Chocolates & Confections Week 3

This Week's projects: Madras, Rainier, and Spiked Eggnog.

Madras has white chocolate ganache with curry and coconut cream in it. Weird, yes...but surprisingly tasty. Rainier, named after a variety of cherries, has a center of dried cherry with raspberry ganache piped onto it. Spiked Eggnog, as its name implies, contains alcohol--dark rum--and freshly grated nutmeg for a nice eggnogg-y kick.

The filling for Rainier and Spiked Eggnog are both piped onto chocolate disks. To prepare the disks, we tempered some chocolate and spread it thinly onto a parchment...

We let the chocoalte set a little, but not all the way. Before it sets completely (i.e. while it's still somewhat soft), we cut out rounds of disks using the bottom of a piping tip.

While my teammate was preparing the disks, I prepared the filling for the Spiked Eggnog. We filled a piping bag with it, and piped them on...

They should be piped so they'll leave a nice, pointed tip--but the filling got too firm. Next time, we'll piped them while they're still soft.

For the Rainier, we dabbed some melted chocolate on the cherries and pressed them onto the disks to secure them.

On top of these cherries, we piped the raspberry ganache filling into a pointed tip, like a Hershey kiss.
Wanting to experiment, I switched the piping tips and piped out....

Brain Rainier! Next month will be my third anniversary since my stroke. Goodness, time flies!
Once everything is piped out and cut, we dipped them in melted chocolate. The Madras turned out messy--somehow the ganache didn't firm up. But it tasted great!

Left: Madras (with curry powder on top)

Center: Spiked Eggnog

Right: Rainier (with white dot on top)

Mom was skeptical when I told her about the Madras...until she tasted it, and declared it her favorite flavor! It's cool how chocolates are expanding the horizon and the palates of my parents.