Well, I have been experimenting with different flavors. Cat Cora, the only female Iron Chef on Food Network was coming to a book signing close to where I live. After researching her likes and dislikes, my son reminded me that she is Greek and that her team salutes the end of each competition with Ouzo, (a Greek wine that has sort of the taste of black licorice)! Wow , I thought. How do I make a truffle with an Ouzo flavor????
I went back to my little test kitchen with a good bottle of Ouzo and went to town. I made dark chocolate ganache, and white chocolate ganache and used Gittard's white chocolate for the shell. Some had a dark chocolate ganache with a layer of dark chocolate shell inside the white shell, some just had dark chocolate ganace inside the white shell, then there was white chocolate ganache inside the white shell and white ganache with a layer of dark chcolate shell inside the white shell. I painted each different mixture with a special blue mark (Greek's colors are Blue and White!)
The next step was to bring my "experiments" to my friends who are always anxious to taste my new flavors and give their opinions. A lot of people liked the dark chocolate ganache inside the white shell, but when people who REALLY liked Ouzo tasted all four of them, the best flavor was the white chocolate ganache inside a white shell. I must say that while I am not a big fan of Ouzo, this truffle was really good!
I went to the bookstore, bought her wonderful new cookbook, and stood in line with a box of my chocolate truffles, with the white Ouzo truffle in the center. As timid as I was to be facing the only female Iron Chef of Food Network, I was delighted when her eyes lit up at hearing that someone had made her an Ouzo truffle!
She has my card and hopefullly she will try the chocolates and rave to the whole Food Network about how great my chocolates are. And hopefully she will not be able to live without my Ouzo truffles!!!!!
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Back from France
Well, I know I haven't written any updates in a while. Part of the reason was that I was preparing for my trip to France, then I was in France, and now I'm back!
After completing the online Chocolatier's course last November, I decided to take the Master's Course arranged by the online school. The course took us to France, and down to a little village in the Rhone Valley near Lyon, called Tran Hermitage. This is the headquarters of one of the most pretigious chocolate manufacturers - Valrhona. If you google Valrhona you will learn that this chocolate company actually has fair trade arrangements with cocoa plantations, some of which are kept secret because they produce some of the best cocoa beans ever!
I landed in Paris, met up with my assigned roommate, Tessa from the UK and then with the other 9 students and our instructor, Pam. Students came from all over - Bejing, Canada, Switzerland, and of course the US. We took the train to Tran Hermitage, were treated to a wonderful dinner and then the next morning met with the chefs from Valrhona.
Here I must mention that Valrhona usually only offers chcoolatiering courses to chefs from France and other countries. We were the only group that was different.
We were met by two chefs, Chirstopher and David. David wore a red, white and blue collar on his chef's coat. We learned later that he had earned this special ecoration dbecause of the competition offered in France every three years for Pastry Chefs, Chocolatiers and Ice Cream Chefs. Sometimes no one wins this award if they don't meet up to the standards of the competition. David won his award for all three!
For the next three days, we were in teams making about 40 different recipes with chocolate. It was a demanding and challenging three days with David expecting perfection from us AND we achieved it!
After we finished at Valrhona, we were priviledged to visit another famous chocolatier's factory just outside of Paris - Patrick Roger. While this chef usually never allows anyone in to his factory, he met us and graciously gave us a tour of all his productions. Another awesome expxerience!!!
Now I am home, and working to market my chocolagte business. I have an exceptional product, with reasonable prices. I have also developed some "designer" chocolates like Cayenne pepper truffles which are very good, if you like spice with your chocolate. I am also working on developing wine flavored truffles as well as bacon flavored truffles!!!
Please think of me when needing gifts or just wanting some exceptional cocolates!
After completing the online Chocolatier's course last November, I decided to take the Master's Course arranged by the online school. The course took us to France, and down to a little village in the Rhone Valley near Lyon, called Tran Hermitage. This is the headquarters of one of the most pretigious chocolate manufacturers - Valrhona. If you google Valrhona you will learn that this chocolate company actually has fair trade arrangements with cocoa plantations, some of which are kept secret because they produce some of the best cocoa beans ever!
I landed in Paris, met up with my assigned roommate, Tessa from the UK and then with the other 9 students and our instructor, Pam. Students came from all over - Bejing, Canada, Switzerland, and of course the US. We took the train to Tran Hermitage, were treated to a wonderful dinner and then the next morning met with the chefs from Valrhona.
Here I must mention that Valrhona usually only offers chcoolatiering courses to chefs from France and other countries. We were the only group that was different.
We were met by two chefs, Chirstopher and David. David wore a red, white and blue collar on his chef's coat. We learned later that he had earned this special ecoration dbecause of the competition offered in France every three years for Pastry Chefs, Chocolatiers and Ice Cream Chefs. Sometimes no one wins this award if they don't meet up to the standards of the competition. David won his award for all three!
For the next three days, we were in teams making about 40 different recipes with chocolate. It was a demanding and challenging three days with David expecting perfection from us AND we achieved it!
After we finished at Valrhona, we were priviledged to visit another famous chocolatier's factory just outside of Paris - Patrick Roger. While this chef usually never allows anyone in to his factory, he met us and graciously gave us a tour of all his productions. Another awesome expxerience!!!
Now I am home, and working to market my chocolagte business. I have an exceptional product, with reasonable prices. I have also developed some "designer" chocolates like Cayenne pepper truffles which are very good, if you like spice with your chocolate. I am also working on developing wine flavored truffles as well as bacon flavored truffles!!!
Please think of me when needing gifts or just wanting some exceptional cocolates!
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