Hazelnut Truffle

Who doesn't like Ferrero Rocher? I got my first taste of hazelnut, when I ate this chocolate and since then, I am hooked to this flavor. Hazelnut coffee, nutella - yummyyy!!! Add this nut to a recipe and it becomes my favorite. Here is my recipe of Hazelnut truffle . Using the finest quality of chocolate and cream is important in this recipe, because then, you will be able to produce a sublime chocolate truffle, while is light and soft in texture -

Ingredients-

Good quality milk Chocolate - 100 gms
Heavy Cream - 40 gms
salted butter - 10 gms
Hazelnut essence - few drops
Hazelnut - 20 gms

Recipe-

1. Keep chocolate ready in a bowl.
2. Bring cream and butter to simmer in a heavy sauce pan( not boiled).
3. Pour this cream onto chocolate and stir cream into chocolate by hand with spatula.
4. Stir until all the chocolate is melted and it forms a uniform shiny mixture. This mixtue is called "ganache" .
5. Let the ganache cool down. Add few drops of hazelnut essence into it .Cover the bowl with a cling film and refrigerate it for 6-8 hrs.
6. After the mixture has completely cooled down and can hold its shape, roll it into small balls.
7. Use your fingers instead of palm to make balls and roll it quickly into finely choppped hazelnuts.
8. Store them in an air tight container and consume within 2 weeks.

Chocolate covered Strawberries!

In ancient times, Strawberry was considered a symbol of Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, because of its shape and red color. Even today, strawberry is considered a romantic fruit, perfect for a romantic after dinner dessert. Chocolate dipped strawberry is a tried and tasted recipe. All you need is some good quality chocolate and some really fresh strawberries.

Ingredients -

1. Strawberry- fresh and ripe ( with no soft spots)- 8-10 pcs
2. Good quality Dark or milk chocolate - 100 gms
3. Butter - 10 gms 
4. Chocolate flavor - optional
5. Parchment paper

Recipe-

1. Choose your strawberry carefully. They should be ripe but not over ripe, also they should be free of any soft spots.
2. Wash strawberries with water and then pet them dry with paper towel. This step is important, because even a single drop of water can cause the chocolate to seize.
3. Line a plate with parchment paper and keep it aside.
4. Melt your chocolate in a microwave or double boiler. At this point you can even add some oil based flavor to chocolate.
5. Add butter to chocolate and mix it thoroughly. Butter gives a nice shine to chocolate coating.
6. I prefer keeping the leaves of berries on while dipping them. You can dip them half way or full.
7. Place strawberries on parchment paper, after dipping them in chocolate.
8. You can use some sprinkles to decorate strawberries or leave them as it is.
9. Let the chocolate set at room temperature.
10. Keeping strawberries in fridge makes them sweat. They should ideally be kept at room temperature and should be consumed within 24 hours.
11. Place them in a pretty serving dish and serve with love to your loved ones.

Dried Fruits Chocolates

I know, its been very long since I have written something. I was missing blogging, sharing my work and recipes. In last few days, I have tried many new flavors, but lets talk about dried fruits first. I use to source my dried fruits from fabindia but got really hooked up to them on my visit to Kolkata. Their I visited Spencers, which has a array of dried fruits, kiwi, berries, mango, orange, plum etc.

I tried chocolate covered dried fruits and then made dried fruit mendiants. The recipe for dried fruits mendiant is same as of dry fruits. I only replaced dry fruit with dried fruits and the result came out very good. They look really tempting with little bites of chocolate decorated with colorful fruits. So far I have received very good reviews for this chocolate. A good quality chocolate and good quality fruit is all it takes to make this blissful chocolate.

Happy chocolate making!!

Green Tea Truffle

How many of you are fond of Green tea? It's loaded with antioxidants, is good for weight loss, helps in maintaining good oral health.  Green tea is considered to be one of the "MUST" food you should include in your diet. When I started making chocolates, I always wanted to try the combination of chocolate with green tea. I developed this recipe on my own, so it was more of an experiment, then a fool proof method. The result was not disappointing. I am not sure if traditional chocoholics will like this truffle because "Green tea truffle" has a hint of bitterness in it, but yet it's something worth trying if you are health conscious and like to have your chocolate with a twist.

The green tea that I have used in my recipe is " Tetley green tea" . You can replace it with any tea of your choice. I think the ideal green tea to be used, for this recipe would be " Japanese matcha" which is  a Japanese green tea and is used in cakes and other kind of desserts. I still have to lay my hands on this product as it is rarely available in India. Also I have used white chocolate in my recipe, since I wanted to balance the sweetness of chocolate with the bitterness of green tea.

Ingredients for Truffle-

White chocolate - 200 gm
Cream - 100 gm
Green tea bags ( tetley) - 4-5
Coating of your choice- colored chocolate vermicelli

Recipe-

1. Bring your cream just to boil, in a medium sauce pan, over medium heat.  Add Green tea to cream and let it simmer for 2 mins.
2. Take this mixture off heat and let it sit for a while. This will let cream absorb green tea flavor.
3. Take a sieve and pass this mixture through it. It will separate green tea particles from cream and leave a creamy potion to be used for chocolate.
4. Heat this cream again over medium flame and pour it over white chocolate, in a heat proof bowl.
5. Stir this mixture till your chocolate is smooth.
6. Cover this bowl with a cling film and keep it in fridge for the chocolate to be firm. The mixture should be very cold and set.
7. Use a spoon or melon baller to scoop balls of chocolate mixture and transfer them on a parchment paper
8. Use your hands, to quickly shape them into rough round. Remember, if you use too much of hand contact, your chocolate will melt due to body heat.
9. Roll these balls into a coating of your choice.
10. Store them in a fridge, in air tight container for upto 2 weeks.

Peanut butter Truffle

hi Guys,

Recently someone asked me to post my favorite recipes here. I have many, but this one came out exceptionally well. The best part was, my kiddo loved it. He is fussy, when it come to food and seeing him liking it, was worth all the efforts. OK, so peanuts are rich in energy and contain health benefiting nutrients, minerals and vitamins, which are essential.

In my recipe, I have made peanut butter at home. If you want you can buy it from grocery store. I believe there are many brands available in India like skippy and fabindia . Here is my recipe-

For peanut butter balls -
Peanuts - 250 gms
Fine sugar - 150 gms
vegetable oil - 2 tbsp

For Shell-
Tempered chocolate of your choice - 200 gms
chocolate sprinkles or any other coating of choice

Yield - 10-12 truffles

Recipe-

1. Dry roast your peanuts on a medium flame. 
2. Let them cool and remove the shell.
3. Put them in a food processor and grind them to your desired consistency. Add little oil in between and process again, until the mixture is smooth.
4. You can also add a little salt at this point, if you want to keep this butter for other purpose. You can store this butter in an air tight container in fridge.
5. For chocolate truffle, take out the mixture from processor, and leave it at room temperature for 10 mins.
6. Now add fine sugar to this mixture and make small balls of it.
7. keep it in fridge for 5 mins, to let it set.
8. Take out the balls and dip them in tempered chocolate or roll them in a coating of your choice. I think tempered chocolate is a good choice, since, when you bite into this truffle, the hardness of chocolate shell and the softness of peanut butter gives a very nice texture to these truffles.

Happy truffle making !!

Chocolate making supplies in Delhi

hello guys,

Today I am going to write about, stores/places where one can find chocolate making supplies. Having faced it myself, I know, it could be really hard for people to find them as they are not easily available in grocery stores and supermarkets. I have done my research and have come up with my own list. Hope that helps. Please share and add more to this.

1.  IPFCO based in mumbai has office in Delhi near Akshardham, for people who want to see the physical product. They have almost everything related to chocolate making , moulds , transfer sheets, tempering machines, packaging material  and other tools required.
IPFCO Delhi office -
Puroos Enterprise
C -23 , West vinod nagar
Patparganj
oppo saraswati kunj society
above Uppal properties
1st floor

contact no: 9811850206

they also have a website www.ipfkart.com for online shopping

2. CCDS - they stock baking and chocolate making stuff. chocolate compounds, decoration related material can be found here. see for yourself at www.ccdsshop.com

3. Gourmet Company. This is again a good online store for chocolate related supplies www. gourmetco.in. I happen to find some very good stuff here, which is otherwise difficult to find elsewhere.

4. Pigmento - they have their outlets in chandini chowk, Ghaziabad . They are stocked well and also keep craft related supplies.

Salted caramel chocolate

I know, I haven't been regular on my blog. I am going to try and make up for that, by sharing this recipe today. So, here we go :)

The first and most important part of "salted caramel chocolate" is the caramel part. For making caramel all we need is sugar, cream and salt. Caramel can be made by dry method and wet method. I will be discussing dry method since it takes less time and the result is awesome.  We need to pour sugar in a heavy bottom pan and put it on medium flame. One should avoid any kind of stirring at this point, since that can lead to crystallization. Slowly sugar will start liquefying. This stage is very important, since we don't want sugar to burn.  Once the liquid has attained a little brown color, you can take it off heat. . Now at this stage add cream to it and also stir it constantly so that the mixture blends completely.  At last you can add a little salt to this mixture or you can use it just the way it is.  I add salted butter at times which gives a very buttery and salty flavor to caramel. Point is, you can make your caramel as per your taste buds by doing your own experiments.

Caramel can be made well in advance and can be stored in fridge for at least a month. . You can use it in lot of desserts. For making  caramel filled chocolates, we need chocolate mould. You need to make chocolate shell and fill caramel sauce into it, let it harden in fridge and then cover it with tempered chocolate.  One can use dark chocolate or milk chocolate as per preference.

Enjoy!!

for making caramel -
sugar - 1 cup
Cream - half cup
salt/ butter - as per taste / optional

for making chocolate shell-
dark/milk chocolate - 250 gms

Yield - 12-15 chocolates