Homemade Chocolates

Happy Chinese New Eve. It’s tradition to have your big meal on the eve so that you can have leftovers on the actual New Years day which is tomorrow so that you don’t have to cook and just be lazy. There is so much going on. There is Chinese New Year, Valentine’s Day, and Family Day. I couldn’t figure out which to blog about. I was inspired by last week’s revelation that Valentine’s Day was coming up but then there are these other things that we have blogged about in the past as well. Maybe I’ll do posts all month about them even though the holidays have passed.

Let’s do a Valentine’s post. I have recently taken up chocolate making in isolation, haha. Chocolates are always a tasty Valentine’s Day treat. I remembered as a kid I had made chocolate covered cherries so I decided to try it out. I bought a couple of molds on Amazon and then I went for it.

                                                         

I melted some semi-sweet chocolate then I used a food safe brush which I also bought on Amazon and I painted the outside layer of the molds. Then I placed the mold in the fridge for about 10-15 minutes until they were all hardened.

Next I placed a maraschino cherry into each of the molds and spooned a little bit of the cherry juice on top.

Lastly I cover each of the chocolate with more of the melted semi-sweet chocolate and then leveled them all off. Put them back into the fridge for at least 15 minutes. Try and keep them in there for a longer amount of time. An hour or so would be great.

Once they have been hardened in the fridge, then knock them out of the molds and place on a place and enjoy. If you have more than one mold then do a few at a time but if not, then repeat the process as many times as you want after you knock the first batch of cherries out.

Next I tried this but with cream fillings. I remember when I was little I had some yummy cream filled chocolates that my Aunt would bring from the States. They were so yummy so I am going to try these out.

You can use the same molds. Now for these, you can do semi-sweet or milk chocolate or even white chocolate. Your choice.

I found a base cream recipe. It’s basically a vanilla cream and then you can add flavourings. Some yummy flavours would be lemon, mocha, white chocolate, cherry, strawberry, orange, caramel (you can even melt caramels and just pour some in like a Rolo), coffee, vanilla, and mint. Those are just a few. I’m sure I could think up more. So many options but which one to start with. Maybe a Rolo type caramel one and two crowd pleasers like orange and mocha?

Cream Filling Recipe:

½ cup of butter

4 oz. of cream cheese

4 ½ cups of icing sugar

1 tsp. of cornstarch

Cream the butter and the cream cheese.

Slowly add the icing sugar and beat until fluffy.

Separate into a couple bowls and experiment with flavours.

I put about 3 tsp. of orange extract in one along with the zest from 1 orange and mixed that all up for an orange filling.

 

I also made a chocolate cream. I added about ¼ cup of cocoa and 2 tbsp. of melted semi-sweet chocolate to the base and then added in 2 tsp. of vanilla as well.

Then place them into your prepared chocolate molds and cover and harden.

Now taste test. Divine! These were gone pretty fast.

                                                              

Boston Cream Pie

Finally back to our cake theme just in time for New Year's! Today’s cake is called a pie but it’s actually a cake. I am making Boston Cream Pie. In the past we have made the cupcake version which is so tasty, but for a Summer Birthday this past year I decided on trying the actual big cake. Again, there is a lot that goes into it so you want to make sure you have time, which I had lots of this past Summer.

The Cake (it’s best to make a sponge cake as it’s lighter and fluffier and not so dense)

You will need the following to make a sponge cake…

¾ cup of flour

1 tsp. of baking powder

¼ tsp. of salt

3 tbsp. of milk

2 tbsp. of butter

½ tsp. of vanilla

3 large egg whites

¼ tsp. cream of tartar

¾ cup of sugar

3 large egg yolks

2 large eggs

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

Grease and flour two 9 inch round cake pans and line with parchment paper.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Then heat the milk and butter in a saucepan on medium heat until the butter is melted. Off of the heat stir in the vanilla and cover to keep warm.

In your mixer bowl, whip up the egg whites and cream of tartar until foamy. Then increase the speed and fully whip the egg whites until they are billowy mounds. Gradually whip in 6 tbsp. of sugar and continue to whip the whites until they are shiny and form soft peaks.

If you have another bowl for your mixer, great, but if not transfer the egg whites and then clean the bowl and whip the 3 eggs yolks and the full eggs on medium high speed and add 6 tbsp. of sugar. Whip until the mixture is very thick and fluffy.

Now, place the full egg mixture on top of the egg whites and then sift the flour mixture over the top of this.

Fold everything together gently until just combined.

Pour the warm milk mixture against the side of the bowl and fold some more until everything looks evenly combined and there are no streaks of flour left. Do not over stir. Scrape the batter into the pans and bake for 12-18 minutes or until the cakes are lightly browned. Be very careful when these cakes are baking. Don’t open the over or bounce around too much!

Run a knife around the outer edge of the cakes when they come out so they don’t stick. Then flip them onto a lined plate. The cakes will be wrong side down so now flip them right side up and allow them to cool on a wire rack. They should be cooled after 2 hours. I let mine sit overnight before I did anything to them.

Now for the filling.

You will need…

2 cups of whole milk

6 large egg yolks

½ cups of sugar

¼ tsp. of salt

¼ cup of cornstarch

2 tbsp. of butter

1 tsp. of vanilla

Bring the milk to a simmer in a saucepan over medium heat. 

While this is happening whisk the egg yolks, sugar, and salt together in a bowl. Then whisk in the cornstarch.

Slowly whisk in the warm milk into the egg mix and then transfer the mixture back into the saucepan. Cook, whisking constantly until thick and glossy looking.

Now off of the heat, whisk in the butter and vanilla.

Transfer into a bowl and place plastic wrap on the surface. Chill and allow it to set for about 2 hours in the fridge.

Ganache/Glaze

Now lastly for the glaze topping you will need…

I waited to do this until about 20 minutes before I was ready to serve the cake because I didn’t want it to get soggy.

2/3 cup of heavy cream

¼ cup of light corn syrup

1cup of semisweet chocolate

½ tsp. of vanilla

Microwave all of the ingredients and whisk until melted and smooth. Let the glaze cool a little bit until it’s thicken but still able to pour.

Now to assemble the cake.

Place some parchment paper down and on top of that place a cooling rack with the bottom layer of your cake.

Spread the custard filling on top and then place the top layer on to of that.

It’s time to glaze. Pour the cooled chocolate glaze right in the centre on top of the cake the glaze should drip all the way down the sides. It won’t be perfectly covered. That’s ok, it’s not supposed to be.

Like I said before, do this about 20 minutes before you want to eat the cake and then put it in the fridge to harden up. You can do this up to a day before but to avoid sogginess and slippage, I would try and do it day of. The leftovers, if there are any, can go in the fridge. They may get a little smooshed and soggy but that’s alright for the leftovers. Now that was a marathon cake to bake!

Black Forest Cake

For the next few weeks I am going to do a mini theme; that theme is cake! Who doesn’t love cake? Over the Summer and time at home, I have been trying out cakes that I haven’t had time for before. One of my absolute favorites is Black Forest Cake. I love the whipped cream mixed with the dark chocolate cake. I’ve never had the time to make one before so I thought I would give is a try. Here we go…

Make sure you have time to do this as there are lots of steps.

You will need…

Filling

2 cups of canned cherry filling

Whipped Cream:

¼ cup of sugar

1tbsp. of cornstarch

3 cups of heavy cream

1 ½ tsp. of vanilla extract

Cake:

I used my go to chocolate devil’s food cake recipe for this…

½ cups of cocoa powder

1 ½ cups of boiling hot water

1 tsp. of baking soda

½ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. of salt

1 ½ cups of flour

½ heaping cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 tsp. of instant coffee

10 tbsp. of softened butter

1 ½ cups of brown sugar

3 eggs

½ cup of sour cream

1 tsp. of vanilla

Butter and powder with cocoa powder, two 9 inch cake pans and line the bottom with parchment paper.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix all of your dry ingredients in one bowl.

Then in a glass measuring cup, add in the boiling hot water, chocolate chips, instant coffee, and cocoa powder and stir until all is melted and dissolved.

In your mixer's bowl, cream the butter and then add the sugar until fluffy. Slowly add in the eggs one at a time. Then add in the sour cream and vanilla and beat until it is all incorporated.

Now on low, add in a third of your flour mix, then half of the chocolate repeat until all is added. Give it a final stir at the end to make sure everything is mixed in.

Divide evenly into the cake pans and bake for about 30 minutes. Cool completely.

For this cake, I needed three layers so what I did since I only had two pans was pre divide the batter three ways and then I baked the first two. After they came out I washed the pan and re-powdered and buttered and lined it and baked the  third layer. They will be a bit thinner than your regular cake but put together it will look like a big layer cake.

Now back to the Black Forest Cake.

So after baking the cakes and letting them cool completely, I started on the rest of the cake elements.

You can be super elaborate with your filling. I wanted to keep it simple so I bought a can of cherry pie filling and I strained the cherry goo from the cherries. I had a measuring cup of cherry syrupy goo and then a bowl full of mashed cherries with a little bit of syrup on them.

On all of the layers of the chocolate cakes, I poked some holes (not all the way through) with chopsticks and I brushed on some of that cherry goo and I really saturated the layer especially the middle and bottom ones. Let those sit.

For the whipping cream, I whisked the sugar and the cornstarch together in a small saucepan and then I whisked in ½ cup of cream. Bring to a simmer whisking it constantly. Once it thickens take the mixture off the burned and allow it to cool about 30 minutes.

                                     

While that is finishing cooling, whip 2 ½ cups of cream and vanilla on low speed until frothy looking. Then increase the speed and whip this mixture until it starts to thicken. Now slowly add in the cooled cornstarch mixture until soft peaks begin to form.

                                     

Now to assemble the cake. This can be a bit messy. On your plate or platter, place on of your layers of cake down. Spread ½ cup of the whipped cream on it and then on top of that spoon half of the mashed cherries. Now place another layer of the cake on top of that one and repeat the same process but use up all of the cherries.

               

Once all of your layers are on, use the rest of the whipped cream to “ice” your cake. You can shave some chocolate or what I did was melt semi-sweet chocolate chips the day before and cut it up into little bits and put them all over the side of the cake.

Top the cake with some more of the chocolate, I made a little circular mound (about 6-8 around the cake) and then topped that with a maraschino cherry.

 Slice and serve. You want to eat this sooner rather than later so the whipped cream doesn’t lose it’s stiffness.