Chocolates and Confections

I have entered my final class at the California Culinary Academy, Chocolates and Confections. I can hardly believe that my 30 week Baking and Pastry program is only 5 weeks shy of completion--my last day is June 15th! However the next few weeks will be full of many new things!This past week was an introduction to tempering chocolate and chocolate making--caramels, truffles and dipping chocolates. It was an intensive week and will be a quick paced class full of information. In this class we work individually, which is refreshing because I find it allows for more freedom to experiment. Additionally we will have show piece projects which require a great deal of design and creative expression, and like our wedding cakes, it will be nice to try it for the first time as a solo endeavor.

The class is arranged in groups of projects. The first 3 weeks will focus on chocolate and second three weeks on sugar work. As I mentioned, this week we learned several methods for tempering chocolate, which means that it is properly mixed and heated--something that intimidated me prior to learning several new techniques. When chocolate is not tempered it looks moldy and old--appearing white on the surface. We have all seen this before, and it doesn't do much for the appetite!

The first photo is the beginning of a nougat ganache truffle and the second, honey nougat, prior to being dipped. Both candies are part of our first project which I will report on in next weeks blog, when they are all finished. In the mean time our chef has asked us to visit as many chocolatiers as possible and do a little research--I can handle that!