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Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Warm Chocolate Fondant and a story of a little something that has bitten me badly........

Ok let me start off with a nice simple little recipe that is easy to make and will be a hit at any dinner party i originally started with blog to create recipes for people to cook at home and i have slightly gone off the beaten  track with it, but i will explain that i little later on in a little more detail,

i blogged this dessert earlier in the week as i like to make it, but here is a simple version of it that anybody can make at home with out stressing.




Ingredients


200g Dark Chocolate (min 60%cocoa solids)
180g butter
4 eggs separated
6 Chocolate Truffles (i use Lindor)
140g Castor Sugar
50ml Brandy
Butter for buttering moulds


Method

  • Melt the chocolate and butter over a double boiler on the stove
Separate the eggs and whip the egg white until almost stiff, then
Slowly add half of the castor sugar until the egg whites are stiff.
  • Cream together the other half of the sugar and the egg yolks.
  • Then mix together the yolk mixture with the melted chocolate
Adding it slowly in the beginning and then faster towards the end
Add the brandy and then fold in the egg whites until incorporated.
·        Butter the ramekins pour the chocolate halfway up the ramekins, then place a chocolate truffle in the middle and then add more chocolate to fill the ramekin.
·        Bake in a pre heated oven at 165°c for 15 min.


Best served with berry coulis and vanilla ice-cream.


Well i have stumbled across something that i never really in-visioned myself to get into and that is the whole scientific approach to food and cookery, but i must say this in the defense of anybody who thinks it is taking away from the roots of cooking, no it isn't!!! it is giving so much to the world of cookery, it is opening so many new creative avenues it is breaking all "normal" perceptions of what food should be. i have starting playing with the science of food and the perception of flavour, and i can honestly say that in my life thus far in the kitchen i have never been so excited to get into my kitchen in the mornings and to start playing with all the things that i have been reasearching, the only problem is that i live in South Africa so alot of the chemicals needed are extremely difficult to get hold of like i am battling to find Gellan at the moment, i know it has to be here in the country i just can't seem to find it yet, i battled a bit to get hold of transglutaminase but i mailed an overseas company and they got me involved with a company here, awesome stuff that is i must say, i have just "butterflied" a whole beef fillet and stuffed it with the hard fat from a rump and wrapped it and put into the fridge, will take a look at it tomorrow, i have to try and "put" marbling into the fillet to give it the flavour that rump and fatter cuts have. and that is just the start of it, i have "glued" chicken skin onto hake fillets, i have just "glued" together a piece of rump with a piece of chicken breast with bacon in between, will blog about it when i have cooked it, it is a crazy exciting world of food to be explored.....

My next big flavour perception project is to glue chicken skin on to a piece of fish and create exactly the same flavour chicken vapour, and fish vapour, to manipulate the flavour of what you are eating, i have done it with Heston's famous vanilla and/or cinnamon ice-cream and it worked out a real treat so now going to start testing how far i can take the concept into practical foods.

I know i haven't exactly been blogging about the things i set out to blog about by my mind has gone a little stray with all these new idea's and concepts.

I have been doing the "old school" stuff to though don't get me wrong, this month alone i have learnt to make cheese, if fact i have made Feta, Haloumi, Ricotta, Parmesan, Pecorino, Blue Cheese and today i am trying a modification of a gruyere, only thing about the cheese is that i now have a year wait for most of the cheese, except the blue which should be ready in about 2 months.

I am also looking at cured meats now, would love to learn to make my own cured meats, we'll see if i can get the opportunity to do so, i will keep you posted on that.

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