at Fri, 14 Jan 2005 10:51:36 GMT in <1105699896.889584.266050
@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, (Michael) wrote :

>I've been playing with making chocolate truffles here
>recently and I've had a lot of fun with them and the
>family and people at work like them. I've been using
>variations on the standard semisweet chocolate chips
>and cream.

First thing I recommend is that you abandon the semisweet chocolate chips
and use some quality couverture chocolate. The term "couverture" sounds
fancy but really only means that it's got about 40% cocoa butter, and this
is typical of what you find in good eating chocolate bars, so in essence
it's another way of saying use good eating chocolate. Chocolate chips, by
contrast, have a lower cocoa butter content and aren't really designed for
truffles - they're designed to be put into something that's going to be
baked, and the low cocoa butter content ensures they'll keep their shape to
some extent and not lose temper to the same degree.

As for which chocolate to use, Ghirardelli's bittersweet chocolate is good
and widely available. Callebaut and Guittard are also widely available,
usually as break-up, i.e. large hunks of dark chocolate which may be either
in bulk bins or wrapped with plastic film. High-end companies like Michel
Cluizel, Domori, and Amedei also make superb chocolate, if you want to
spend about $15/lb or more.

> I'd like to try a non-chocolate fondant
>with a sugar base, but it says to pour it out on a
>marble slab and work it. Do I really need a marble
>top or something similar to do a sugar-based fondant?

Any nonporous surface will do but marble works best, and there is an
additional reason to get a marble slab. If your experimentation with
truffles goes any further you'll want to temper chocolate, and in order to
do this a marble slab will make it much easier. You need to temper
chocolate any time you melt it and are then going to use the melted
chocolate by itself to cover something or to be shaped into something (i.e.
it's not going to be mixed into other ingredients). If you don't temper it,
the cocoa butter will separate and you will have chocolate with a streaky
look and a coarse, dry texture. Anyway, to temper what you do is, pour 1/2
to 2/3 of the melted chocolate onto the aforementioned marble slab, spade
it around just as if you were making fondant until it just begins to
solidify, quickly stir it back into the rest of the melted chocolate, then
stir. At this point the chocolate is tempered and you should use it
immediately and quickly for whatever coating or shaping you're going to do.

So investing in a marble slab will serve a double purpose, and I doubt
you'll regret it.

>
>Thank you, Michael
>


--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)