Fig and Balsamic Vinegar Home Molded Chocolates
Happy New Year, folks. I hope you've all enjoyed the holiday season. I've been away from my blog, but not away from my kitchen. I spent many, many hours in late December molding and boxing chocolates to give away as gifts. I made four different varieties, all of which turned out well, I think. I definitely didn't hear any complaints. The sparkley green one in the photo below was a 56% Valrhona shell filled with a ganache of white chocolate, butter, fig and balsamic vinegar. I'll give you the recipe for the ganache below and you can find an instructional post on how to mold chocolates, generally, here.
This recipe makes enough ganache for about 75 filled pieces. High quality balsamic vinegar is very important to the overall qualities of these chocolates, so use the best you can find.
- 75g unsalted butter, softened
- 75g fig preserves (I found this at Whole Foods, in the cheese department. It was actually labeled "Organic Adriatic Fig Spread" and was made of figs, sugar, water and fruit pectin.)
- 180g white chocolate, melted and tempered (around 86°F)
- 20g balsamic vinegar
- Combine the butter and fig preserves by hand until well mixed.
- Gradually pour the melted, tempered white chocolate into the butter/preserves mixture stirring constantly to form an emulsified ganache.
- Stir in the balsamic vinegar.
- Allow to cool to room temperature and then pipe into molded chocolates using a pastry bag as shown here.
welcome back! i missed you...
hoping 2009 is the year you make me dinner!!
xoxo
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2009 may very well be the year I make you dinner, sweetheart . . . if you play your cards right! In fact, I'd love to.
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Most unusual to put balsamic vinegar in chocolate. Is this a regular ingredient in your chocolates?
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No, definitely not a regular ingredient in my chocolates prior to December, but a friend with great taste in food suggested the fig and balsamic combination . . . and it immediately struck me as likely to be very good. I love balsamic with fruit. This molded chocolate's tartness with sweetness on a creamy delivery mechanism really works, I think. So vinegar will definitely be a regular ingredient in my chocolates from this point forward. I'm pretty excited about the possibilities.
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mmm soo sweet
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Delicious Chocolates..mmmm
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