Ted’s Christmas Chocolate

Yes, I love my chocolate… and for me – this recipe delivers the goods in a variety of ways.

Once you get the hang of tempering, you can form your chocolate into any shape you like… personally, I am something of a traditionalist since I still prefer slabs of the stuff… but, if you’re feeling artistic, there is no limit to what you could create given artistic ability to sculpt and some free time. Enjoy this one and do let us know if you like the taste as much as us muppets!

INGREDIENTS:
350g dark chocolate coverture
.25 tsp candida artificial sweetener
.5 tsp cinnamon
.5 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
.25 tsp ground cloves
2 TBS creme or semi-fat creme

DIRECTIONS:
Heat the chocolate to 45 °C (113 °F) to melt all crystals. Then cool the chocolate about 27 °C (80 °F), which will allow crystal types IV and V to form. At this temperature, agitate the chocolate to create many small crystal “seeds” which will serve as nuclei to create small crystals in the chocolate. Then heat chocolate to about 31 °C (88 °F) to eliminate any type IV crystals, leaving just the type V. After this point, any excessive heating of the chocolate will destroy the temper and this process will have to be repeated.

The temper of chocolate can be measured with a chocolate temper meter to ensure accuracy and consistency. A sample cup is filled with the chocolate and placed in the unit which then displays or prints the results but this sort of gadget is for the true ‘beyond help’ chocoholic.

Two classic ways of manually tempering chocolate are working the molten chocolate on a heat-absorbing surface, such as a stone slab, until thickening indicates the presence of sufficient crystal “seeds”; the chocolate is then gently warmed to working temperature or stirring solid chocolate into molten chocolate to “inoculate” the liquid chocolate with crystals (this method uses the already formed crystal of the solid chocolate to “seed” the molten chocolate).

If you want to add a few special flavors to your chocolate, follow the tempering steps above and when the chocolate is being agitated… add the spices, sweetener and creme before heating the chocolate to 31 °C one last time in a silicon pound cake mold which allows for easy removal once the final product has cooled. The entire process takes about 3hrs (sorry.. can’t rush this one)

Serves… um a few chocoholics or a room full of muppets.