If You Lick Your Fingers, You Fail Today

Today was wonderful.  I had a pastry practical; dark chocolates.  We worked on tempering, which went very well this time.  Chef says that tempering is easier with dark chocolate.  Our class was very relaxed and we all had a blast chatting while we worked.  The chef got a little mad about some repeated finger-licking and screamed that the next person to lick their fingers would fail for the day.  He left for a few minutes and when he came back, one of my classmates had of course sampled and accidentally gotten chocolate all over his face.  The chef had a field day tricking him into smearing more chocolate on his face.  Luckily, he didn't get the promised zero for the day.

We made the typical chocolate truffles; ganache formed into balls, dipped in dark chocolate and then rolled in cocoa powder.  They get their name because they look like the savory truffles, the wonderful fungi delicacy I love in pasta.  I had a little trouble because my ganache had lumps, so when I piped it into rounds, the pastry tip got clogged a few times.  Our other treat was marzipan mixed with coffee and rum, then covered in cut into squares and dipped in dark chocolate.  These were delicious, and I got to work on my dunking technique.  The trick is to drop the candy in chocolate, then use a fork to remove it.  You then gently tap the fork on the edge of a bowl and scrape the bottom of the fork on the edge.  These last steps get rid of any air bubbles and extra chocolate.  After that, you ease the chocolate off the fork and onto parchment.  I covered mine with walnuts, and made some leftover bits into a ball, a nod to bourbon balls. The chef loved it and called it my signature creation.  I think I lost all credibility when I made a bit of a cocoa powder mess rolling my truffles.  All in all, a great day

Nibbling BonBons...