Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Sweet Goodness!!!

Class is so much fun!!! Today I got to recreate a favorite of mine that reminds me of my grandparents. But before I get to that in another post, here's some more from last week!

Non-crystalline: Hard Candies

I had no idea these were so easy to make! I am getting more comfortable working with sugar, but for some reason these were suuuper suuuper hot to work with! We cooked sugar, glucose syrup and water to the hard-ball stage and spread it out onto the marble to cool in a large puddle and a small puddle. Color, flavor, and citric acid was added to both. When it was cool enough to handle (but still ripping hot), my partner and I pulled the sugar to incorporate air and mix in the color and flavor. We chose to do passionfruit and wanted a pink and purple color. However, we learned that purple in hot sugar turns to blue. Weird!

Once we had our two colors pulled, we twisted them into long ropes and then cut off pieces with scissors. It hardened really fast, so we had to work fast and then keep warming the sugar up with a heat lamp and the microwave. Check it out!

This shape is the "artisan's" shape. Now there are machines that can make this shape so they look homemade. Personally I enjoy it! I sent some of these off in a package to my brother in Iraq, and hopefully they'll hold up well!

Hollow-shell Truffles: Dulce de Leche Coffee

We used hollow shells that are machine-made. The advantage to these is that they all look uniform in size and shape, and no skill is needed when filling them. You can also make a softer filling for some good textural contrast.
First, we filled the shells with a little bit of dulce de leche. We stuck some cans of sweet condensed milk in water and simmered them for four hours.

Next, we made up a soft butter ganache with milk chocolate and milk that had been steeped with freshly ground coffee beans. We piped that in and let it set, then coated our truffles in milk chocolate and sprinkled some instant coffee crystals on top! Yum!!!
Next up: Soft Caramels and Peppermint Patties!!! :)

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