with knife and fork » cardamom http://withknifeandfork.com a blog mostly about food Mon, 25 May 2015 16:04:21 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.41 Making chocolate: an experiment http://withknifeandfork.com/making-chocolate-an-experiment http://withknifeandfork.com/making-chocolate-an-experiment#comments Thu, 14 May 2009 07:30:00 +0000 http://withknifeandfork.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/making-chocolate-an-experiment/ Continue reading Making chocolate: an experiment]]> A few weeks back Julia at ‘A Slice of Cherry Pie‘ was offering 5 Mayan Magic Chocolate kits to food bloggers who promised to blog the experience. Sounded like fun and as I love chocolate I rushed in and bagged one. It arrived a few days later but it sat untouched for a while – I was busy and wanted to do it justice and also blog as much of each step as I could…..so here is what you get and do:


1. The kit:

2. What’s inside:


3. The butters:

4. The powders:

5. My chosen flavours (lavender, cardamom, lemon zest). I hardly used any of each:
6. The butter ready to melt in a bain marie (i.e. over hot water):

7. The powders after sieving (they needed it they had gone quite solid):

8. The melted butters:

9. Whisking in the powders (I added a little of the agave at the end for some sweetness but it didn’t need much):


10. Then I spilt it into 4 lots and added the flavours and kept one lot plain. I learnt here that you need to keep each lot warm else it cools so quickly you can’t pour it into the moulds properly and it becomes all mis-shapen (see later)

11. I poured (and pushed!) it into ice cube trays and got 4 ‘cubes’ per flavour so 16 cubes in total. Then it went into the fridge to set for 1.5 hours (or in my case overnight).

12. Next morning at coffee time so we popped the cubes from the trays.

13. Some worked:

14. Some looked a bit mangled:


And the taste:

The flavours were nice but over-powered any chocolatey-ness (and I only used a teeny bit of each), the plain version was okay but not brilliant.

The texture:

Very grainy/gritty and not smooth at all, disappointing. Alex over at ‘A Brit’s Dish a Day‘ had the same problem so I’m guessing that’s how it is rather than us getting it wrong.

Fun?:

A bit. But the instructions aren’t clear that it will cool so quickly and become difficult to pour into moulds. I made it hard for myself by doing 4 flavours with one kit – the instructions anticipate one flavour being added to the melted butters before the powder.

Would I buy one?

Having looked up the price (£14.25 plus shipping, as far as I can tell, for 150g of chocolate) I had to lie down. I can get 3 different flavored Rococo bars (70g each) for this money or about 14 Divine plain bars (100g each). I’m sorry to have to say that I wouldn’t buy this either for myself or as a gift. It wasn’t enough fun, its pricey and the taste/texture wasn’t the tops. 

Not currently a winner – it needs some re thinking I feel.



]]> http://withknifeandfork.com/making-chocolate-an-experiment/feed 6 Easter chocolate selection http://withknifeandfork.com/easter-chocolate-selection http://withknifeandfork.com/easter-chocolate-selection#comments Sun, 12 Apr 2009 14:21:00 +0000 http://withknifeandfork.wordpress.com/2009/04/12/easter-chocolate-selection/ Continue reading Easter chocolate selection]]> Everyday is a great day for eating chocolate as far as I’m concerned but today there is the extra opportunity for a sneaky bit of chocolate if the Easter bunny has dropped off some chocolate eggs whilst on his/her rounds. I haven’t found any so far but I did try out a different chocolate bar as a special treat.

Today’s chocolate is “The Co-operative truly irresistible Fairtrade dark chocolate with spices and orange oil”. Sounds interesting, and with Fairtrade ethics to boot to ease my conscience while I’m munching away. I’m quite a fan of Green & Blacks Maya Gold which is also based on orange and spices so it will be interesting to see how I like the Co-op product.


Like most ‘luxury’ bars of chocolate it only weighs it at 100g but priced at £1.25 (currently with 20% off its £1.00) it’s a lot cheaper than a lot of other options. Its split up into 8 big squares – that’s it – but actually psychologically this works – you can kid yourself you are only having just 1 square not the 4 its probably equivalent to in a Maya Gold bar. 

 

Taste wise how did I get on? 

I really really like it. Its smooth, got a nice dark chocolateyness, a zing of orange and a nice hint of warm spiciness (when I checked on the back its got cardamom, cinnamon and ginger). Plus it snaps in that really pleasing manner (Green & Blacks doesn’t quite snap right for my liking as the bar is quite thick, this is more like a Rococo snap but at about 1/3 the price).

Overall a bit of a winner – I think it’s the cardamom that does it.

]]> http://withknifeandfork.com/easter-chocolate-selection/feed 0