Surely I could do better.

In typical modernist home-cook style, I’ve got at least four different recipes for aerated chocolate: one in The Fat Duck Cookbook, one in In Search of Total Perfection, one in Chocolates and Confections, and one in Modernist Cuisine. (Of course.) They all differ slightly, but the fundamentals are the same: temper chocolate (Callebaut milk chocolate, in my case), add some pure fat (oil or cocoa butter) for additional fluidity, charge in a whipped cream siphon, and dispense. This creates a chocolate foam that sets, trapping all the bubbles in a network of crystallized cocoa butter. (Ideas in Food also offers an aerated chocolate dessert, but it’s based on a different principle, being more of an aerated ganache gel than a pure aerated chocolate. I’m looking forward to trying it, too.)

An optional step in these recipes is to make what Modernist Cuisine calls a “vacuum-set foam” by placing the freshly foamed chocolate in a vacuum container, pulling a vacuum on it, and leaving it under vacuum until it has set. This causes the bubbles to expand, creating a much lighter texture in the finished chocolate. I’ve tried this technique before with the aerated mango sorbet recipe in Modernist Cuisine, which is “set” through freezing, but the vacuum pump on my FoodSaver isn’t strong enough for that recipe.

Fortunately, it is strong enough to work with chocolate, and the results were impressive. As you can see in the photo above, the vacuum-set chocolate has much bigger bubbles than the one set at ambient pressure. The only mistake I made was that I forgot to line the ramekins I used to mold the chocolate, which made it hard to get the finished product out in one piece! It would be cool to be able to enrobe this kind of aerated chocolate, or use it in a layer cake like the recipe in In Search of Total Perfection, but for that, I think I would need a square vacuum container…

And learn a lot I did! This was the third year this workshop/conference has been held, and the second time I attended. (Unfortunately, I missed it last year.) When I went to the inaugural workshop two years ago, I had barely a clue how to work with chocolate, and came away from it with a much better understanding of cocoa butter crystallization and the process for tempering chocolate, along with some practice dipping chocolate bonbons. This year, the focus was a little different, with a greater emphasis on shell-molded chocolates and pâte de fruit, one of my favourite confections.

Between my husband and me, we made a small assortment of different chocolates, in addition to being able to sample the work of the others who were there.

The array of candies we made (clockwise from top left): apricot-ginger pâte de fruit, dark chocolate espresso ganache, lemon caramel in two different molds, and (centre) icewine syrup ganache.

Probably my favourite piece that I produced, though, was this molded chocolate bunny.

I’ve never worked with such a large mold before, but one of the other eGulleters lent it to me and walked me through the process. (Thanks, Donna!) After unmolding it, it went into the freezer to chill, and then I sprayed it with a mix of chocolate and cocoa butter, using an airbrush setup, to produce the “flocked” effect you can see here. I’ve always wanted to try spraying chocolate, and it was every bit as much fun as it sounded.

Now I’ve been bitten by chocolate bug, and have plans to make more bonbons tonight, before I forget everything I learned!

Thanks to Kerry for organizing the conference, and to all the suppliers who gave us the product to work with; you can see a complete list here.

“Why not?” I replied. “The devil is in the details, and candied orange zest will make them that much nicer. Anyway, candied orange zest is easy.”

And so it is.

How to make candied orange zest

Oranges
Water
Sugar
Light corn syrup
…all as needed

Using a vegetable peeler, peel the oranges in wide strips, keeping as little of the white pith as possible. If you take too much, you can carefully remove it using a sharp paring knife.

Cover the orange zest strips with water, and bring to a boil. When the water boils, drain immediately.

Make enough syrup to cover the orange zest strips: for every 100 ml of water, add 133 g of sugar and 34 g of corn syrup. Heat until the sugars are dissolved, then add the blanched orange zest. Simmer over very low heat for an hour, until the zest is translucent. Cool, then refrigerate overnight in a covered container.

Remove the zest from the syrup, squeegeeing excess syrup from the surface. Cut into thin strips, then toss in granulated sugar. Allow to dry, then use as desired.

Well, tempering the dark chocolate for dipping went well, though we still need to figure out how to minimize bubbles in the chocolate. But we ran into a different problem: our ganache broke.

You see, ganache is a fat-in-water emulsion, much like hollandaise sauce. And, like hollandaise sauce, if the ratio of fat to water gets too high, the fat (in this case a blend of butterfat and cocoa butter) will separate out, and you’ll be left with a mixture that’s oily rather than creamy.

Fortunately, it was easily fixed, thanks to the advice in Chocolates and Confections. First, we tried simply re-warming it and stirring. When that failed, we added some warm milk, bit by bit, to increase the amount of water in the mix. Slowly, the ganache came back together. When it no longer seemed oily, we poured it into a frame and continued with the recipe. It worked perfectly, providing further proof that a broken emulsion isn’t the end of the world!

Have you ever successfully saved a broken emulsion?

I am a sugar person.

I’ve never really grasped chocolate tempering, despite having attended a fantastic chocolate conference organized by the Chocolate Doctor herself. I always think I understand the theory: cocoa butter can arrange itself into several different forms, and by properly controlling the temperature, you can ensure that only the stable forms are present in your finished chocolate. Properly tempered chocolate hardens quickly, is glossy rather than dull, snaps cleanly and is less likely to melt on your fingers when you eat it.

But then I go to make confectionery like the chestnut truffles in this picture, and the chocolate blooms because it’s not in temper, and I am once again humbled. This came after dipping 100 or so peanut butter centres in chocolate that was apparently tempered just fine… by my husband.

The central problem, I assume, is that I haven’t worked with chocolate enough to develop a feel for when it’s in temper; apparently, skilled chocolatiers can detect properly tempered chocolate simply by looking at it or stirring it. Clearly, the only solution is to start making chocolates on a more regular basis, take it slow and check everything along the way. (In this case, after heating the last batch of chocolate, I failed to test it for temper. That’s a mistake I won’t be making again.)

Well, it’s hard work, but somebody’s got to do it.

Are you a chocolate person or a sugar person?

It turns out it’s not quite that easy. My first attempt involved simply combining sweetened blueberry puree with cocoa butter, but when I tried to whip it as it chilled, it separated into two phases, one of hardened cocoa butter and one of blueberry puree. I re-melted it and tried to emulsify it with some lecithin, which didn’t work, then some gelatin, which did. But the resulting emulsion wouldn’t foam when I whipped it. Finally, I added more cocoa butter in the form of white chocolate (I didn’t want to use more pure cocoa butter, because of the expense), and managed to get a mousse-like substance, pictured above. It’s bad enough that it looks grainy, even though it’s smooth on the tongue, but worse, it doesn’t taste very good. Apparently I still don’t fully understand the ins and outs of cocoa butter, but I’m happy to treat this as one more lesson in how it works, and learn what I can.

But here’s the thing: the base doesn’t really need to be anything but straight-up chocolate, and I’ve never understood why there’s anything else in it. Chocolate is a remarkable substance that already has enough structure to hold up a mousse. If you want a simple chocolate mousse to eat on its own, all you have to do is melt some chocolate, cool it slightly, then fold in whipped cream and let it set. (Of course, if you want to unmold it, or have a specific application in mind, such as a layer in a cake, you may need to use another technique to achieve the right texture.)

In fact, it gets better. It turns out that you don’t even need the whipped cream! Hervé This, in his book Molecular Gastronomy, notes that if you melt chocolate with water, then chill it in an ice bath while whipping, the cocoa butter will crystallize around air bubbles – just like butterfat does in whipped cream – and produce what is effectively a mousse that is nothing but pure chocolate. This calls it “chocolate Chantilly,” playing off of “crème Chantilly,” sweetened whipped cream.

When I made this type of mousse, melting 125g. of chocolate with 90g. of water until smooth, then whipping with a hand blender as I held the bottom of the bowl in an ice bath, the results were delicious. It wasn’t the airiest mousse I’ve ever made, but it was smooth, rich and more intense than most. And understanding the technique has given me other ideas, which will be the subject of my next post…

What’s your favourite chocolate mousse?