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One of my readers asked last week for a recipe for chocolate ganache made from 100% dark chocolate; he had received several bars from a friend. So I worked out a recipe for him and put it on the blog ( http://ultimatechocolateblog.blogspot.ca/2016/01/recipe-for-ganache-made-from-100-dark.html ).  It is quite smooth and delicious. There is an option to make it with agave or coconut sugar, instead of cane sugar, and suggestions for coating it. It is also pasted below:

Dark Chocolate Ganache made from 100% Dark Chocolate
With options for No Cane Sugar  Truffles

Makes: 20 truffles or ganache topping for one 8 " cake

Time: takes about 15 minutes to chop chocolate and make truffles, 4 to 8 hours resting/setting time before rolling, dusting or dipping your truffles in chocolate.

You need:

• 100 grams (3.5 oz) 100% dark chocolate
• 50 grams (1/4 cup) sugar, or agave or coconut sugar
• 1/4 cup whipping cream (any heavy cream will do)
• Optional ingredients (see below), but not necessary.
• 200 grams semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate, if dipping in chocolate. Or 1/4 cup cocoa powder for dusting

Instructions:

1. Chop the chocolate into 1/2 inch cubes and place in a medium bowl (use microwavable safe just in case you need help getting the chocolate to melt).

2. Pour your cream into a small saucepan and place on an element on the stovetop. Heat on medium high. Add the sugar and stir, heating and stirring until it dissolves.  If using, add the vanilla, mint or coffee extract. 

3. Do not let the cream boil, just bring it to nearly a simmer then immediately pour half of the cream over the chocolate.  Stir until you get a smooth and dark chocolaty-looking mixture, but with large lumps of chocolate in it.

4. Then reheat your remaining cream and pour into the mixture. Stir until smooth.  If lumps still remain, microwave for five seconds ( not more! ) and stir again until the mixture is smooth.

For cakes:
Immediately pour over the cake and spread to the edges.  You can even let it drip over slightly, if you are not decorating the sides with icing.

For truffles:
Line a small box, container or half of a loaf pan with plastic wrap, letting it come up all the sides.  Pour your ganache into it and let sit 6 to 8 hours (or overnight) if dipping them in chocolate (you don't want to put ganache for dipping in the fridge at all or it will cause cracking in your chocolate shell).  If you simply want to roll them in cocoa powder, you can let your ganache set in the fridge for 4 hours.

Once set, remove the top plastic wrap from the ganache. Then flip the rectangle of ganache out onto a cutting board. Cut into 20 pieces. You can leave these in rectangular or square shapes, or you can roll them between the palms of your gloved hands to make truffle balls (without gloves you will melt the truffle, plus there's that sanitary thing).

Dip in 200 grams (6 oz) of melted, tempered , semi-sweet chocolate, or roll in cocoa powder.

Store in an airtight container for up to 10 days, or freeze for up to 6 months in a deep-freeze (only 2 months in the freezer attached to your fridge).

Flavour Options:

Butter Truffles:
Stir in 2 tbsp. of softened salted butter (warmed but not melted) to the ganache just when it becomes smooth.

Vanilla Truffles:
You can add a 1/2 tsp of real vanilla to the cream, but I did not like it when I did. If you are used to eating chocolate with a lot of vanilla flavour (i.e. Lindt, Godiva, Giradelli, etc.) then you might prefer a little vanilla. For a high vanilla flavour, add both extract and the scrapings from one vanilla bean.

Peppermint Truffles:
Add 1/2 tsp peppermint extract or just 2-3 drops of peppermint oil to the cream.

Coffee Ganache or Espresso Truffles:
Steep the cream with 1/4 cup lightly ground coffee or espresso beans for 15 minutes.  Simply heat the cream in your saucepan, then remove from the heat, add the ground beans to the cream, and place a lid on the pot. Let steep. Then reheat and run the cream through a sifter as you pour the cream over the chopped chocolate to remove bean pieces.  You can use a 1/2 tsp of instant coffee in the cream instead, but there will be that funny 'instant' taste from the coffee.

Last year I wrote: ‘Every year it’s getting better and better’. This year I should say: ‘It becomes more and more…but unfortunately not necessarily better’. Especially starting chocolate makers do not allow themselves enough time to practice and do sell their creations too quickly. Several times I paid about 8-10 Euros or Dollars (sometimes even more) for stuff that turned out to be not good (to say it nicely). In my opinion you should not sell poor “artisan” chocolate and certainly not at those prices. It is also wrong to force upon innocent people that this is good chocolate. So be careful what you are doing. Next year when I taste something inappropriate, I will ask my money back. So watch out!

I should stop complaining now. Life is too short to focus on the bad stuff, let’s go to the amazing, wonderful, delicious and gorgeous chocolates.

The best new bean-to-bar brands I have tasted this year:

1. Sirene (Madagascar 73%, Ecuador 73% and 100%)
2. Franceschi (Canoabo, Choroni and Ocumare)
3. Manufaktura Czekolady (Porcelana, Dominican Republic, Ecuador and an excellent Ghana!)

Other bars I liked very much (in a random order):

• Soma: Porcelana 75% and CBS Chama 70%
• Dick Taylor: Bolivia Alto Beni 70%
• Chocolate Tree: Peru Marañón 69%
• Luisa Abram: Wild Cocoa Brazilian Amazon 70%
• Lonohana: The Néné 71%
• Bar au Chocolat: Montserrat Hills Trinidad 80%
• Parliament: Guatemalan Q'Eqchi 70% and Dominican Republic Öko Caribe 70%
• Dandelion: San Francisco de Macoris DR 70%
• Catronovo Chocolate: Colombia Sierra Nevada 72%
• Fresco: Madagascar 89% and Five 70%
• A. Morin: Cuba, Panama and Toumi
• Cacao Hunters: Arhuaco 72%
• Rogue: Jamaica 75% and Porcelana 80%
• Georgia Ramon: Ghana 70% and 90%
• Oialla: Bolivia Beniano 78% and 100%
• Chocablog (now Damson): Madagascar Menakao 70% and Akesson 70%
• Middlebury: Dominican Republic Eden O 70%
• The new recipes of Hoja Verde

Have I forgotten to mention something?

Oh yes, a lot of good chocolate made of Belizean cocoa: TAZA, Choco del Sol, Belyzium, Videri, Charm School, Georgia Ramon…

Who creates more new bars in a year other than Tibor Szántó? His Santo Domingo Heima, Sao Tomé, Cuba 88%, Chuno, Nicaliso, Tumbes, Arriba Amazonas, are all great. And his chocolate covered Hispaniola beans are marvellous.

What a fantastic year! Thank you so much for pleasing my taste buds J

You make my life delicious! Happy new chocolate year!

PS 1: Looking forward to meet you at Chocoa, February 4-7th in Amsterdam.

PS 2: Original Beans just launched their web shop:

Original Beans will definitely introduce new products in 2016. Hopefully these will make your life delicious too J

Hello All. I am looking for 3D chocolate printers. What I found on the web have either no cooling system, so they can print only a few layers (not really 3D), or they use non-food certified technologies, so you print a nice gadget, but cannot sell them as food. Or they print chocopudding or consistencies like that, not real chocolate.

I wonder if anyone could suggest a machine supplier, selling certified 3D chocolate printer for confectioneries. I am living in Europe, but any supplier would fit.Thanks.

Hi all,

I have been panning for a while but have opened a shop in Sydney (Australia - not BC) and would like to dabble in making other products including using molds, making bark etc. Maybe even enrobing. I'd like to have a feature in my shop where Customers can come and watch and maybe even do some stuff with their own inclusions.

I have been looking at various options but it is all rather costly given that this is an idea only at this point. I looked at Chocovision but my respected consultant dismisses this as "toys". 

My question is, are these really serious units and is their tempering ability really good - in that it's simple and works 100% of the time?  I really have an open mind but not an open wallet to the degree some systems demand.

Any thoughts would be hugely appreciated please.

Thanks so much for your help!

Colin

Since honey is a natural substitute for invert sugar...Would jelly/jam/preserves also be a substitute? How about fruit juice reduced w/ sugar & acid?

Does anyone have any recommendations for a stick blender for small ganache batches? I was leaning toward the Kitchenaid commercial version.

I have partnered up with zChocolat to give away a gorgeous gift box of 30 chocolates & confections from the 'With Love from Provence' collection, just launched for summer 2015. A nearly $100 value! Enter now for your chance to win on my blog: http://www.ultimatechocolateblog.blogspot.ca/2015/06/win-box-of-frances-finest-chocolate-and.html

Contest open to U.S. and Canadian residents.

If you give a kid a candy bar, he enjoys it for a moment. If you give cocoa mulch to the Unity Gardens in South Bend, you enrich the whole community.

For several years, Davis Chocolate ™ in Mishawaka, Indiana, has donated cocoa hulls to the local non-profit, which turns the shells into nutrient rich natural mulch at its 7-acre open garden on South Bend’s west side.

Master gardener Mitch Yaciw says the cocoa mulch acts as a pre-emergent barrier against weeds and, as it breaks down, the nitrogen in the mulch attracts worms, enriching the soil. (He does note that cocoa mulch can be dangerous to dogs.)

As a youth, Yaciw worked in garden stores and remembers selling cocoa mulch, but said he was unable to find it for sale locally. He met Davis Chocolate president Brent Davis at a fundraising event sponsored by Indulgence Pastry Shop and Café in South Bend.

Just like the fine chocolate made at Davis Chocolate, the right ingredients came together to create something magical.

Davis Chocolate had cocoa hulls – a byproduct of the bean-to-bar chocolate making process – and the Unity Gardens had a way to use them in an environmentally safe way. Even more than enriching the soil, volunteers at the Unity Gardens use cocoa mulch to improve the neighborhood through the cooperative practice of community gardening.

Chocolate comes from cacao trees. The beans (actually seeds) are imported from often volatile regions with little infrastructure, grown by small farmers with few resources. Pressured by the global demand for chocolate and to eek out a meager living, local farmers clear forest lands that once provided shade for the tender cacao trees, to make room for more plantings. ( Sustainable Cocoa Economy, 2007 )

The economic, environmental and social benefits of cocoa production are the interdependent “ three pillars of sustainability .” Each pillar’s strength depends on sustaining and developing the integrity of the other two pillars. To allow cocoa production to satisfy the needs of a growing market, responsible chocolate makers engage in fair trade principles.

Fair Trade USA , with whom Davis Chocolate partners, believes “every purchase matters” and offers chocolate consumers a way to identify quality products that improve the lives of the farmers and protect the environment where cacao trees grow. Producer cooperatives share in the economic benefit of the cocoa trade, empowering the farmers to create positive change in their communities.

This weekend, as part of the citywide 150 th birthday celebration , the Unity Garden will host a Community Cookout and Yaciw will talk on the history of local urban gardening .

The Unity Gardens executive director , Sara Stewart RN MSN, explains the garden is a lure: gathering a diverse group of people to work together and feeding the hungry with their harvest.

Aside from providing a bountiful yield available for all who wish to partake, the Unity Gardens offers gardening classes , cooking and preserving lessons, and summer day camp for kids . The nonprofit trades with local grocers and restaurants, such as South Bend Farmers Market and Javier’s Bistro on Miami Street, and receives support from philanthropic interests, like the Pokagon Fund and Beacon Health ( Memorial Hospital .)

The Community Foundation of St Joseph County also sought to help make the Unity Gardens sustainable. The recent Give Local SJC day provided the Unity Gardens with its largest fundraising event ever; 90 donors raised $47,685 in 24 hours.

Stewart said the kid’s camp is making a difference in the community. The  Memorial Hospital Youth Discovery Project gives kids in the nearby Beacon Heights neighborhood a place of belonging, with supervised activities during the day. The Unity Gardens contributes fresh produce to the summer lunch program offered by the South Bend Parks, and the meals include healthy ingredients harvested by the campers themselves. The effort empowers campers with a sense of purpose and develops self-esteem, as they provide for themselves and their families.

In this way, the Unity Gardens and cocoa mulch from Davis Chocolate contribute to a positive network of accountability locally. Through ethical trading practices in the worldwide cocoa industry and corporate responsibility here at home,  Davis Chocolate is finding ways to craft premium chocolate while closing the loop on sustainability,

A few weekends ago, we invited over a few friends for an evening for fun, for education, and for a delicious sensory experience. After months of requests to learn more about our chocolate hobby, particularly after our friends spent hours listening to us gush about all the nerdy parts involved, we agreed to put on a chocolate-making class for a few of them!

Richard is particularly good at explaining very complicated engineering and scientific concepts to laypeople like me, so he was excited to show off his gear and teach our friends about the complexities of the process. I love to train people and get them to buy into a process, so I was excited to make our chocolate-making relevant and interesting to our friends with such diverse interests. The challenge was on and we were pumped!

Read more about how it went! http://rootchocolate.com/2015/04/14/chocolate-making-classes/

This cake is creamy, buttery and delicious. A touch of sea salt makes it perfect. You can use either Callebaut's Caramel-Flavoured Callets or Valrhona's Caramelia couverture for this recipe: http://ultimatelychocolatecakes.blogspot.ca/2015/04/sea-salted-butter-pecan-caramel.html