Pauls homemade chocolates
Hello
Paul made a huge amount of chocolates this year as Christmas presents, they are much more complicated to do than I ever knew, so much work, but they really were very good, tasty and pretty as well.
We looked everywhere for white boxes with plastic windows, but had to settle on this for the packaging in the end
There are two different types here, the filled and the ones that are dipped and then you put a transfer on the top. It all starts with melting, then tempering the chocolate, this forms a particular kind of crystal in the chocolate so that when it hardens it will be nice and shiney with a crisp bite to it.
Tempering involves a lot of shoving about of the chocolate with spatulas, it looks quite fun
For the moulded chocolates you then fill up the moulds and tap them out, should have seen all the chocolate all over the place! Then after a day they are ready for filling, these were caramel. He did raspberry ganache, passionfruit ganache and an orange cointreau as well
Somehow we missed out pictures of the dipping ones, they are solidish centres that you fill a square of plastic with, let them set, cut them into squares and dip. The fillings were lovely, based on a hazelnut praline, all crispy caramel with delicious hazelnuts, we still have a tub of it that I keep dipping into. The transfers are amazing, you press on a little square of pattern after you have the dipped chocolate, then next day peel them off and voila!
I completely missed out on getting my share of these too as I was home on Christmas day babysitting our cat as he had just had surgery on his ear. Paul was in such a panic to get all the food in the car that morning not a spare was left!
January 6th, 2010 at 6:11 am
these look wonderful!
January 6th, 2010 at 6:13 am
this is great. i love the little branch/log shape too.
January 6th, 2010 at 6:17 am
Wow, they look amazing!
January 6th, 2010 at 6:23 am
They look both yummy and absolutely gorgeous!
January 6th, 2010 at 6:31 am
The stripes are fantastic! Love that.
I’ve been craving passion fruit like crazy lately but it’s not easy to come by around here. Passion fruit ganache sounds amazing.
January 6th, 2010 at 6:36 am
i just took a truffle making class and really enjoyed it! it’s definately a lot of fun!
January 6th, 2010 at 6:44 am
OH MY GOSH!! Those are BEAUTIFUL!!!
I LOVE the process pictures (I love that stuff! hee hee) It reminded me of when I was little & we’d go to places that made chocolates & fudge in house & you could watch them working–I thought it would be the MOST AMAZING JOB IN THE WORLD to move that chocolate around all day on those marble tables! Hee hee!!
January 6th, 2010 at 6:50 am
awwwww! sorry to hear about your cat, hope kitty is doing well! And wow so much work 🙂 Labor of love ^O^ Thanks for sharing photos with us!
January 6th, 2010 at 10:22 am
I have a new found respect for every chocolate I have ever eaten. I had no idea it was such a complicated and time consuming process to make chocolates. I am most impressed. Well done Paul. They look (and I bet taste) AMAZING!
January 6th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Paul is a chocolate making genius! I am still remembering his macarons from last year and his fruit cake from a few years ago when I came to visit. (I swear just thinking about it is making me out on pounds!)
Hope you had a wonderful Christmas, albeit with a wounded kitty!
January 6th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Amazing skill. They look incredible!
January 7th, 2010 at 10:14 am
I love the delight Paul takes in making chocolates and macarons.
The love he puts into the chocolates is so evident in the finished product!
January 8th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
[…] Christina and Paul make amazing chocolates […]
January 9th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
Yummy chocolates! And you’ve got such lovely packaging! =)
January 22nd, 2010 at 9:34 am
Goodlord!!!!!!!!! these look amazing…. 🙂