In which I finally buy a chocolate mold. Wild celebration and indulgence follows.

The thing makes funny noises as well.

Finally got my first chocolate mold. Actually, it's a rubber one meant for fruit jelly. You can make funny noises with it as well as abstract sort-of pineapple-shaped chocolates (see photo, the one on the left).
To celebrate, I made a complete slew of chocolates, all looking very different, but with almost identical ingredients.

Two-tone cappuchino chocolates, with a mold

I started by filling nine of the mold's bottoms with carefully melted white chocolate. Left those to set. Then filled them up with melted cappuchino chocolate, turned the mold upside down and drained most of it out again on a silpat - a silicon rubber mat for foodstuffs. Left it upside down for ten minutes, tidied the edges a bit, then moved it to the refrigerator (right side up, duh) to solidify for about 15 or 20 minutes more.

The filling: I boiled up the cream and honey, then poured the hot stuff onto some chopped cappuchino chocolate, added the instant coffee, and waited for it to melt. Stirred it carefully, then put the little pan I use into warm water to keep it ready for the next step. Used a teaspoon to transfer the ganache into the solidified chocolate in the mold. Careful to leave about 2 or 3 millimeter room for a "lid" to close off the formed chocolate. The lot went back into the fridge for half an hour; then, again with the teaspoon, I closed off the forms, wiping their bottoms level with a plastic scraper.

The best part comes when the chocolates are well and truly solidified - leave them an hour or so in a cool place. The rubber mold can be pressed at the back, and then: out plops a perfectly smooth, perfectly shaped little home-made bonbon! I haven't had one fail or break yet. Very pleasing in all aspects; I love cappuchino chocolate and the two-tone effect worked really well.

Marzipan cappuchino chocolates, enrobed

I rolled out the marzipan into my hand-made plastic square, to about a 4 or 5 mm thickness. Then made the white ganache, heating the Mon Chou with the cream and honey and pouring that onto chopped white chocolate. I added that to the left-over cappuchino ganache, so it became very light coffee colored white ganache - caffee latte. I put this mixture on top of the marzipan and leveled it with a pancake knife. Ganache is not sticky and its qualities as an emulsion amaze me; technically I can't compare it to anything I know. I left this combo slab overnight in the fridge.

The next day I removed the plastic square, carefully turned the slab, and added a layer of melted chocolate to form the bottoms when enrobing them. After the layer became solid, I cut most of the slab into the 1 by 3 bits you can see at the top; and a bit of it I formed into squares. Then with a two pronged chocolate fork and a small dessert fork, I quickly worked through the lot, dipping them into melted dark chocolate, then put them down carefully onto the silpat. The temperature of the chocolate and its fluidity should be just right, or you will have chocolates with feet, or dimples, or blooming rashes...

I decorated the squares by pressing little bunches of toasted almond flakes into the warm chocolate. The rise on the bricks is done with dipping a finger into the warm chocolate and dragging it upwards.
Especially the crispy toasted almonds were good in combination with the soft filling and the strong dark chocolate taste.