What’d You Do Last Weekend?
Enjoy summer throughout the year by preserving a pinch of it in your salt.
Chocolate-Dipped Baguettes and Raspberry Jellies
Our main challenge for the August Daring Bakers challenge was to temper chocolate. And a challenge it would be for many people - chocolate tempering in August isn't exactly simple with the soaring heat in many places. That said, I'm happy with the results of my candy making, and I think we'll be nibbling on the fruit jellies for a few more days.
The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!
For the first candy, I made raspberry jellies. If you remember, I tried making peach jellies last year (with so-so results) but these turned out wonderful. They're firm and bright, and the addition on a little vitamin C powder in the sugar makes them a little tart too. At first I thought I had done them incorrectly because they wept, but once I put them into the fridge, they firmed up beautifully.
The second candy - the chocolate challenge - I wanted to take a different approach. I'm not the biggest fan of chocolate because I think it's just too sweet. I decided to pair it with one of my favorite things - a good French baguette. I cut the crust off and cubed the crumb until I got little dice-shaped baguettes. I brushed each one with melted goat milk butter (I think it has a nice smell and is wonderfully salty) and toasted them until they were completely dried. From there, I enveloped them in a 78% cocoa chocolate - nice and bitter - and sprinkled each with salt. When I bit into my first one, I got the flavors of a pain au chocolat - exactly what I'd planned. I'd tried using the seeding tempering method, but wasn't thrilled with the results - next time I'll go back to traditional tempering, even though it takes a little longer.
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Comments
It all looks gorgeous, I love
It all looks gorgeous, I love chocolate and locally The Chocolate Man rents an easy tempering machine. It might be time to get a group together to make chocolate truffles!