Chocolate Apprentice

Layering

This week has many layers.

I’ve been looking at some gorgeous chocolates, on the websites of Ecole Chocolat graduates, and they have inspired me to try.

All I have to do is create two compatible layers, which will look sharp, taste good together, and be resilient enough to hold their shape, and not melt into each other.

There is nothing like the challenge of a new tool.

This one looks like a white plastic window frame, and indeed it will frame a layer of caramel, on top of which I will put another ever so slightly deeper frame, which in turn will hold a layer of dark chocolate ganache.
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Fortunato No 4 Peru

I feel like I am holding a small brick of gold.

Except, this is rarer.

I have been so fortunate to receive a piece of chocolate – Fortunato No 4 Peru, made from cocoa beans of a variety of cacao tree thought to have been extinct – Pure Nacional.

“Discovered” in the 1600s (although I am sure the local people knew what it was!) and then re-discovered by a Swiss chocolate manufacturer traveling in Ecuador in the early 1800s, the Pure Nacional variety was hugely popular because of its flavours of fruit and its floral aroma.  Popular, that is, until it was wiped out by a disease which rampaged through Ecuador in 1916.
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Baked Expectations

My kids are amazing.

I have been spending most of my time this week, at the Gateway Theatre.  We are in Technical Rehearsals for a show I have been working on, as acting coach for a couple of lovely, talented child actors.  “Tech Week”, as it is known, involves very long hours, and can lead to people eating large quantities of junk food.

I have been having cravings for Wagon Wheels.  Yet another sweet of my Canadian childhood (although they were originally British and Australian), I remember them being ideal for lunchboxes, because they were flat and would fit perfectly on top of your sandwich. [Read more…]

The Unveiling

Okay, first let me say, I know I have a lot to learn.

And patience has never been one of my strong personality traits, so perhaps the Ecole Chocolat course, along with generous lashings of yoga class, will eventually bear fruit in helping me to become a more zen-like creature, appreciative of every moment – even the one where I cannot get the molded chocolates I have been watching for hours, to release and drop from the molds.

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Winging It

Okay, so this week I am winging it – plunging in and attempting my first signature piece, as a student chocolatier.  I have been studying the gorgeous, inspired work of Ecole Chocolat graduates, and am trying very hard not to feel daunted, but rather inspired, by their vision, good taste, and precision.

To give myself the confidence I need to plunge into the kitchen and start creating something new, I try to relate this nerve wracking experience to a world with which I am already familiar.  I think about walking into an audition. [Read more…]