Salted Caramel Chocolates

I think I mentioned this in a post a while ago...but I can't remember when actually. Nevertheless, a few years ago I took a chocolate-making class via some Groupon.  It was eye-opening to say the least.  I mean, my eyes didn't just open but they bulged at the sight of the machine in the back kitchen that spewed out a thick stream of melted chocolate.  If I could have just positioned my open mouth below that fountain of chocolate...

Aside from that godsend of a machine, our rather intense teacher exposed me to the process of tempering chocolate--which was honestly eye-opening.  He spoke about the crystalline structures in chocolate and specifically those very important beta crystals that one must get into alignment at just the right temperature--via tempering the chocolate--in order for the finished chocolate product to have that gorgeous sheen on the outside and a crisp hard crack when broken.  Unfortunately, attaining those two key characteristics has always been a challenge for me.

Now, there are a few different ways to temper chocolate.  In the class, we did--what I would term--the "messy" way.  We poured the un-tempered melted chocolate onto a marble slab, took a bench scraper and kept scooping and scraping up the chocolate back and forth onto the slab until our teacher gave it a quick look and told us to test it--and knowing what I know now, I have no idea how he would know without using a thermometer. I guess with experience you just come to know? Anyway, by testing it we took a small amount of the chocolate we had been working with and put it in the freezer to harden.  If it was shiny and had a snap when broken, it was tempered. If not, we had to keep agitating it and testing it.  The other--less messy--way is seeding.  With seeding, you basically do all of the tempering in a bowl. And since temperature plays such a vital indicator of whether or not chocolate has been tempered--and I like being as exact as possible--I use a thermometer to help me determine how close I am to forming those famed beta crystals.  Alas, even with my handy thermometer I can never seem to get a perfectly tempered chocolate.  There's always streaks.  Blah.

So, when I read an article on Serious Eats proclaiming that there is another way to achieve a perfect tempered chocolate that wasn't messy or labor intensive (i.e. stirring and agitating the chocolate until your arm feels like falling off), I was intrigued.  Especially since it involved the use of a sous vide.   The beauty with using a sous vide to temper chocolate is that--again since temperature plays such an important role--you can adjust the temperature fairly easily and hold that temperature.  And once you've achieved the tempered state, you should be able to hold it in that state--provided you keep agitating the chocolate every once in a while.

I actually didn't have a sous vide at the time I read this article and the only thing I knew about them was that they were used to cook meat.  Hence, the idea of one being used to temper chocolate was alluring.  So alluring that I ended up buying a sous vide.  And I've had it for about a year now and have used it fairly often--but to cook pork tenderloins, pork chops and chicken.  But not to temper chocolate.  I know, I know.  The reason that sold me on buying it was the idea that I could temper chocolate perfectly.  However, I think part of me was a little hesitant to try it out because I was afraid it wouldn't work and then I'd have to go back to the seeding method--which I can't seem to get right--and then tempering chocolate would just be another one of those things that is eating away at my soul because I can never make it work.  Woe is me. Well, not really.  Because the sous vide method actually worked pretty darn well.  Is it perfect?  No. But I did get a good shine and fairly good snap. There were some small disfigurements and the snap wasn't as crisp as I think it should have been. But maybe next time if I try pulling the chocolate out of the sous vide and agitating it more often I'll get those beta crystals in line a bit better.  In any case, I was pleased with the results.  At the same time, it's still another method  that needs practice.  And I don't think--as much as I dislike it--I will completely give up on the seeding method.  It needs some practice too.  But if you have a sous vide and you have trouble tempering chocolate via traditional methods then give this a shot because it really does work quite nicely.

Recipe for 12 - 2 inch diameter hemispheres (For a great tutorial on how to temper chocolate in a sous vide, visit Serious Eats)


16oz of dark chocolate (I used Callebaut semi-sweet) chopped
1/2c salted caramel sauce (recipe follows for about 1 cup of sauce)

Salted caramel sauce

1/2c heavy cream
2 1/2 T unsalted butter
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
3/4c granulated sugar
2 T light corn syrup
2 T water

First, using a small sauce pan, combine the cream, butter and salt.  Heat the the mixture over low heat while stirring until the butter has melted and the salt has dissolved.  Once that's been accomplished, remove the pan from the heat, stir in the vanilla and set nearby.  In a medium heavy bottom sauce pan, combine the sugar, corn syrup and water.  Heat that mixture over medium-high heat.  Let it boil up--bubbles will ebb and flow--just let it go until it starts changing color.  Once it starts changing color, slowly swirl the pan around to distribute the heat evenly.  After it gets to a good even amber color and the bubbles are much smaller, reduce the heat to low and carefully pour in the cream mixture while whisking constantly.  Remove the caramel sauce from the heat and let it cool completely before use.

For Assembly

Temper your chocolate in whatever manner you have at your disposal.  Once tempered, pour about half of the chocolate into the mold to line the insides of the hemispheres with it.  Turn the molds upside down and tap out any excess chocolate--make sure that the surfce of each hemisphere is completely covered in chocolate.  Place the chocolate mold aside to set.  After it's set, fill the chocolate lined hemispheres with your completely cooled caramel sauce--I put about a tablespoon in for these particular molds.  Then, pour the other half of your tempered chocolate over the caramel to fill the rest of the molds.  Use a bench scraper to scrape evenly along the surface of the mold to remove any excess chocolate and to ensure that each chocolate has a nice flat even bottom. Set the chocolates aside to set/harden.  Once they have set, turn the mold over carefully and tap out the chocolates. Enjoy.

Homemade Twix

I only have one or two items under my 'Confections' category of my blog.  So I feel like I'm lacking within this realm.  A few years ago I took a chocolates making class taught by a local chocolatier. It was great fun.  Our instructor--the chocolatier--was a bit of an odd bird, very passionate about chocolate making--which isn't what made him odd by the way--and intent on making us understand the different crystalline structures in chocolate.

Note:  Once you keep chocolate cold and take it out of the cold, it starts to condense and don't look as pretty :-(

Truth be told, the only one I can remember is the beta form which is the one you aim to form when you temper chocolate--the most important form really.  When you get a bunch of beta crystals to form just so, that's when you get that pretty shine and that crisp snap that good tempered chocolate is supposed to have.  Tempering chocolate is the key to making chocolates look professional.  It's also probably the main reason why my 'Confections' category is so sparsely populated.

Tempering chocolate isn't necessarily easy for me in that I'm not always successful at it.  In the class I took we tempered it using an old fashioned method (a.k.a the super messy method) of pouring it out onto a nice marble slab and scrapping it around the slab back and forth with a bench scraper until our instructor--the chocolatier--"knew" it was done.  Well that was all well and good in class but not so much at home without an expert eye to tell me when it was tempered.

Luckily there is another method that's more suitable for home wannabe chocolatiers which is called seeding.  Seeding is less messy and gives you actual mensurable temperatures to shoot for. But, you may have to stir the chocolate until your arm falls off or--at the very least--until it is painfully aching. The way it works is you melt about 2/3 of the of the amount of chocolate you are using until the chocolate reaches a certain temperature.  Then, you remove the chocolate from the heat and little by little start adding the rest of the chocolate, stirring it until it melts and continuing to stir it--somewhat vigorously--thereafter until the chocolate reaches the tempered state temperature.  It seems pretty simple right? Well, evidently not.

I've done it many times and like I mentioned earlier, sometimes I'm successful and sometimes I'm not.  Sometimes, some of my chocolate looks perfectly tempered with an amazing shine and snap. Other times, it's got a few grayish white streaks running through part of it once it sets.  I read an article recently by J. Kenji Lopez  over at Serious Eats about three different ways to temper chocolate.  His recommended method--that he claims is foolproof--is using a sous vide cooker--which I didn't know was possible.  But now I want a sous vide cooker. Sure, they cost of hundreds of dollars but it seems well worth it if I can get a perfectly tempered chocolate in my kitchen.  Plus, I hear them things are good at cooking perfectly juicy meat too so they sound like they are a gift from heaven.  Nevertheless, a couple of weeks ago I decided to place my tempering chocolate woes aside and make Twix bars.

I love Twix bars.  Caramel and shortbread cookie encased in milk chocolate is a simple combination but also a magnificent one.  Plus it gave me a chance to practice tempering milk chocolate which I had yet to try.  And I really wanted to make perfect Twix bars that were perfect rectangular prisms--just like you kinda get out of the package.  I thought that if I froze everything just right and used a super sharp knife and a ruler to cut and measure everything up just so nicely that I could do it.  But that didn't work out.  After I assembled the shortbread and the caramel in a baking pan and froze it up for a day or so, I removed it from the cold and then the caramel quickly came to room temperature and then things got messy fast...  Also, I tried to make these Twix bars "healthier"--not healthy--but "healthier" by making a whole wheat shortbread.  This was ok but it made the cookie a little more crumblier so even when frozen it didn't always cut so pretty.  And then there was the first attempt at tempering milk chocolate--which was actually the Caramelia baking chocolate courtesy of Valrhona--which is a mouth-watering chocolate that proves that dreams can come true.

Anyway, the thing about milk chocolate is that it has different temperatures for tempering than dark chocolates--most likely based on the fact that is has different ingredients and thus different properties. What did happen when I tempered it is that it did have a bit of a snap to it but not as much as one that comes along with tempered dark chocolate.  But it didn't have a very big shine to it.  But I have some thoughts on this.  So as for the snap...well milk chocolate is "softer" than dark chocolate so that seemed like maybe it was ok.  I mean, maybe milk chocolate can't form as many beta crystals as dark because of all of the other ingredients in it?  I'm purely speculating here based on whatever makes sense in my head.  Also, maybe that's why there wasn't a shine to it.  Does tempered milk chocolate ever shine as much as dark--like maybe it's just not as glossy?  Maybe.  To make a long story short, I think I was actually successful at tempering this chocolate.  There weren't any streaks and everything was smooth, it had a bit of a snap and some shine.  And I'm comfortable with that conclusion.

Recipe

Shortbread

9T unsalted butter at room temp.
1/4c brown sugar (light or dark)
1 1/2c whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp kosher salt

Line a 9 inch square baking pan with parchment paper--allowing an overhang of the paper on all sides so that you can easily pull the finished product out of the pan when ready.  Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Using the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy--a few minutes.  Then add the flour and salt and mix until just combined and there isn't any dry flour on the bottom of the bowl.  Now, press the dough into the prepared pan evenly.  You can use a small glass or if you have a small rolling pin to smooth it out.  If not, your hands work fine--I just wanted the top of my cookie dough to be smooth.  Bake until lightly browned which may take 25-30 minutes.  Once done, remove the pan from the heat and let cool completely.

Caramel

For the caramel, I used my go-to recipe that I found and have fallen deeply in love with from a blog called Baking a Moment.  Double the recipe found here and let it cool completely before assemblage. Another option for the caramel is using a different recipe that will cook the caramel to more of a soft ball stage.  The reason for making a caramel like that would be so that you hopefully avoid the mess I had in using more of a caramel sauce.  So, instead you would use more of a firmer caramel candy...

Chocolate

16oz of a chocolate of your choosing.  I used a milk chocolate but dark would be delicious too.  You can choose to temper it or not.  If you do temper it and would like a good guide, visit Serious Eats.

Assembly

Pour the cooled caramel over the cooled shortbread cookie crust and even out.  Then place the baking pan in the freezer until the caramel is as firm as possible--I let mine sit in there for about a day.  Once the caramel is firm remove the baking pan from the freezer.  Pull the whole assembly out of the pan using the parchment paper overhangs you created when you lined it--you may have to run a knife along the edges to loosen it up a bit.  After it's out of the pan, remove the parchment paper and place the assembly on a cutting board.  Cut the thing up into bars--a size of your choosing.  In retrospect--due to the nature of the crumblier whole wheat dough--it might be easier to cut them into 2 inch square bars.  Basically the wider the better because if you go too narrow then the cookie is more likely to be less structurally sound.  Now that you have everything cut up, put it all back in the freezer to re-firm the caramel.  When you feel your caramel is firm enough, then melt/temper your chocolate in a big bowl.  Once it's melted--and as quickly as possible--dip the chilled bars in the bowl of chocolate one by one--I found that using two forks to lift it out of the bowl was easiest.  Place the finished bars on a sheet of wax paper, parchment paper or a silicone mat and let the chocolate set. Once the chocolate is set, eat voraciously or store in an air tight container.  I've been keeping mine in the freezer but any place would be fine as long as your chocolate doesn't melt.

(Happy Holiday's) Fudge

It's been almost a month since my last post.  Not because I didn't want to post.  No no--that was certainly not the case.  The reason I haven't posted is because I was in Italy!!  Yes, for two weeks my partner, his parents and myself were trekking around the Italian peninsula--from Milan to Sicily--eating and drinking and sightseeing and eating and drinking and eating.  I really enjoyed the eating part.  The patisserie's are basically on every corner so I was in heaven.  It was mega fun but I'm happy to be back mostly because I missed baking.  Maybe that's weird but whatever.

Anyway, you might think my first post back would be some sort of Italian baked good or pastry but I didn't really want to do any of that now.  What I wanted to do was make fudge.  And not just one type of fudge but three types.  I never make fudge but I love it.  This past Memorial Day weekend we went up to Mackinaw Island and bought like a giant box of several types of fudge.  We said we would cut a small piece of each type for ourselves and then give the rest to our co-workers but that never happened.   Those small pieces for ourselves turned out to be the entire brick.  I mean....I really like fudge.  You know?  So that happened.

But this time I couldn't keep all of the fudge for myself.  I promised my sisters that I would send them some so I divided it up evenly and shipped it off.  Of course I sampled it.  I'm not dumb.

The three types I made were peanut butter, salted caramel and chocolate.  The chocolate fudge was a traditional recipe that I took from one of my cookbooks and it was perfect.

It tasted classic--just like the stuff we got in Mackinaw.  The other two types were more of a quick type of fudge that I grabbed from another great blog that looked and sounded beautiful.  They are less intensive and use condensed milk as a base.

So this method of making fudge is amazing and easy and the end product tastes sweet, creamy and bad-ass.  But.  But, I think that I prefer the more classic fudge.  It has the melt-in-your-mouth texture which the other recipes didn't necessarily have.  I think it's also a bit smoother and although it's more of an intensive method to make it's worth the effort.  That said, I would certainly make the other types again and I encourage all to try them.

Recipes:

For the Peanut butter fudge I used this

For the Salted caramel fudge I used this

For the Chocolate fudge I used this recipe from the Joy of the Cooking:

2c sugar
1/8tsp salt
1/2c half-and-half
1/2c heavy cream
1/4c light corn syrup
6oz bittersweet chocolate
2tbsp unsalted butter
1tsp vanilla

Line an 8x8 square pan with parchment paper
Combine the sugar, salt, half-and-half, heavy cream and corn syrup in a large heavy bottom saucepan.
Stir until the sugar is completely dissolved which can take up to five minutes
After the sugar has dissolved, crank up the heat and bring it to a boil or one full minute
Reduce the heat after the minute to low, brush down the sides of the pan with a wet pastry brush and add the chocolate
Stir the chocolate until is completely melted
Once the chocolate is melted, heat the mixture until a candy thermometer registers 234 degrees F.
After the temperature has reached 234, remove it from the heat and place the saucepan in cold water.
Just float on top the butter and the vanilla.  Don't stir it in or apparently you risk making the texture of fudge be grainy.
Let the fudge cool down to 110
Once it has cooled to 110, place the mixture in a bowl of a stand mixer and mix on low until the fudge has lost its sheen which took me about 10 minutes.
Lastly, pour the fudge in the 8x8 square pan and let it set for a few hours
Cut into and enjoy