Day 2 of Labs

This is the crest of the school.

All of the girls in my class (we made the two boys take the picture for us)

This is the view of the kitchen out the open window to the hills around. Sheep graze and bleat right below our window all class long.

Today we made chocolate candy, or bonbons. First, we made chocolate caramels. They have the texture of a chewy caramel, but the combination of chocolate and caramel together makes them taste divine. We started out by making a dry caramel, which always makes me nervous, and I had to make in on an induction stove where everything is way faster than usual. However, mine came out without a scorch, so I was quite relieved. Then, we had to temper in the butter and caramel and cook the whole mixture to 118 Celsius, which seemed to take forever. Making candy always puts me on edge, but I still really enjoy it. We still have to dip it in chocolate, so this is the unfinished product, but it looks like chocolate glass!

Here are some of the girls working on our chocolate caramels.

Next, we made Raspberry ganache bonbons. They hardly take any time to make with a tempering machine, it is amazing! In addition, there is no worry factor of hoping they will release, and be shiny enough, etc. They just pop out, all beautiful and uniform. If only all chocolate making was this easy. I chose a square mold with sharp edges, which is the most difficult to pour because you frequently get air bubbles in the corners. I was a bit out of practice, but they turned out pretty well overall. However, the chocolate is 3-5 degrees cooler than I am used to working with (which is a huge difference) and it sets so quickly so you have to work like lighting. Here they are unfinished-tomorrow we get to decorate them with ridiculously expensive luster dust, so I can’t wait. And who doesn’t love a raspberry dark chocolate truffle?