So you can imagine my surprise last weekend while strolling through the clearance section of Michaels (of all places!) when I saw a small box of chocolates that was now 70% off. I noticed that the label referred to "farm to bar chocolate" and thought it interesting. The brand, Truffle Pig, sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place it. After confirming the price of a mere $2.10 at a self-serve scanner, I decided whatever they were, they were worth it. 

I have to admit, I was a little confused to have found this chocolate at Michaels. I spend a fair amount of time browsing there. I'm familiar with the horribly overpriced industrial chocolate and other snacks near the cash registers. Despite being at Michaels several times before Christmas, I don't recall having seen these anywhere in the store. Their sudden appearance after Christmas is a bit of a mystery to me. In any event...

Truffle Pig Chocolate is based in British Columbia. A woman-owned business, it is focussed on ethical chocolate that is sourced in fair and sustainable ways. A box of five truffles (aka piglets) can be purchased from their website for $6.00 and chocolate bars start at $3.75 each. These are already reasonable prices!

One of the things we liked about them immediately was that each truffle is individually wrapped. Now, admittedly, this does increase the amount of packaging (and is the type of wrapper that can't easily be recycled) and so is less sustainable from that perspective. But it does ensure the freshness of each piece when eaten over a longer period of time.

Ok, let's be honest, you can easily eat this box in one sitting, but as I write this I'm proud to report that four days later, there are two piglets left. (No promises on how much longer they will survive...)

The colourful packaging is appealing and clearly identifies the various flavours. And it features their very recognizable, happy pigs. (Why pigs, you ask? Because pigs are known to be truffle hunters -- the fungus variety, not the chocolate.)

Made with single origin chocolate from Nicaragua (you can meet the farmers here), these truffles are delicious. When I've tried other single-origin chocolate, I've often been surprised by the fruity or floral notes, but these, to me, had more of an earthy undertone. The chocolate is smooth and has just the right amount of sweetness. The peanut butter and hazelnut centres were beautifully balanced and the piglets were, quite frankly, cute.  

So, here's to discounted ethical chocolate and discovering it in unexpected places! And if you have the opportunity to purchase Truffle Pig Chocolate in the future, regardless of the price, it's entirely worth every penny. 

2023 Christmas Assortment

Now that the majority of the boxes have been delivered, I can blog more specifically about this year's Christmas assortment!

For 2023, I made 30 four-flavour boxes, up from last year's 24. This was deliberate on my part, since I had planned to offer a few up for sale on Facebook for those who don't normally get to try my chocolates. Thanks to slightly larger batch sizes for two of the recipes, I also unexpectedly had enough pieces to pack 12 two-flavour boxes, half of which I also intended to sell. Unfortunately, my plan was foiled last week when my travel itinerary abruptly changed due to weather and I left for home two days early. I handed out the extra four-flavour boxes to individuals in the hall before leaving campus and tossed the six remaining two-flavour boxes into my carry-on to give out at our annual Crappy Craft Night. 

The four-flavour box included a salted caramel enrobed in dark chocolate, an orange cardamom truffle hand-rolled in dark chocolate, an apricot brandy praline with a dark chocolate shell, and a milk chocolate peanut butter meltaway. The salted caramel featured Sonoran sea salt, given to me by a friend who lives in Arizona. The orange cardamom truffle was prepared using whole cardamom pods, given to me by another friend earlier in the year. The peanut butter meltaway contained no special ingredients, but was a departure from the usual mint meltaway (and I think it would make a delicious filling in the future). But the really special creation this year was the apricot brandy praline.

A nod to my grandmother, who was known to keep a bottle of apricot brandy in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator, this praline has been in the works since January. It was then that I decided I would try a layered bonbon, initially thinking I would pair an apricot brandy ganache with a layer of marzipan, since I love the combination of apricots and almonds. In July, while in Newfoundland, I purchased a bottle of apricot brandy, since it doesn't appear to be available in any Nova Scotian liquor stores (in comparison, NLC had several different brands to choose from -- obviously Newfoundlanders like their apricot brandy). By the fall, my thinking had evolved and instead of pairing the ganache with marzipan, I decided to pair it with apricot jam to brighten and emphasize the apricot flavour. Featuring a dark chocolate shell decorated with copper edible luster dust, the final product had a dollop of apricot jam encased in apricot brandy ganache. And while I only got to try one of them before packaging, I think the jam was the right decision to create a burst of flavour. I was thrilled with the results -- a true homage to Honora. 

After filling 30 shells with apricot brandy ganache, I found myself with enough ganache to make another 20 truffles, and so I piped and rolled and hand-enrobed those as well. They were paired with the remaining peanut butter meltaways to create smaller treat boxes. While the truffles hit a little different than the pralines, due to the absence of the apricot jam, they still pack a flavour punch. 

I'm very pleased with how this year's assortment turned out. I think it's some of my best work, not only in terms of the flavours, but also in terms of the execution. This is the first year that I've nailed the temper of my chocolate for every piece that I produced. And I finally feel like I'm getting the hang of hand-rolling truffles. 

Hopefully those lucky enough to receive these boxes enjoyed them. Chocolate made in truly small batch quantities is qualitatively different from that which is mass-produced. And every piece is a labour of love. 

The best things really do come in small packages. 

Spruce Tip Truffles

This week's chocolate study was an experiment that I've been meaning to do for, oh, five years or so? (But who's keeping track?)

During my professional chocolatier program, I got the idea that I should try making truffles with ingredients that are either traditionally part of Newfoundland foodways (like berries and molasses) or that were grown in Newfoundland (like hazelnuts and spruce tips). Fresh spruce tips, however, were not in season at the time that I was completing my various assignments. Freeze dried spruce tips weren't available either and I just couldn't imagine that pickled spruce tips would work. I put the project on hold. 

Spruce tips, if you aren't aware, are high in vitamin C. Depending on the variety and time of harvest, they can have a citrus-like or piney flavour. When left too long, I'm told they can smell like cat urine (definitely not the desired flavour profile). 

A year later, while visiting my sister, I spied the almost lime green, new growth on some trees. I quickly gathered a small bag to take back with me. I froze them and took care to transport them in a cooler, and then they landed in my freezer. Admittedly, I forgot about them for a few months (or more than a few months). And then the great power outage of 2020 struck. My apartment was without power for a month while I was on vacation in another province and the entire freezer had to be gutted (by a friend who deserves more and better for her efforts). So long, spruce tips.

Eventually, I had the opportunity to pick a new batch of spruce tips locally and once again popped them into the freezer (to languish...). But they found their way out of the freezer this week when I decided the time had finally come. 

I had leftover heavy cream. I had a small stash of spruce tips. And I needed a topic for a blog post. 

I heated the cream to a simmer and then added the spruce tips. Then I removed the pot from the heat and let the spruce tips steep for 30 minutes. Next, I weighed out chocolate for a small batch of truffles and added the appropriate amount of cream. A quick 90 seconds in the microwave and I was able to whisk together a luscious ganache. After leaving it to cool for a half hour, I scooped out 26 truffles and left them to crystallize. Then I refined their shape and rolled them in cocoa powder. 

Ta da! Spruce tip truffles!

Now, when I tasted the cream before combining it with the chocolate, it had a pronounced woodsy flavour. But the dark chocolate (not surprisingly) overpowered the spruce tips in the final mix. Consequently, the flavour is faint and doesn't register at all if the truffles are eaten cold.

I think the concept is solid, but the execution leaves something to be desired. First, additional experimentation will be necessary to determine the best ratio of cream to spruce tips -- and that will likely have to wait until next spring when I can harvest the tender tips once again. I am curious, however, about the possibility of acquiring some freeze-dried spruce tips and amping up the flavour by pulverizing some and rolling the truffles in the powder. Second, I may have to swap the 54% chocolate for white chocolate, which would provide a more neutral base for the delicate flavour. 

Nevertheless, I'm happy to finally have brought this idea to life and thrilled to have a container of delicious truffles in my fridge for a hit of chocolate whenever I like. I can see chocolate season approaching and I'm looking forward to putting new ideas into practice. And while there won't be a spruce tip truffle in this year's chocolate box, I'm sure there will be other delicious options.

Perfect Spheres of Joy

I'm actually writing this entry while sailing to Newfoundland. It's finally that time of year when I make my annual summer pilgrimage home. Traditionally, I would take a night crossing over, picking up a Big Mac combo for the road (or the ocean, if we're being literal), and then a day crossing back, with a bologna sandwich as my traditional meal. Things are a bit different this year because I rescheduled my original booking due to an important milestone deadline for a project I'm working on. Consequently, I find myself on a day crossing with a packed lunch.

What's in that lunch? Well, first, let me tell you that it isn't nearly as spectacular as most of the packed lunches that I saw in the queue waiting to board. You can tell the Newfoundlanders from the visitors by the size and contents of their cooler. Actually, probably the presence of a cooler at all is a tell. I watched as one lady assembled her lunch for a family of three right before boarding started. She filled a large shopping basket with crackers, cheese strings, beef jerky, small bags of chips, pudding, fruit, beverages... There was no end to the snacks! My sister would applaud her style and efforts, and tell me that I'm never prepared.

I am a Newfoundlander though, so you won't catch me on a ferry without a lunch. Complaining about the food prices on Marine Atlantic is a sacred tradition that must be upheld. I have a peanut butter and jam sandwich (which I affectionately refer to as a PBJ), a bag of Cruncheez from my favourite Old Dutch dealer, and two Lindt truffles, with a can of diet ginger ale (Canada Dry, just as BNL would want it). 

Until recently, Lindt truffles were 100% a Christmas thing for me. I would mark the start of the festive season with a Festive Special from Swiss Chalet, which includes a box of five, and I would have a few on Christmas Day from my stocking. (Truth is, I was devastated when Swiss Chalet replaced the Toblerone bar with Lindt truffles. I still wish they would switch back. But I digress...)

The truffle flavours, of course, were pretty standard -- milk, dark, white, caramel... Dependable, for sure, but predictable.

Imagine my surprise, then, the first time I went to the Lindt store in Halifax. I'd heard from a friend that it existed, but my trips to Halifax tend to centre around the downtown core, so I had never visited the box stores that developed on the outskirts of town. That is, until two years ago when my boyfriend and I made our first trip to Halifax for a weekend getaway. I was on a waterslide for the first time in maybe 30+ years, we ate at my favourite Halifax restaurant, and we made a pilgrimage to the Lindt store. 

I had never seen so many different flavours of Lindt truffles before. Naturally, I wanted to try them all and it's easy enough to do exactly that because you can pack your own gossamer bag full of truffles. We decided to get two of every flavour so that we could sample them together and then fill the rest of our small bag with our favourites (like dark chocolate sea salt). We did this again the following year, but got smart and bought the larger bag of 75 truffles. 

Now, not surprisingly, there have been a few flavours that I am more jazzed to try than he is. Among them on the last trip were coconut, mango, and matcha. And it's the coconut and matcha ones that I have here with me now. 

The matcha was of interest to me because I tried making my own a few months ago. While I was happy with the flavour, the texture wasn't ideal. The Lindt version was, of course, incredibly smooth. With a white chocolate shell and ganache, it was overly sweet and the matcha flavour wasn't as prominent as I would have liked it to be. It was just too subtle for my taste. (And what's with the air bubble in the centre?)

The coconut, however, was perfection. It had a milk chocolate shell with a white chocolate ganache that was so creamy it was hard to believe it was made with chocolate. The coconut flavour was present but not overpowering. It was a silky smooth, perfect sphere of joy. 

It would be impossible for a hand-rolled truffle to be so perfectly formed and have such a silky ganache filling (it wouldn't be firm enough to shape and dip in chocolate). But it may surprise you to know that you actually can make a Lindt truffle dupe at home. You see, you can buy trays of pre-formed truffle shells to speed up production. You simply fill them with the flavoured centre of your choice and then cap the little opening with some tempered chocolate, creating a sort of belly button. In most cases, a chocolatier would then roll or dip these in another coating of chocolate, but it isn't necessary (and isn't done with Lindt). 

One tip on the Lindt truffles though: like the chocolate I referenced a few weeks ago, the shells soften in the heat and the centres will actually become liquid. If that appeals to you, then you can stop reading right now, but if you prefer the snap of the shell and the creamy centre, then store them in the fridge in an airtight container during the summer and pull them out for a half hour to come to room temperature before eating them. 

So far, I think my favourite Lindt truffle has been the caramel and sea salt one. How about you? What's your favourite Lindt truffle flavour? Share it in the comments below!

Chocolate Inspiration

About a month ago, I saw a several of my coworkers leaving campus with beautiful gift boxes that smelled heavenly -- presents from a partnership meeting that occurred earlier in the day. I admit I was mildly jealous. I'd been in marathon meetings for what seemed like weeks, but there were no presents to be had. Then, just as I was packing up for the day, a colleague popped by my office and gave me her gift box. I was thrilled -- especially when I opened it to find inside a selection of beautifully aromatic spices. I promised that I would put them to good use making curries. I had one particular curry in mind -- Restaurant Style Egg Masala Curry (do yourself a favour and make this -- watch the video here). 

What my colleague didn't know was that only a week earlier, I had been at Bulk Barn looking at spices and was utterly horrified by the price of cardamom pods. I knew I was getting low, but decided to take a pass in the hope that I would find a more economical source (knowing, of course, that I'd likely end up back at Bulk Barn in a few weeks buying them there anyway). 

Only I didn't! Inside this beautiful gift box were cardamom pods, cinnamon sticks, cloves, and black peppercorns. The scent was magnificent. 

It took me a few weeks to get some new spice jars for my growing collection and then I set about separating the peppercorns from the cloves, since they had mingled during transport. And as I stood there engaged in some aromatherapy, my mind wandered from curry to chai. And then it hit me. Sure, this spice stash promised many delicious meals and beverages in the future, but it also could serve as chocolate inspiration. 

"Think. Think. Think," I urged my brain, channeling my inner (Winnie the) Pooh Bear. Clove would be overpowering. Usually pink peppercorns are the preferred pairing for chocolate. Cardamom...

Cardamom! Member of the ginger family. I was sure I'd seen a cardamom praline before and so I took to Google to confirm. Sure enough, several chocolatiers offer cardamom chocolate combinations in a variety of forms -- bars, drinking chocolate, pralines. And given that these warm spices are so closely associated with Christmas, my mind leapt to the idea of using this flavour combination for my annual four-piece box. 

And so the die is cast. It's now my goal to develop an orange cardamom truffle this fall when my chocolate laboratory reopens. While I've seen a few recipes that call for Grand Marnier with cardamom, I suspect that the boozy flavour might overpower the delicate spice. Instead, my plan is to infuse cream using the cardamom pods and some orange zest, and then prepare a dark chocolate ganache for hand-rolled truffles. 

One piece down, three to go!