A crackin’ good time….

More tempering practice to produce that perfect temper that sets the beta crystals to “crack” when chocolate is bitten into…

First thing we made chocolate shells to fill later with pistacho and cointreau caramel ganache. How easy is that process when the tempering machine produces tempered chocolate for you in a stream, the vibrating table is directly over the tub, and there is an attached blade for scraping… wow. Equipment envy…. Picture me in my kitchen with a ladle filling the mold with chocolate, the chocolate tank needing to be moved back and forth to catch some of the drips from the vibrating table, and hand scraping the mold upside down. Somehow I get there in the end, but what a delight doing it quickly and cleanly with all the bells and whistles! In my dreams…

Happily, my partner stayed home sick today so it was peaceful at our station. Despite having to do double the work I’d take that any day (and it’s debatable if it’s actually double given his lackadaisical contribution). Two others were back, asymptomatic and still testing negative so were given a crash course in chocolate tempering.

The morning was taken up with more chocolate confections – we made Bounty, Snickers bars and Turtles, and the marshmallow layer for the Decadent Bar that we had started yesterday. We made the ganaches for our mold fillings and I was having a puzzling time with my caramel, finding an unexplained white crystallization process going on with white lumps I was finding impossible to incorporate/dissolve – explaining the problem with my pan up front to the chef I held up my spatula out of the way to show these strange white strands and mystery revealed – the spatula had melted into the pot in pieces. I had apparently picked up a non-heat resistant spatula. We had a good laugh about that and I started back at the beginning, though we agreed there was potential in the mix as one could floss at the same time… Because I was then last finished and had twice as much piping to do with my partner away, I rushed to finish and being focussed, didn’t notice the piping bag was open at the top on the final mold – result, caramel coated front of white jacket. Tick two. Why do they make these jackets white, anyway??? It seems to attract coffee and my lunchtime balsamic vinegar like a magnet as well…

Tick three was when I decided to eat lunch in the car (avoiding the lunchroom these days) instead of the area I normally head to across the road as it was too windy. To avoid spilling coffee in the car, I cleverly decided to fill the travel cup up inside and carry it out – it got knocked over onto its side in transition and I spent some time before I got outside mopping up a trail of coffee drips from the lunchroom, along the corridor and down the stairs…. Sigh.

Happily three was a charm and the day went uneventfully from there; we had a caramel party in the afternoon making multiple forms, combining flavours on top of each other and finishing the bonbons after footing, with spray and lustre. (Pistachio, green and Cointreau caramel, textured red; photo below alas doesn’t do them justice as the light was fading by the time I got home and took the picture).

And so another day done. We have a whole week of confectionary later on where we will learn (I am certain) 16 ways of making marshmallow and nougat, but an interesting introduction this week with the Snickers and Bounty bars. Some of the other layered ganaches were delicious as well…. enrobing later in the week and more for the freezer! My lucky visitor this weekend will be feasting.

Of course I’m on special equipment cleaning detail this week so guess who got to clean those chocolate machines? I had lots of conscripted help and will not complain, having watched the kitchen manager spend the better part of week two deep cleaning the four machines, taking apart the vents and cleaning them, plus the spray hood and all the fridges and freezers….