SHF #18 / Home made chocolates #2 - Prošek chocolates

Chandra of Lick the Spoon is hosting this months Sugar High Friday and she wants us to liven up the party with a drunken dessert! Pretty soon after she announced this months SHF I new what I wanted to make: chocolates! I actually made these chocolates two weeks ago with my friend Christie. After eating sugar-free and chocolate-free for nearly a week (read why here) we just had to make something chocolaty. We made Moscatel chocolates from Kees Raat’s Bonbon book. They are made with white chocolate and Moscatel, a Spanish dessert wine. Instead of using Moscatel (which I didn’t have) we used Dalmatian Prošek. Prošek - not to be confused it with Italian Prosecco - is a typical dessert wine from Dalmatia, Croatia (the region my father is from). It is a very tasty - quite heavy taste I would say – sweet, amber coloured wine made from raisins. It can be drunk as an aperitif or as a dessert wine. I don’t know if Moscatel is anything like Prošek but I figured that the heavy taste of Prošek would combine well with the white chocolate. Fortunately I figured right! You can taste the Prošek very well and the alcohol taste takes the edge off the sweet taste of the white chocolate. As Croats would say: Živjeli!



From: Bonbon by Kees Raat

makes about 30 smallish chocolates

113 g (4 oz) Prošek (NOT fl oz!)
25 g (0.9 oz) whipping cream (NOT fl oz!)
dash of salt
375 g (13 ¼ oz) white chocolate
25 g (0.9 oz) butter, chopped and at room temperature

dipping
300 (10 ½ oz) + 100 g (3 ½ oz) white chocolate

Bring the Prošek, cream and salt to a boil. Put the chocolate in a bowl and add the hot Prošek mixture. Stir until the chocolate melts (reheat a bit if necessary). Add the butter and stir until smooth. Allow the mixture to come to room temperature.
Temper the chocolate by melting 300 g (10 ½ oz) of the white chocolate and allowing it to reach 45-50ºC (113-122ºF). Whilst stirring with a spatula slowly add enough of the 100 g (3 ½ oz) of white chocolate so that the chocolate is 29ºC (84ºF) (read Note 1)
Take some of the molten chocolate with a teaspoon and make thin chocolate rounds on baking paper. Use the back of the back of teaspoon to spread the chocolate a bit. Make 30 chocolate rounds. Allow the rounds to harden.
Pipe the filling on the rounds.
Temper the chocolate again so that the chocolate you are working with is 29ºC (84ºF). Use a special chocolate dipping fork or a fork with thin teeth from which you’ve removed one outer tooth and one inner tooth). Lift the filling + round with the fork and dip into the chocolate. Tap the fork a few times on the rim of the bowl so that the chocolate will look smooth and even. Scrape the fork over the rim to allow excess chocolate to slide back into the bowl. (I found it easier to spoon chocolate over the filling and then do the tapping and the scraping). Place the fork at an angle on baking paper and carefully let the chocolate glide off the fork.

Note 1 ~ if you’re working in a warm kitchen the amounts should be changed, you should melt less chocolate (eg 250 g / 9 oz) and add more chopped chocolate (eg 150 g / 5 oz). Otherwise you won’t be able to lower the temperature to 29ºC (84ºF)

Note 2 ~ allow left over chocolate to harden. Store in fat-free paper at app. 18ºC (64ºF). You can use it till up to 6 months. Every time you want to use it to dip chocolates in you should temper it again.

Storing ~ The chocolates have a shelf-life of 2 weeks if stored in a dry place at 12 to 18ºC (54 to 64 ºF).
They can also be frozen for max 3 months. Pack the chocolates in wrapping plastic with the smallest amount of air possible. Place them in a plastic container Take them from the freezer 36 hours before you need them. Allow to defrost for 24 hours in the wrapping plastic in the fridge and 12 hours at room temperature.

1 chocolate – 144 kcal
100 g – 514

carbohydrate 42 g – protein 7 g – fat 34 g (saturated fat 21 g) – fibre 0 g