A set of chocolates made as my annual Christmas gift, I made these with the aid of a home-made shaping gadget.
Doing a production run
These little squares of chocolate have wonderful outspoken flavours, each very much their own. And with the help of my brilliant home-made bar-shaping gadget, they’re dead simple to make too. It took some doing, but it was very inspiring to think these up and get ingredients for – and they’re a joy to give.
I produced six types:
- white chocolate and papaya “stained glass” (top left)
- milk chocolate with puffed wheat on coffee caramel ganache (center)
- dark chocolate with pistachio marzipan and orange ganache (bottom right)
- milk chocolate with pecan marzipan and caramel ganache (center top)
- dark chocolate with orange ganache and candied orange peel (bottom left)
- white chocolate with hazelnut puree in white ganache (bottom center)
I produced quite a slew of them – about 60 in total. They were all to fit into a number of little gift boxes.
Six varieties meant a lot of planning ahead, almost like doing a production run. To help speed things up, I constructed a simple mold in which to form ganache and marzipan bars:
It’s made from a sheet of plastic of 3 mm thickness from a crafts & model shop. The brown bit is a piece of baking paper held in place by the tightly fitted end pieces. These can still slide, so bars of different length are possible. I used a bit of left-over plastic as a spatula. And it’s dead easy to cut same-size chocolate fillings from the bars produced in this way.
recipe: Christmas Gift Chocolates
Amounts are for about 8 chocolates each.
white chocolate and papaya:
4 big strips of candied papaya
100 gr white chocolate
milk chocolate with puffed wheat on coffee caramel ganache:
handful of Kelloggs Smacks, puffed wheat cereal
a few pieces of red cinnamon sugar (Hema)
1 teasp instant espresso coffee powder
caramel ganache: 75 g butter, 25 gr sugar (caramelized), 100 g milk chocolate
dark chocolate with pistachio marzipan and orange ganache:
100 g marzipan
20 gr pistachio nuts, toasted
20 gr thin strips papaya
1 teasp brandy
20 gr icing sugar
orange ganache: 75 g butter, 25 gr honey, 100 g orange chocolate
milk chocolate with pecan marzipan and caramel ganache:
100 g marzipan
20 gr pecan nuts, toasted
1 teasp coffee liquor
20 gr icing sugar
caramel ganache: 75 g butter, 25 gr sugar (caramelized), 100 g milk chocolate
dark chocolate with orange ganache and candied orange peel:
40 gr candied orange peel, cut in very thin strips
orange ganache: 75 g butter, 25 gr honey, 100 g orange chocolate
white chocolate with hazelnut puree in white ganache:
20 ml cream
10 gr honey
75 gr milk chocolate
50 gr finely grated hazelnuts
to coat:
about 150 gr melted chocolate for each variant (white, milk, and dark)
Production time
I planned to make six bars with different fillings, store these in the fridge wrapped in baking paper, and cut and dip them all in one session. This way you can work quickly and get the best results.
To make things a bit more practical, I made just three ganaches and two kinds of marzipan. The first batch was based on the orange ganache. Next evening I did the caramel ganache bars, and following that, the white ganache with hazelnut puree.
I used the bar mold to make 1 cm high, 3 cm wide and about 20 cm long slabs – from these, I was able to cut 6 pieces of 3 x 3 cm. This type can be used with a topping, like the puffed wheat and the orange rind ones.
For the cross-section type, I made 3 by 3 cm bars, about 15 cm long – and these yielded about 10 pieces per bar.
I prepared the bar mold with a bit of baking paper for each variant. This makes it much easier to get the solidified ganache out of the mold.
Ganache
Melt butter with sugar or honey. Leave to cool a bit, then pour over chocolate bits. Stir well, until ganache becomes shiny and does not stick to the bowl. White chocolate ganache : use less butter, and make sure this is only luke-warm when you add it. Add grated hazelnuts and mix well. Drop into mold; cool in fridge.
To add a topping: brush cooled ganache with chololate, carefully press on orange peel or puffed wheat, leave to cool again.
Marzipan
Crumble good (baker’s) marzipan in a bowl. Add toasted nuts, alcohol and sugar. Knead well, add more sugar when marzipan mass is too sticky. Roll out and form into a slab of 15 cm wide, 5 mm thick (square variant) or 1 cm thick (layered variant). Use plastic rulers to push the marzipan and ganache into a bar.
White chocolate “stained glass”
Cut strips of papaya of about 3 cm long and varying thickness. Toss these into melted white chocolate – don’t bother making ganache for this variant too. Arrange the pieces lengthwise in the mold with a fork. Press to make sure no pockets of air are left in between, even out the top with the back of a spoon.
Finishing
With a sharp knife, cut the cooled bars without touching them with your bare fingers – I used the plastic sides from the mold to hold them. Cut pieces of 3 by 3 cm and in height a bit more than a cm. Brush the backs of the pieces with melted chocolate, using the back of a spoon. When that’s solidified, dip the pieces carefully into melted chocolate and put them onto a silicon mat or a large bit of baking paper. This whole batch of 60 chocolates (including “spares”, hehe) took me about 3 hours to cut, dip and finish. Leave them overnight to set at room temperature (covered with a piece of baking paper).
When packing things up, it’s best to use linen or rubber gloves to get them into paper casings and into their boxes. Woohoo, and now the holidays have started for real! Happy Christmas and a sweet New Year to all!
Christmas Gift Chocolates
A set of chocolates made as my annual Christmas gift, I made these with the aid of a home-made shaping gadget.
Doing a production run
These little squares of chocolate have wonderful outspoken flavours, each very much their own. And with the help of my brilliant home-made bar-shaping gadget, they’re dead simple to make too. It took some doing, but it was very inspiring to think these up and get ingredients for – and they’re a joy to give.
I produced six types:
- white chocolate and papaya “stained glass” (top left)
- milk chocolate with puffed wheat on coffee caramel ganache (center)
- dark chocolate with pistachio marzipan and orange ganache (bottom right)
- milk chocolate with pecan marzipan and caramel ganache (center top)
- dark chocolate with orange ganache and candied orange peel (bottom left)
- white chocolate with hazelnut puree in white ganache (bottom center)
I produced quite a slew of them – about 60 in total. They were all to fit into a number of little gift boxes.
Six varieties meant a lot of planning ahead, almost like doing a production run. To help speed things up, I constructed a simple mold in which to form ganache and marzipan bars:
It’s made from a sheet of plastic of 3 mm thickness from a crafts & model shop. The brown bit is a piece of baking paper held in place by the tightly fitted end pieces. These can still slide, so bars of different length are possible. I used a bit of left-over plastic as a spatula. And it’s dead easy to cut same-size chocolate fillings from the bars produced in this way.
recipe: Christmas Gift Chocolates
Amounts are for about 8 chocolates each.
white chocolate and papaya:
milk chocolate with puffed wheat on coffee caramel ganache:
dark chocolate with pistachio marzipan and orange ganache:
milk chocolate with pecan marzipan and caramel ganache:
dark chocolate with orange ganache and candied orange peel:
white chocolate with hazelnut puree in white ganache:
to coat:
about 150 gr melted chocolate for each variant (white, milk, and dark)
Production time
I planned to make six bars with different fillings, store these in the fridge wrapped in baking paper, and cut and dip them all in one session. This way you can work quickly and get the best results.
To make things a bit more practical, I made just three ganaches and two kinds of marzipan. The first batch was based on the orange ganache. Next evening I did the caramel ganache bars, and following that, the white ganache with hazelnut puree.
I used the bar mold to make 1 cm high, 3 cm wide and about 20 cm long slabs – from these, I was able to cut 6 pieces of 3 x 3 cm. This type can be used with a topping, like the puffed wheat and the orange rind ones.
For the cross-section type, I made 3 by 3 cm bars, about 15 cm long – and these yielded about 10 pieces per bar.
I prepared the bar mold with a bit of baking paper for each variant. This makes it much easier to get the solidified ganache out of the mold.
Ganache
Melt butter with sugar or honey. Leave to cool a bit, then pour over chocolate bits. Stir well, until ganache becomes shiny and does not stick to the bowl. White chocolate ganache : use less butter, and make sure this is only luke-warm when you add it. Add grated hazelnuts and mix well. Drop into mold; cool in fridge.
To add a topping: brush cooled ganache with chololate, carefully press on orange peel or puffed wheat, leave to cool again.
Marzipan
Crumble good (baker’s) marzipan in a bowl. Add toasted nuts, alcohol and sugar. Knead well, add more sugar when marzipan mass is too sticky. Roll out and form into a slab of 15 cm wide, 5 mm thick (square variant) or 1 cm thick (layered variant). Use plastic rulers to push the marzipan and ganache into a bar.
White chocolate “stained glass”
Cut strips of papaya of about 3 cm long and varying thickness. Toss these into melted white chocolate – don’t bother making ganache for this variant too. Arrange the pieces lengthwise in the mold with a fork. Press to make sure no pockets of air are left in between, even out the top with the back of a spoon.
Finishing
With a sharp knife, cut the cooled bars without touching them with your bare fingers – I used the plastic sides from the mold to hold them. Cut pieces of 3 by 3 cm and in height a bit more than a cm. Brush the backs of the pieces with melted chocolate, using the back of a spoon. When that’s solidified, dip the pieces carefully into melted chocolate and put them onto a silicon mat or a large bit of baking paper. This whole batch of 60 chocolates (including “spares”, hehe) took me about 3 hours to cut, dip and finish. Leave them overnight to set at room temperature (covered with a piece of baking paper).
When packing things up, it’s best to use linen or rubber gloves to get them into paper casings and into their boxes. Woohoo, and now the holidays have started for real! Happy Christmas and a sweet New Year to all!
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