All About Chocolate

Harvesting the Cacao Pods

Chocolate is produced from the seeds of the cacao tree. The seeds have a very bitter/sour taste,to develop the flavor the seeds must be fermented. Fermentation: The pods are harvested, they are split open and seeds removed. The pulp and seeds are put in a pile and covered with banana leaves. Fermentation begins when the yeasts and bacteria, converts the sugar in the pulp to alcohol and to lactic and acetic acid. Fermentation can take from three to seven days then the beans are dried in the sun. Sun drying is gentler and will not harden the bean or dry the interior. The shells are removed and cacao nibs are ground and liquefied, producing chocolate liquor. It's then further processed to make cocoa solids (The nonfat component of chocolate:cocoa powder) and cocoa butter (The fatty component of chocolate). 

Different Kinds of Chocolate

Unsweetened chocolate primarily cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Sweet chocolate is simply chocolate and sugar. Milk chocolate contains sugar and milk (either milk powder or condensed milk). White chocolate, which is not considered chocolate, does not contain cocoa solids. It is a combination of cocoa butter, sugar, and milk. When cocoa solids and cocoa butter are separated, what is produced is natural cocoa powder. Natural cocoa is reddish in color and has a bitter taste. Dutch processed cocoa powder has a more brown color and has been treated with alkali which neutralizes the acidity, giving it a milder flavor. Recipes calling for cocoa powder are referring to natural cocoa powder. Because Dutch cocoa (Dutch processed cocoa) is neutral it does not react with baking soda. Recipes using Dutch cocoa will call for baking powder, unless the recipe calls for other acidic ingredients like buttermilk or molasses.

Chocolate in Baking

What's the best chocolate to use in baking?

Well, it depends on the chocolate you use. Two things need to be considered, flavor and what you are baking.  When baking a dessert where there are multiple flavors (ie. Cake) a less expensive brand is sufficient. If using a more expensive brand of chocolate, it would be best to use a recipe that has less ingredients so as not veil the depth of  flavor (ie. Truffle Torte). If you are going to spend the money on fine chocolate you better taste it in your baked goods, right?
Cacao

  

Adding Flare to Any Menu

How do you add flare to your menu, sides dishes of course. I love adorning my holiday table with a beautiful roasted turkey or a fillet of salmon, but side dishes is where it's at. When creating your menu consider what will compliment your main entree but also what will add a special touch to your table, and have your guest coming back for more. Adding brightly colored fruits and vegetables adds nutritional value and eye appeal.

One of my popular vegetable recipes is my roasted asparagus. Wash, trim and pat dry your asparagus. preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat. Drizzle olive oil over asparagus and season with salt and pepper. A friend of mine likes to add chopped garlic as well, this adds wonderful flavor. Roast until asparagus is fork tender but not soft, about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from oven and serve immediately with a side of hollandaise sauce.

Stuffed mushrooms anyone?

After cleaning a removing the stems turn mushrooms upside down on the rack of your broiler pan. Drizzle or brush tops with oil and broil for about 4 minutes, just until they start to soften. remove and heat your oven to 350 degree F , fill with your desired stuffing and bake for 12 to 15 minutes. You can stuff mushrooms with just about anything. The ones pictured are stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes, Parmesan cheese, onions, the mushroom stems, cream, and bread crumbs. Try flavor combinations that you would enjoy.
How about something for the kids, maybe pizza stuffed 'shrooms! Combine bread crumbs, cheese, chopped pepperoni and sausage for a yummy after school snack or as a side to dinner tonight.

Bacon wrapped Lil' Smokies

Place bacon on a cookie sheet and pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees F. Bake in your oven just until bacon renders some of it's fat. You want the bacon to be only partially cooked, so you can wrap it around sausages. Once wrapped place a toothpick to secure bacon and place in your preheated oven (350 degrees) and roast until bacon is cooked through, about 15 -20 minutes.

Dessert Theaters and Drama Camps

Dessert Theaters

On occasion I am asked to make desserts for my churches dessert theater. For this particular theater presentation I decided to do a dessert tray of assorted items.

On the menu we have (bottom right;clockwise) chocolate chip cookies, Cranberry Dream Bars (a copycat of a popular coffee shops cranberry bar) Chocolate Truffle Torte (no flour in this baby), Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, Lemon Bundt Cake, Snicker Bars Brownies, and a Blueberry Tart.


All these dessert are homemade in my own kitchen. It's a challenging but rewarding experience. Twenty-six tables are set up for three nights of a great performance and great desserts. We can accommodate upwards of 156 people a night. It's a lot of desserts but I love being able to serve doing something I love.

Having an upright freezer in my garage makes a difference. I can make alot of these desserts ahead of time and freeze until the day of each performance.



Youth Drama Camps

This is one of two cakes I made for our youth Drama Camp. The tragedy and comedy mask are made from color flow. Color flow is a decorating technique using a mixture of water, color flow mix, and powdered sugar. It take a long time for color flow to dry so plan on 2-3 days of drying time. I don't have an air brush (yet) so I used the color sprays you can find in the baking isle at your local grocery.

The second cake, and my favorite, is this Lil' Orphan Annie cake. This was the production the youth performed at the completion of camp. I printed an image I found online and enlarged it. I then traced the image onto a piece of parchment paper. I then placed the parchment paper on my frosted cake and using a toothpick, poked little holes through the paper leaving an image. I then piped around the image using black buttercream and filled it in with buttercream using a pastry bag and a star tip. Annie's name is made of color flow, and the yellow is colored spray and topped with yellow edible glitter.  

Appreciation Dinner

I was asked to prepare a dinner for a dedicted group of volunteers. The menu consisted of Chicken Pastry Roulade, Roasted Fingerling Potatoes, Steamed Vegetables with a Light Lemon Butter Sauce, Garden Salad with Stawberry Vinegrette, Fresh Fruit and a Strawberry Charlette for Dessert (not pictured).

Chicken Pastry Roulade                                                                      I cooked chicken beast lightly seasoned with salt and pepper, then shredded it. In a seperate bowl I made a filling consisting of cream cheese, green onion, red bell pepper, Italian blend shredded cheese, Italain dried herbs, salt and pepper to taste. I mixed this until all ingrediants are blened well. I then added the cooked shredded chicken and mixed well. I had thawed two sheets of purchased puff pastry; unrolled pastry and and overlapped the toew sheets about two inches on the short side. I used a little bit of water on the one end and layed the other sheet over damp end and pressed to secure.  I spooned the chicken filling down the center of the pastry making sure to leave about 4 inches at both short ends. The filling should resemble a log shape. fold the two short ends over filling then grab one long end and fold over filling. Using water dab lightly a little on the pastry that is covering the filling. Take side and fold over, sealing in filling. Carfeully place Roulade seam side down on parchment lined cookie sheet and place in a 375 degrees F pre-heated oven and bake until golden brown.

Steamed Vegitables with Lemon Butter Sauce

While veggie steam melt butter add a splash of fresh lemon juice, lemon zest, salt and pepper to taste. Drizzel over veggies and carefully stir to coat.

Roasted Fingerling Potatoes

Toss potaotes in olove oil adn season with salt and pepper and Herb de Provance. Roast in a 375 degree F oven until fork tender.  

      

Garden Salad with Strawberry Vinegrette

The Garden Salad is your garden variety (excuse the pun) You can use whatever veggies you love. In this particular recipe I used baby greens, cucumbers and grape tomatoes. The vineagrette is made from fresh strawberries, sugar, oil, salt & pepper and balsamic vinager. The dressing made this salad awesome.

Fresh fruit always adds a nice touch to any meal.

Alice in Wonderland Cake

I made this cake recently for two little girls. I had a lot of fun creating the design for this cake. It's five layers of white cake with a strawberry filling. I frosted it in vanilla buttercream and covered the cake in green fondant.

A tea party needs a pretty table cloth. I placed a piece of fondant on top after I cut out a pretty pattern around the edge. I then encircled the top with pink gum paste flowers and leaves.

A purple and blue fondant rope was wrapped around the bottom of the cake and eatable wafer paper Wonderland Characters were glued on with royal icing, and white chocolate playing cards were added. Wafer paper is made from rice and is paper thin. Food coloring is used to print images onto the paper which then can be cut out and used to decorate cakes and cookies. There is a close up of Alice for you to see the detail manufactures can achieve.

Now a tea party isn't complete without tea cups and saucers. I made this one out of gum paste and attached a gum paste flower and leaf with royal icing. When it was dry I painted it with a  combination of clear vanilla extract and pearl dust. 

I made three large gum paste flowers and leaves, one blue, pink and purple. I attached the flowers and leaves using royal icing.  Gum paste when dried is very hard and fragile. Handle your gum paste creations with care.

 

The completed cake:

Picture courtesy of Aimee D.