| |
Dessertcirkus in your kitchen
Most people like good chocolate. I simply just love it! I probably eat about 200 to 300 grams every day, purely and simply because I am so fond of it. And now we even know it is actually healthy to eat chocolate. The expensive cocoa butter that you find in pure chocolate has, according to American scientists, the same positive, attenuating influence on our blood as it was proven a few years ago that red wine has. This means that we „chocomaniacs“ are free to eat away of our beloved chocolate, and at the same time, we reduce the risk of embolism.
Chocolate is a delight — and it is fascinating to work with. It is used for desserts, pastry, ice-creams and sauces; you can shape it in moulds, squeeze it out, melt it, and warm it. It has many applications, and it only demands that you follow certain rules:
A high content of cocoa is not always a guarantee for quality chocolate. Neither does a high degree of alcoholic content of a red wine automatically mean that it is a fine red wine. First of all, you have to choose a chocolate without additives such as alien fatty substances and strange E-numbers. After that, it is the quality of the cocoa beans that counts. If you follow these rules, you can really benefit from a high content of cocoa. A high content of cocoa is expensive, but if the chocolate is treated properly, it pays a lot to spend a little bit more money on a quality chocolate, because both the flavour and the aroma is better. Forget about chocolate buttons for chocolate coating—a chocolate button is not chocolate, it is coloured fatty substances! It does not taste like real chocolate, and it does not make that „crack“, by which a true lover of chocolates recognizes a good chocolate.
|
|
Chocolate Soufflé
In 1993, I was just started working for the Royal Family. One day, His Royal Highness Prince Henrik came to me and let me know how much he appreciates heavy, dark chocolate. He asked me if I could conjure up a hot dessert for the dinner party that evening. I rushed into the kitchen, my brains working at high pressure. After a few experiments, I finally came up with this dessert, which, by the way, became one of Prince Henrik's favorites.
Ingredients:
Serves 6
200 gram dark chocolate
140 gram free range eggs (approx. 4 eggs)
50 gram salted butter
60 gram icing sugar
1/2 pod good vanilla
25 gram cold butter for greasing
2 tbsp. caster sugar
Chop the chocolate finely and melt it—if desired, in a microwave oven at a temperature of approximately 55 °C. Cut the butter, coming directly from the refrigerator, into small hunks, and add these to the warm chocolate along with grains from the vanilla pod. Whisk the egg whites with sugar until stiff. Fold some of the egg whites into the warm chocolate custard. Then fold in 4 egg yolks, followed by the rest of the stiff egg whites. Carefully grease six to eight small and ovenproof individual dishes with cold butter—using your fingers. Line the individual dishes with baking parchment. Melt the rest of the butter, and smear a thin layer onto the inside of the baking parchment, and sprinkle this with sugar.
Pour the chocolate custard into the individual dishes, and freeze for at least 18 hours. Before serving, take them out of the freezer, and put them directly into a preheated oven with a temperature of 220 °C. Bake for approximately 15 minutes. Let them rest for a couple of minutes before removing the individual dish and the baking parchment. Arrange the soufflés on large, beautiful dishes. You can also choose not to freeze the soufflés prior to the baking. In this case, they are only to be baked for approximately 12 minutes.
|
|
Raspberry Truffles
If you like chocolate, and you also like raspberries... then this is Heaven on Earth...
Ingredients:
Approx. 40 Truffles
200 gram milk chocolate
200 gram frozen raspberries
2 tbsp. Glucose Syrup
1/2 pod good vanilla
15 gram butter
200 gram melted dark chocolate for coating
Chop the milk chocolate finely, and put it into a big bowl. Put the raspberries into a small saucepan along with glucose syrup and the split vanilla pod. Bring to the boil at low heat while stirring. Pass the raspberry paste through a sieve directly into the chocolate little by little. Use a plastic spoon, not a wooden one! Add the soft butter in small pieces, when the raspberry paste has reached body temperature. Pour the paste into a bowl, and store in a cool place, not in the refrigerator, for minimum 12 hours.
Make small "marbles" by the size of a hazelnut of it in the raspberry paste.
Dip into the melted dark chocolate having a temperature of approximately 35 °C, not necessarily tempered chocolate. Use your fingers, that is the easiest way, and put the truffles directly into cocoa powder where you store them until serving. Store the truffles in a cold place, but not in the refrigerator.
|
|
