Deep dive to regional France cuisine to one of my anchor place

With this idea of deep dive to regional France cuisine to one of my anchor place, I am presenting you today with a specialy from the area of Somme and Pas de Calais. This is where I grew up.  I found this photo recently on my tablet, timely!  The regional France areas live a lot on the rythm of seasonal products. For example, in Australia, we have access to zuchinis (courgettes) all year long, well it is not so true over there, the season is in summer. During the courgette season you eat ratatouille or stuffed zuchini at least once a week!  The seasons were marked by their produce and by the (compusory) requirement to help harvesting berries, asparagus, beans when it was not removing nasty weeds in the fields.

Deep dive to regional France cuisine to one of my anchor place

This photo below is from my grandfather’s garden. My grandfather, when he was not reading, was often found in his garden.  As kids we were only allowed there with an adult in case we walked over crops and damaged the well formed alleys.  Only the rabbits managed to get under the wiring on one side to enjoy the goods! The garden contained a mix of fruits, vegies plans and flowers. There were many things: strawberries, raspberries, red current, black current, asperagus, apples, pears, courgettes, artichokes, potatoes, leeks, ….  It was manicured. It was magic. We loved going there!

my grandparents
My Grandfather, myself and other family members in my grandfather’s garden

Le gateau de Mamiche

My grandmother, Mamiche,  was an amazing person. While  I would not describe her as a person who loved cooking, she exceeled in eggs in jelly, beef tongue and this chocolate cake I am presenting today now called “le Gateau de Mamiche”. Le Gateau de Mamiche is a rich, dense and textured chocolate cake.  A bit like a mud cake, although not as heavy. Recipe HERE.

dense chocolate cake

 

Le gateau battu

gateau battu Picardie

Northern France cooking is generally known for its dairy based dishes: cream, milk, butter.

This cake is a bit like a brioche but contains much less butter.  Interestingly for a raised dough, it uses the eggwhites in snow.  Fresh, on the day, it is used in some areas to go with a glass of Champagne.  Else it is delicious toasted or not with a bit of jam. This is  what we did this time. The recipe is HERE.

gateau battu Picardie gateau battu et confiture

Easter 2020. Pear and no chocolate overdose!

Easter 2020 and pear. And chocolate of course.  Did you manage Easter without a chocolate overdose?

Not to worry, there was chocolate involved in our household.  We made an Easter bunny, two large Easter eggs and a myriad of small eggs.  Tempering chocolate is a great introduction for children to chemistry. Very messy though!

Poached autumn pear and its zabaglione mousse

This Easter 2020, for the meals I aimed at using some beautiful autumn ingredients I had gathered (in the shops considering we can’t travel): chestnuts, mushrooms, beans, a nice joint of lamb, different types of pears.  What to do? Slowly this idea came up.  Pear was going to be the queen of Easter 2020.  I ended up poaching some pears in a mix of squeezed orange juice and spices.  I was not going to discard the poaching liquid! The poaching liquid was the basis for a zabaglione mousse.  The zabaglione was delicious warm, as a  mousse, it has a great texture and works well with the poached pear.  I  prefered it warm butone of my kids loves it as a cold mousse, so that comes down to personal preferences.

poached pear poached pear in zabaglione

Other pear recipes

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I cook a lot with pears at the moment, obviously peak season. Check out these recipes that may inspire you.

Pear tarte tatin – works for pear and apple. The trick is to cook the fruits in a very buttery water bath before making the pie. The method behind the recipe comes from a reknown French pastry chef, Christophe Michalak.  PS- you can find real butter puff pastry in Asutralian supermarkets now!

Pear and chocolate flan – a rapid and very easy recipe. It is a crowd lover and can be used to make use of those pears about to go off.

A bit more elaborate, this pear and chocolate tarte is a winner and always makes an impression.  You will need to make a shorcrust pastry. It is a great dessert to finish off a diner party! – the photo I have is not exceptional, a good excuse to do it soon!

I like this more conventional pear and almond tarte.

Last year, I made this chocolate and standing pear cake. It was pretty good. I will put it back on my list for this month.

My last idea, the very simple Poire Belle Helene, one of my favourite classic.  Here with a little chocolate twist.

I can’t  believe I was about to forget the good old simple rural pear tarte.  it is the same recipe as the classic apple tarte or pretty much.  The evening classic of many families.  I grew up with those!

The brownie recipe!

The brownie recipe

The brownie recipe! Yes, it is uploaded HERE. This is my recipe for a brownie, chocolatey, gooey, not too sweet.  I made it one day when friends were visiting between the very short time of ending a bushwalk and them getting back on the road with what was going to be an empty stomach.

I have read a number of good posts about brownies, wondering when I would finally find a recipe I would really like.  This blogger went on a mission of recipe testing,  others (there is a good post I read a couple times, just can’t find it now)  discuss the different versions: with cocoa (which I must say I have not yet tried) vs with chocolate, more cake-like, more fudge-like.  As for me I tend to like a brownie with some texture and a melting centre.

The brownie must be not too sweet, this is important as many brownies recipes have enormous amounts of sugar. Note that it is not sugar free either.  One of the keys of a good brownie is using brown sugar. It holds moisture better than white sugar due to the molasses.

Another important ingredient is the chocolate you use.  I like using 70% dark cooking chocolate. For some of you, it may be a bit strong, you can then use a bittersweet chocolate or 60% dark chocolate of good quality. If you are going to use milk chocolate for the choc chip in this recipe, decrease the white sugar by 40 g.  Now if you want a brownie for the children, try this brownie recipe with dulce de leche (i.e. caramel sweet concentrated milk) , my children love it!

chocolate and nuts soft brownies

Bread and brioche

A good brioche is a treat.  I use this start brioche recipe on this blog but do not necessarily shape it as a star brioche.  How beautiful!  Note that for a nice brioche, you will need a dough hook mixer.

This bread is our usual family stapple, I have now years of baking our bread. If you started on the journey and ended up with a brick, don’t be disheartened, try again.   If you have started going into sourdough bread making, you may want to read the tips on my sourdough bread making recipe. I do mostly baguettes now (I started with loaves, balls).  Sourdough baguettes are made from pretty much the same recipe but wetter (i.e. more sticky), see HERE.

briochhe parisienne et baguettes au levain
French brioche and sourdough baguettes, all homemade

 

Greens and nuts are good for you!

Greens and nuts are good for you! Not new, I know. I don’t pretend to be a dietician. Greens bring such a diversity of flavours and forms and nuts are quite filling and crunchy and versatile.  Anyway, you probably don’t need much convincing.

Poelee of italian pine mushrooms and greens

I did not go unfortunately in the Blue Mountains or Bellanglo State Forest to pick italian pine mushrooms this year.  If anyone lives that way, I would love to know if they are still in season and if the bushfires have affected the areas of growth!  You can find those mushrooms at small markets or some vegetable stores like Harris Farm in season sometimes.

They are great in risotto and in vegetable stir fries with butter and garlic. Whatever you do, don’t forget the butter and the garlic! Check HERE for the recipe I posted.

The key in sauteed vegetables is to not hesitate using garlic and butter and to add the vegetables according to their cooking time.  Using nuts to complement the dish adds a little complexity and crunchiness.  You can also add a little chili.

peas brocoli pine mushrooms
Poelee of italian pine mushrooms, peas, brocoli and chestnuts, here served with drilled pork chops

Chocolate and nuts toasted muesli

This is my second muesli recipe. The first was with dry fruits and nuts (HERE), this one is chocolate and nuts (HERE).

nuts and chocolate toasted muesli

Next week

Next week, I will post this recipe, my own brownies recipe. Yum! I made that recipe one day super quickly for some friends.  A good brownie for me needs to be soft and gooey in the middle, not too sweet and quite chocolatey.

chocolate and nuts soft brownies

my news? gnocchi week

Hello! My news? I am back populating this blog with recipes.  This week is gnocchi week.  And no, I did not stop cooking, more that I did not have the time to organise the photos and write up of the recipes.  Today baguettes and chicken liver pates are flying out the door.

Fabienne breadnbutterkids

And we are on chocolate hangover (for a few days at least) a bit before Easter due to family birthdays.

This one below was a trial from Pierre Herme’s book  “Le Larousse du Chocolat“.

It is an hazelnut daquoise (i.e.hazelnut meringue biscuit) with a rich chocolate filling.

Our finding: very good albeit in quite small quantities. The filling was too much chocolate to our taste. It looked good anyway!

Daquoise au chocolat Pierre herme

Recently I discovered ricotta gnocchis. gnocchi and roasted vegetablesWe were already doing regulalry (works well with left over mash) some potato gnocchi (that makes me realise that I need to take some photos next time), now we are also into ricotta gnocchi. Yum, we love them. Easy, quick, good! Try it out HERE.

For the potato gnocchi, you will have to do with my notes for now! See you for now.

potato gnocchi recipe
For now, you will have to do with my notes

The leek, a winter vegetable

Leek, a winter vegetable, here are three dishes.

If you have grown up in the northern part of Europe, you would have had quite a bit to do with leeks. After all, it is one of the few  green vegetables available in winter.  To be fair, as a child, I did not like them so much. Now, it is different, I like their versatility and in winter I like using them in various dishes.

L’euf cocotte

L’oeuf cocotte is a bit like the onion tarte, a winter warmer. It is simple and easy to make.  Make it as an entry or a main.  The bottm, underneath the egg is where you will find the leek. The leek has been cooked slowly and has like melted to a soft conistency, and so tasty!   Recipe HERE.

oeufs cocotte ready for baking

 

 

 

 

 

The typical northern France soup

Poireau, carotte, pomme de terre, that is leek, caroot, potatoe.  This is the classic soup from northern France.  The potatoe helps binding the carott and the leek.  For 6 people, you will need one leek, 1 large potato and 2 carotts. Peel, clean and cut the vegetables, place them in a saucepan with one tablespoon of rock salt and cover with water. Cook until tender and blend.

You can add a spoon of sour cream in each soup plate or bowl when serving.

Also note, there is no ned to use chicken or vegetable stock, this would only add salt and there is plenty taste as is.

The flamiche or leek tarte

This is a tarte, not a quiche.  That means there is only one or two eggs and a little cream. It is rather light.  You will need at least two leeks. Similarl than for the oeufs cocotte above, you need to melt them in a covered pan. In the meanwhile, prepare a shortcrust pastry and place it over a tarte dish.   the pastry doesn’t need to be pre-cooked.

When the leeks are ready, remove from the heat. Still in the frypan, add salt and pepper to taste, a pinch or cumin or nutmeg is desired. Add 1 large tablespoon of flour, 2 eggs and up to 150 mL of cream. Mix all and put over the pastry. Cook at 180°C.

While I get around t0 do it for my blog, taking ice photos and posting a recipe, I am sharing one recipe from the Delicious magazine which doesn’t look so bad, although uses way more cream than the “real” flamiche.

Other cooking photos the last few weeks

I had been struggling with my croissants, the lamination (layeing of butter and dough for the non-techical) never seemed to work well. Last weekend it did, there is something to do with controlling temperatures, I will make more soon to make sure it was not a happy accident!

There are also these beautiful sourdough baguettes that seem to slide out of my oven twice a week.

Churros, our newly adopted snack

Why suddenly churros?

Churros breadNbutterkids

A month ago I was there 20 minutes before dinner looking online for ideas of very quick desserts.  For a change I wanted to stir away from a chocolate cake, chocolate souffles and all other chocolate treats for that reason.

Maybe I had an overdose of chocolate, we had just been preparing our Easter chocolate eggs.  Making Easter eggs and a few bunnies has become a rite just before Easter. The children are the doers once the chocolate is tempered.  They love it. I do as well and I must say the chocolate eggs and bunnies are pretty good!

chocolate eggs

So what happened?

So I was looking through a collection of recipe from I can’t remember a French or Australian foodie magazine website.  I was probably looking at both.  Anyway, I happened to see a churros recipe.  That was it, I had everything available: flour, eggs, a little bit of sugar and some butter.

So here I am making my churros dough, then we are having our dinner with a break for the cooking.  The first batch is just out that some neighbours pop up.  Churros gone, I just had time to dust some icing sugar on them. The last batch was cleaned off very quick as well.

The batch of churros for the photos was done this weekend while doing a 1,000 pieces jigsaw puzzle of the map of Australia found at the local wharf (wharf treasures).

Churros breadNbutterkids

 

The recipe is HERE!

Churros breadNbutterkids Churros breadNbutterkids

What else?

I bought a block of fresh yeast when wandering in Haberfield, an inner west suburb of Sydney with a strong Italian tradition.  So I made quite a few  things.

sugar tarte

One family favourite is the Tarte au sucre, a northern France specialty.  It is very simple. I know I often says so. Trust me, this raised dough has nothing to scare you off: mix, let rise, spread, spread soft brown sugar and cream and bake! the recipe is HERE.

croissants

I hadn’t done any croissants for a while. I was not that happy with my lamination but they turned out better that I thought they would.  It is always fun to have the children rolling them. We also had a traveller staying with us who loved this type of activities and was happy to learn.

 

Quick and beautiful

Did I find that camera again?

Some photos!! Finally!  Some photos means something to put on the blog.  There is plenty cooking going on but often no photos being taken. The reason is not always not finding the camera. It ranges from making time to not having anything to photograph any more because somebody ate it!

Some quick dishes

Sometimes I decide to bake something at the last minute, or I push the boundary of getting a dish done while doing many other things or having to leave the house soon. At other times, I am just coming home and need to cook something for dinner. Inspiration is not forthcoming until some ideas just pop up. Today, I am sharing some of these ideas with you.

Comfort food for an easy lunch or dinner

boulettes viande sauce tomate

Last weekend, I did not feel like sausages for dinner. I am not fan of sausages I must say. We had some mince and while the sausages were cooking (for the children who normally are sausages bug fans!) I just went on making meat balls.  The thing with meat balls is you can really put a variety of ingredients in them.  Some corn on the cob I was boiling because it had to be used ended up in the meat balls, so did some parsley, onion, garlic and more good things.

I simply served it with a green salad (as in lettuce dressed with olive oil&balsamic vinaigar).

Recipe HERE.

Chocolate fondant for a neighbourhood party

We got that invitation for a party which we weren’t sure what to bring or if to bring anything. I decided the children – there were bound to be quite a few – would always appreciate a little chocolate cake.

That recipe was found online a few days before I did it, I just gave it a try. Making:  5-10 minutes.  Cooking time: 8 minutes. It is a bit like a brownies but not so heavy.  The fun bit was for the children to decorate it using tagliatelle and icing sugar.

The recipe can be found where I found it, on ELLE website.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

A recent encounter with Alain Ducasse chocolate cream

I am on this home cooking facebook page where one day I saw and wrote down this recipe from a french chef for some “petits pots de creme au chocolat”.  These are little ramequins of chocolate cream.  This dessert does not contain any cream nor flour or cornflour. It is a creme anglaise with chocolate, good chocolate, and a fair bit of it!

I have now done them quite a few times in the last three month, they are easy to make and so pleasing.  This is the first time I manage to snap a photo of them. Recipe HERE.

petits pots au chocolat petits pots au chocolat

And I had not made these for a while….

These is my tke on the protuguese custard tartlets. All you need is a good puff pastry, a vanilla custard and a little extra butter and sugar!  The recipe is already on the blog HERE. The photos here are the last batch. They smelled so good when we were taking the photos, it was hard to resist!

potuguese style tartlets potuguese style tartlets potuguese style tartlets

Markets

You may be wondering what I have been up to and why I have not posted for some time.  I find it hard to maintain the pace of blogging while working full-time.  Spending time again on a computer in the evening does not really happen.  The cooking happens, don’t worry.  It just gets eaten!

There has been a lot of baguettes baking recently.  I made a batch of chicken liver pate, always nice with a beer at the end of the day or for a quick bite at lunch.  Great for picnics as well, contained, easy to transport, crowd pleaser. What else?  Oh, of course, I also made a batch of red-current jam, yum! I think I missed strawberry season, which is a pity,  we were away.

Our family went to France and Italy over the end of the year and start of the new one.  I had not been in a northern France winter for about 20 years and had forgotten how short the days are, how late (8.30am!!!) the sun dares get up, and how grey some days can be.  As for the coldest, so much for us seeking warmer days in Italy it was even colder there, we were in the beautiful city of Florence.

Markets in France and Italy

I cannot spend time near a town without checking market days and if possible make it there.  French markets are packed with really long cheese display, buckets of cream, yogurt, butter, you name it.  There are also amazing fish mongers, fruits and vegetable stalls with a variety of local products, charcuterie stores (that’s all the nice saucisons pate, etc).  In brief a lot not to miss.  The location of the markets is always downtown, great settings. With that come also a number of bakery shops and other window shopping.  Irresistable!

Countryside France

Near the village I am from, in the small town  named Hesdin, in Northern France, the market is on Thursday morning. The market starts early, some people go there before going to work! Hesdin has a pretty good market as there are many villages nearby which it caters for.  Montreuil sur Mer, some 30 km west of Hesdin has a pretty good one on Saturday in the middle of the fortified city, pretty cool (except for parking).

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We also went to Chalons en Champagne and saw the end bit of the market. It was on a cold and rainy day.  We got some 36 month old Comte, a hard mountain cheese.  It is really delectable.

Florence, Italy

In Italy, we were mostly in Florence. Florence has a number of markets catering for leather goods and/or food.  I m not going to develop there, there is everything you need to know on a travelling website for Florence.  In Florence, the external leather markets were not our focus, we found the good quality products were most often in stores, making any treasured find very random. The general market of Central Market was good.  I really liked the food court above it, it made for a variety of top quality food in a simple way.  I was aiming to visit the  Sant’Ambrogio market, but that did not fit in with museums bookings.  Florence has very good savoury food and amazing gelatos.  We were staying in a residential area in the centre , there were many small-medium size restaurants to choose in between for dinner, they were great!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Back to Paris

The last market of our trip, actually there were two, one on the Saturday, the other on the Sunday, were random finds along Paris main boulevard.  The Saturday market was the marche Egar Quinet, a really big and beautiful display of food along Boulevard Edgar Quinet, right near Montparnasse. I did not have any phone or camera with me, we were walking to meet by brother for lunch in a brasserie called Chez Edouard. The brasserie was lovely, nice food, nice beers, and great ambiance.

Why can’t we have markets like these in Sydney?

I always wondered why Sydney does not have that market culture. People rely way too much on waxy shiny supermarket fruits I find.  Or for some reasons in Sydney, a market is full of very expensive food. Isn’t the idea of a market to be affordable because this is a straight exchange from producer or wholesaler to consumer?

 

You will never fail your tarte Tatin again

Tarte Tatin or the upside down tarte.

Tarte Tatin is a French dessert,  with lots of butter, caramel and a beautiful pastry.  It is cooked with the pastry on top, not underneath like a usual tarte.  After cooling down a little, it is turned upside down on a serving plate.

Until now, mine resembled a gooey gathering of fruits and caramel.  I must say, since I tried this tip maybe three-month ago, I have found a new “Waho” dessert that is simple to make.  I know, some will say, I always say so (which is not true!)… Try, this will become your dinner party dessert. And you know what:  it is not a chocolate – even though we love it – recipe!

So, what results do you get?

I made the same recipe with apple and with pears.  For the later, make sure they are not too soft. By now at least two to three-time each. The last one was a large size one on Monday. Yes a week day! I have taken a few photos. I realise the best apple tarte Tatin were not photographed.  Check out the fruits sitting!  I can’t believe it every time I unmold one these days.

Tatin poires tatin pommes

And what is that tip?

A classic tarte Tatin recipe will call for you to either cook the fruits with butter and sugar in a thick based frypan and somehow avoid a puree or place the uncooked fruits directly in the baking tin and pray that they be cooked by the time the pastry is ready. I never fancied either techniques (I guess you got that by now).

The tip comes from Christophe Michalak, a French pastry chef very followed at the moment.  To be frank, he is a Master Patissier. I made some of his recipes (I made this amazing strawberry tarte of his a couple weeks ago for a birthday, delicious!!) and they are pretty good and very practical. All are not necessarily that easy.

Ok, the tip! Let us come back to our topic.  All right, swap the frypan for a good size saucepan. Butter, sugar, vanilla and peeled quartered fruits all get in and relax in there for a bit in their little jacuzzi until they are soft. That is the tip! No pureed fruits! Plenty space for them to move and cook slowly without coming to pieces. You are left with an interesting juice, which can be used for another Tatin or something else.  I have one on the corner of the stove right now and am getting ideas…

Back to our tarte Tatin again.  Then, you place the fruits over a caramel (you didn’t think you are going to stay idle all that time, did you?) you have previously  covered the base and side of the metal tin with.  Your job there is to ensure the pieces are fruits are cosy side by side.  Then the pastry comes on top, and all is sent for a little bit more warmth in Mr Oven for a little bit.

Conclusion: You will never fail your tarte Tatin again!

If you want the recipe, click HERE.

tatin pomme

Wholefood bars, I tried one, here you go…

Wholefood bars, I tried one, here you go…

See, I bought this magazine at the airport a few weeks ago.  Nothing exceptional in that for now, you may think.

I was attracted by the  beautiful display of simple ingredients cooked in a range of easy, tasty and good looking dishes.    When I actually reached the sweet section, I was surprised to see a range of “wholefood bars”.  You may recognise the magazine by now, it was Donna Hay’s 100th issue.

Baking being my natural inclination, I set to do one of the recipe in the issue.  I settled on the raspberry coconut pannacotta bar.  I can tell you there was no regret there!

The recipe can be found HERE with a number of tips.

raspberry raw food

Wholefood bars – the feedback on the making

  • It was quite easy.  For someone who is not often in the kitchen, I would say, it is achievable as the steps are simple enough and there is one action at the time.
  • You may not have all the ingredients at home. No panic, sometimes you can allow to be creative.  For example :
    • I did not have fresh dates but package dates.  It worked very well all the same, it was not overpowerly sweet nor did it taste too much like dates (which  I am not the biggest fan).
    • Similarly . I did not have coconut oil (I do now, it may take me years to use it, time will tell) , coconut oil doesn’t really have more health benefit than other oils but it has a textural benefit by solidifying a low temperature.  So, for the biscuit, I used a peanut oil and for the raspberry mix, I used cocoa butter.
  • It is a stage process, like all layering sweet creation.
  • Invite friends over or bring to a picnic! Even though we really liked this slice, the slice is quite filling.
  • The dry-freeze decoration (as in the magasine) is hard to find and is purely decorative.  Being on Scotland Island, getting in a boat, crossing to the mainland and then driving  “to town” and dropping to the local fine food store or health food store was not an option for me.
  • To cut the slice, make sure you have a narrow (can be tall) blade and wipe it between rows.

Verdict:

Will I try again?  Yes, with enough people around to eat it.  I have not tried to freeze the slice I made to see if it is an option.

Is it a bit fancy all these ingredients?  The ingredients in the recipe I did are all top market ingredients, so not low-cost.  I did not do the slice to test its health benefits. It is worth noting that while dates are quite nutritious and that coconut oil health benefit are not demonstrated.  As the quantities remain small, there is nothing unreasonable.

Does it keep?  We kept ours for 2-3 days. As you can see on the photos taken two days after making (could not find the camera), the  white top  will  soon be influenced by the underlying raspberry .  The colour will start to come through.  Nothing

raspberry raw food

 

A bit of chocolate? Euh? Make your own chocolate tablet.

HOMEMADE CHOCOLATE

It was a weekend in chocolate, I have been watching people speaking about making their own chocolate. I had purchased some time ago some cocoa butter, so I thought I may as well use it.  

This is when I realise most homemade chocolate blog discussions are by raw food fans

So you try to understand what you should be doing and the first thing you get is all these fancy ingredients: cacao (and raw please) and not cocoa, sweeteners of all kinds, oils of various types, and of course cocoa or cacao butter.  Waho!!! Hello Moon, this is raw food land! I don’t mind raw food people (up to them – and you will see my next recipe is a yummy raw food bar !) but I don’t see the benefit of fancy ingredients with higher environmental and socio-economical costs for the sake  of it.

So let us remain on basic ingredients, I used:

  1. Cocoa powder (dutch cocoa)
  2. Cocoa butter
  3. Icing sugar and/or honey
  4. Nuts
  5. Plus a range of ingredients through trials and errors as you will read below
HOMEMADE CHOCOLATE
Cacao on the left, dutch cocoa on the right

Cocoa versus Cacao

The french for cocoa is cacao.  But this is not the focus here, just something to muddle up everything.  English speakers call it -if I get it right – cacao powder, the powder obtained by the drying and grounding of the cocoa beans after extraction of the oil (cacao butter) without any need for roasting the beans. At this stage, I must say,  I am not too sure of the last statement, I found two variations of what preparation involves online (a little or not at all).  Cocoa powder is obtained after drying and grounding to a powder the remaining of the cocoa beans after it has been roasted and pressed to remove the oil (cocoa butter).  

And what is dutch cocoa? Cocoa is naturally quite acidic, a process of neutralisation called the dutch process (designed by a Dutch man) aims at neutralising the acidity.  This brings the colour to a deep dark and the neutrality of the powder makes it easier for baking and other chocolate processes. 

Making your chocolate, proportions

The next thing I had to sort out are the relative quantity of cocoa butter to cocoa powder and sugar.  Keep in mind that the mass of cocoa powder and cocoa butter makes your percentage of cocoa in your chocolate. 

One last thing, cocoa butter is an oil, only called butter because it solidifies just below 30 degrees (celcius).

Dark chocolate

In other words for a 60% cocoa solids chocolate, you have 40% sugar and the rest is a range of possibility of cocoa butter and cocoa powder. 

To be honest, my measurements soon became alchemy  and tasting became the rule. 

For the nuts same thing, it is pretty much up to you.  The less, the cheaper from a manufacturer’s point of view of course. I tended to put way more than what recipes called for.Pl  I found it was nicer by roasting the nuts slightly, especially the hazelnuts.  You will need to remove their skins too. 

Milk Chocolate

Dark chocolate contains milk solids.  I must say that at this stage my attempts were not very successful, the powdered milk did not want to dissolve and with the icing sugar it seems too much for the cocoa butter which became a few times a solid mass.  So I added more melted cocoa butter, I tried vegetable oils, passed it through sieves,….

My attempts at milk chocolate were always grainy and not very satisfying. 

HOMEMADE CHOCOLATE

What I learnt?

I learnt that chocolate making can be messy very quickly.  When it works, it is very rewarding.  I find that I don’t know enough to post a whole recipe, there are many aspects of chocolate making which I would love to understand better.  If anyone knows a good class in Sydney, I am happy to go there!   

  • Milk chocolate is not easy, probably because we don’t have the ingredients to the level of quality and thinness than professionals have access to.
  • The cocoa butter taste is quite strong and in many eating chocolate block, there is a fair amount of other vegetable oils.
  • Some dark couverture chocolate have some butter and concentrated milk.  This is the case for the Lindt bittersweet (58%).  I tried adding a little butter to a couple tablets, it is definitely a winner.
  • Adding salt bring the taste up. You don’t need a lot. 
  • It is not cheaper to make it yourself except if you are adding a lot of nuts! 
  • Adding honey is easier than adding icing sugar as it does not remain grainy, on the minus side, the chocolate bar is not as brittle.
  • Trying to transform the sugar into caramel and adding it to the cocoa powder and cocoa butter mix did not work.

In the end, you may wonder if there is a reason to do your own chocolate.  I can see two really good ones which will make me do it from time to time:

  • The smooth feeling of the dark chocolate and the development to the taste of your choice
  • It is fun!

But to be honest, I am quite happy to buy good quality couverture chocolate!  And no, we didn’t eat all this at once.  It actually stayed in the fridge for quite some times until the good photo camera came back home, then it surely disappeared through flocks of kids and grown ups. 

HOMEMADE CHOCOLATE
HOMEMADE CHOCOLATE
HOMEMADE CHOCOLATE
V
HOMEMADE CHOCOLATE
HOMEMADE CHOCOLATE