Decadent simplicity. Dark bitter chocolate filled with a soft salted butter caramel paste.
Tant pour tant, equal weight.
(1 : 1 : 1) sugar : cream : salted butter.
Melt the sugar into blond caramel, add in the warmed cream. Remove from stove, add butter. Let cool and whip.
Recipe credit : Catherine H.
I’ve used chips of cocoa mass (100% cocoa), unsweeted, for a happy contrast of flavors, bitterness/sweeteness, textures.
They are already selling the Valentine Day chocolates and chocolate-making equipment. I got those fancy individual silicone molds and played a little.
I’ve had a little fun, melting ordinary chocolate in the micro-wave, mixing in stuff. As you can see it’s a bit messy but that doesn’t matter when you take out the molds.
spicy orange stars : bitter chocolate, cocoa mass, mandarin orange zest, cinnamon and nutmeg.
hot ginger squares : bitter chocolate, cocoa mass, raw ginger cubes, habanero powder.
Both were delicious.
You probably think I’m big fan of Christmas. Actually, I couldn’t care less, it’s only the bottom of the year, the time with the shortest days. What I really like is there are so many Christmas food, particularly sweets, from so many places.
It’s fun to try to make them.
Easy Yule logs :
The tradition of Provence with the 13 desserts :
These cakes are not only for this occasion, but many like to invite them :
Gâteau Mont-Blanc antillais (coconut layered cake)
With the coffee, you need many mignardises :
Schwowebredele (the traditional Xmas cookie of Alsace, make them in many shapes and flavor)
black sugar nonnettes (yeast)
Mandarin orange nonnettes (baking powder)
Hot wine revisited :
This is what we have in Japan :
kurisumasu ke-ki (how to bake a Japanese Xmas cake)
Ichigo daifuku mochi (Winter wagashi)
Over the world :
home-made mandarin Stollen (Germany)
Chionoules or snowballs (Greece)
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I have not made these two, I’ve just received them. The white is of course a German Stollen.
Berawecka (Alsacian “pear bread”, fruit cake). I’m very serious. It’s very healthy. It’s mostly made of fruit like those “health fruit bars” I see on many health blogs.
I had to check the quality. You want to know ? Of course, that’s totally decadent and not healthy at all. Mmmmm… Well, I’ll try to keep some for Christmas.
In the series “not as great as expected”…. I decided to try my pralines with an ile flottante (floating island).
Hid pralines under a meringue.
Baked it…
Ahem… not the pink volcano lava that looks so good. After all, it seems the type of coloring matters.
The anglaise sauce is pink as I made in the pan with the rest of sugar of the pralines. And it is like a mousse because I beat it too much…
That’s as good as usual, I guess. But I’d have found it better if it had looked better too.
Pralines roses, pralines rouges… the pink or red sugared almonds are a cute sweet. They make a few lovely French desserts.
How do they make them ?
With almonds… and sugar. I can make the beige and the black ones.
Food color. They don’t use the same type in France. This one is “beni koji” made from a rice ferment. That usually works the same. Here you can see the powder dissolved in water. RED.
But my pralines are… desesparetely auburn. LOL.
If anyone has a tip on how to make them red, I’d be happy to hear it.
They taste good. The sugar is “whitish” and looks like sand inside… but not enough ?
They look like the black ones..
They are slightly red in very favorable light…
GOURMANDE in OSAKA 