This year I decided to outdo myself from previous years (hah! past-me has got nothing on me!), and I gave all my teachers little gift bags of American candies. Starburst, Jolly Ranchers, Lollipops, Twizzlers and some Gummi Bears. Yeah not all totally American, but who cares, candy is candy. So I have bought their love for a day. This practice is common with their little omiyage gift giving every time they go somewhere, I always get little rice cracker presents from whatever prefecture it was influenced by whatever the city specialty is, and trust me, every city has a specialty. Perhaps next year I will make myself even more loved and give everyone some hand made chocolates...but that gets expensive...
Now as far as your preparations can go, the local dollar store can take you a long way. I am talking about some serious Daiso action (Flet's didn't really have what I wanted/needed). There you can get decorative pens, loads of decorative boxes for putting your chocolate in, foils, mould, the chocolate itself, confectioneries for topping, and a load of assortments for making your Valentines day treats the best. And then, where to go next? I just hit up the local grocery store. I got a few bags of 120g chocolate in some different flavors: strawberry, white and milk, they have dark, but I am not fond. I don't care how healthy you say it is. So here is what I ended up with:
- 2 silicon moulds for making a chocolate shell (makes 2 chocolates each) I would also like to add that I went back and bought 4 more later!
- 1 silicon mould of small girly shapes (for decorative toppings)
- 2 bags of white chocolate
- 3 bags of milk chocolate
- 1 bag of strawberry chocolate
- 2 small bags of small strawberry chocolate pearls
- 1 edible shiny decorating balls
- 2 white chocolate decorating pens
- 1 decorative tin (to hide in his lunch box)
- 1 decorative box (for everything else)
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| aforementioned mould |
Yeah it is a lot. And that isn't even all of it. I actually went on a crazy run last night looking for more of the silicon moulds. Those things are awesome, they save me so much mess and trouble. So I went to 3 Daiso's and was bolting in as the 'goodbye song' was playing scanning for the moulds. I finally found them and I recall them locking the doors on me as I was in the store. I think they were pretty tired from all the days business and had that look to them as they rang me up. You know which one. So I bought 4 more and now I could make 12 chocolates at a time.
It was really a perfect system, the moulds with their chocolate would be cooling in the fridge and as each finished I would fill it, seal it, put more chocolate in the mould and then the next would be ready to fill. Not a moments rest.
So the recipes...
I made cinnamin, raspberry, and peanut butter, and the day is not quite over so I am toying with making either a pink grapefruit with strawberry coating or an apple, or maybe even a cinnamin apple!
Cinnamon White Chocolate Truffle
So first, my pride and joy of the experiment, is the cinnamon. This is an original recipe I made up through the combined powers of my love for white chocolate and its dirty affair with cinnamon. Here are the ingredients
- white chocolate 240g
- cinnamon 1tbsp
- butter 2tbsp
- whipping cream 100ml
So first I divided the chocolate in 2 and broke 120 grams of it up in a bowl. I am not sure if this matters, but I used a plastic bowl from Ikea which I would normally say is a bad idea (at least for melting chocolate).
Next I set to pouring the cream into a saucepan and slowly heating it while adding the cinnamon to it. As for the cinnamon, I literally used a table spoon. Like one you eat your peas with. They do measurements differently here in Japan and I had to improvise a bit, after all that has to be the reason it is called a tablespoon...right??
Once the concoction is simmering and the cinnamon is well ingrained in the mixture, I poured it over the chopped chocolate.
I had thought that this would settle it and the chocolate would melt. Not so. So I took the bowl and set it over a vat of boiling water to melt it.
Slowly stirring it, I added the butter and continued to stir until everything was consistent. I then covered it directly (as in right on top of the ganache layer) in cling wrap and let it set at room temp for 4 hours.
Meanwhile, I took those little moulds I told you about and filled them with the remaining white chocolate 120g (heated in a metal bowl over the large vat of boiling water) and pressed down their insert in so that they formed a nice shell and set them in the fridge. Now those only take about 20-30 to solidify.
Warning and advice:
1. 120g of chocolate will only make about a dozen truffle shells, but you will still have a bunch of left over ganache for more.
2. When warming the chocolate, it is really important to pay attention to the texture of the chocolate. If it starts to get oddly lump or hardening a bit, it means it is burning, and will not taste as good. Trust me on the taste. And once you burn it a bit, you tend to burn it a lot. I don't know how chocolate does it, but once you mix in a little burnt chocolate, it all seems to want to burn and go bad. And yes, I did burn a little bit last night, but no where near the amount as before, so what I did to salvage it, was to press the chocolate into the small decorative mould for mini chocolate toppings.
So after you are entirely ready with your moulds and the ganache you made earlier (the cinnamon stuff), you can hand rolls the ganache into little balls and place it in the mould and stick the two shells together to make a nice neat little truffle. I really cant express how much I like these moulds. They make filled truffles so easy and really more importantly so pretty.
And then when you are all done. Decorate.
Raspberry Truffles
I think I make this one almost all the time. It is pretty much a signature now haha!
- 1 jar of raspberry preserves
- 500g chocolate
- 100ml whipping cream
- Butter (if desired)
Heat the whipping cream (Japan does not have easily accessible heavy cream, so I make do) and add half (or one forth if the jar is really big. Everything in Japan is small) the jar of preserves to it stir until emulsified.
Pour over 200g of chopped chocolate.
Heat if necessary until chocolate is melted. Heat it in a bowl held over a pot of boiling water.
If you wish to add butter now, please do so and stir until melted.
I put this one in the fridge to set for a few hours until hardish. Disclaimer: mine never hardened all too well, so I moved it to the freezer and decided to screw it because the mixture was delicious and I wanted it in truffles.
I made the chocolate shells with the rest of the chocolate, heated in a similar fashion, and let those in the fridge for a good half hour.
When I, and the 'ganache' (let's face it, it wasn't, but what it was, was delicious so it wasn't going to waste), were ready, I used a spoon to scoop some out filling and would lightly with the tips of my finger tips, try to ball it a little and push it gently into the shells. If you handle it too much with your hands it goes everywhere, you hands are messy, and the chocolate is too warmed. And it makes handling the rest of the filling and chocolate just too difficult. So this part is done with minimal touching. I cap the half shell and make it a whole, seal it and set it in the fridge.
I say seal it, meaning you can use some molten chocolate, or really, nothing. The shell will stay in place either way. If you seal it with molten chocolate, it ensure none of your filling will leak out and it will look more professional, but if you get lazy, you can just push the two together and be done. Also another really good way, which is probably the cleanest and neatest and looks the best, is by using the decorating pen. Just heat the chocolate decorating pen until the chocolate inside is liquid and then cut the tip and squeeze some out around the edges of your shell halves.
Set the finished product in the fridge until you declare it decorating time.
Peanut butter
The lazy man's (woman's) recipe. I did these last at night. I was extremely tired. And I decided that Reeses, they have been doing this for years. They know their stuff. So I pretty much only made shells and put some of JIFs crunchy peanut butter inside. in any case.
- ~120g milk chocolate
- a tub of JIF
Melt the chocolate in a double boiler (metal bowl over pot of boiling water)
Pour the molten chocolate in the moulds
Cool
Add peanut butter and close the shell
...its real difficult. I know
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