There are some white and dark chocolates waiting to be used in the kitchen for about a month. Actually, it is a miracle that these chocolates can survive in the kitchen for a long time. In short, it was the time to use them. So, what I did was quite impromptu, I brushed my chocolate molds with white chocolate, and filled with some nice dark chocolate with almonds. But it was too “plain”. So what should I do to make these boring chocolates extraordinary? I simply added some red hot pepper on tops, and make these chocolates reaally hot!! Enjoy!
Hoooot Chocolates
makes 12 chocolates
Ingredients:
100 g (3.5 oz.) white chocolate
100 g (3.5 oz.) 70% dark chocolate (preferably Mexican)
100 g (3.5 oz.) heavy cream
powdered red hot pepper
chopped almonds (optional)
Directions:
In a pan, bring the heavy cream to boil, and remove it from heat. Add the dark chocolate and stir until it is completely melted.
Let the ganache cool in the refrigerator. Add almonds to the ganache if you want.
Brush the chocolate molds with white chocolate, and let it chill in the freezer for 3 minutes. Continue this process a couple of times. By the way, make sure that all sides of teh mold are covered with chocolate.
Fill in the molds with the dark chocolate ganache using a piping bag, while leaving some space at the top. Let the molds cool in the freezer for 15 minutes.
At the top of teh molds, pour white chocolate to complete the white chocolate cover. Flatten the molds with a palette knife. Let them cool for another 10 minutes in the freezer.
Finally, sprinkle the tops with powdered red hot pepper. Keep the chocolates in the refrigerator.
Chocolate Eclairs with Banana and Honey Cream
Well, I know the eclairs in the photo do not look clean and tidy, but their taste is inversely proportional to how they look.. Really.. The reason for their bad appearance is due to a little accident. After I finished making my tiny eclairs, their plate fell off to the kitchen table and their chocolate glaze was destroyed.. I think I’m never going to make some good looking food..
In fact, nothing can make me sad about these eclairs, because it’s my third trial so far, and the first two were a complete disaster. I tried to play with the “choux” pastry recipe, put whole-wheat flour instead of all-purpose flour, tried to change the amount of butter, and the dough didn’t rise. So, this time I didn’t take any risks and made my “pâte à choux” directly from here. The directions there were also very useful.
Anyway, after making my little choux pastries, I filled them with pastry cream. Well, I cannot give you the recipe, because I took it from a pastry chef, but you can use this recipe, which I used before. The tricky part is, when I was making the cream, I added 2 tablespoons of honey by decreasing the amount of sugar, and after the cream is chilled, I added 2 mashed bananas into it.
Finally, I poured chocolate glaze onto them. The glaze is very simple to make, melt the chocolate and add some melted butter (If you melt 2 units of chocolate, add 1 unit of melted butter).