Saturday 26 June 2010

Chocolate Praline crunchy bites

It starts by making Nutella from scratch. It ends with matcha green tea lightly sprinkled above, mainly for a colour contrast. This is the ultimate dark chocolate hit with a sufficient crunch and just the right amount of roasted bitterness, coated with a smooth chocolate ganache. Its pure and its evil and far too simple to make, considering the instant gratification. Using the finest ingredients is a must. No shortcuts here. Or ever. Really. When I come to think about it.

The recipe calls for praline powder. This can usually be found in specialty shops, or it can be made at home from scratch using hazelnuts, cashews, peanuts or almonds. Here is a recipe. The general idea is roasting the nuts, caramelizing them and grinding to a fine powder.

Chocolate praline crunchy bites

(recipe adapted from here)

Makes about 40 bites

Ingredients

Chocolate praline

125g praline powder

125g dark chocolate (min 70% cocoa solids), chips, or coarsely chopped

chocolate crunch

65g dark chocolate (min 70% cocoa solids), chips, or coarsely chopped

30g unsalted butter

125g plain cornflakes, crushed

chocolate coating

150 ml cream

30g unsalted butter

200g dark chocolate (min 70% cocoa solids), chips, or coarsely chopped

cocoa powder

matcha green tea


Heat a saucepan 1/3 full with hot water, and in a bowl set on top, melt the chocolate, stirring over the barely simmering water until smooth. Remove from heat and add the praline powder. Stir until smooth and set aside.

Set a clean bowl on top of the simmering water and melt the 65g dark chocolate and butter. Remove from heat and stir until smooth.

Add the chocolate praline and stir well. Mix in the crushed cornflakes.

Transfer the mixture to a loaf pan, and smooth out the surface gently with a spatula. Place in the fridge and cool for several hours, until set and solid.

Prepare the chocolate coating:

In a sauce pan, heat the cream and butter until the cream begins to simmer and the butter has melted. Remove from heat, add the chocolate and stir until smooth, allow to cool.

In the meanwhile line a tray with parchment paper and set aside. Remove the chocolate crunch from the fridge and release from the loaf pan. Using a sharp knife, cut the bar into fingers, cubes or irregular shaped.

Dip each piece in the chocolate and place on the tray. When all the piece have been dipped and coated in chocolate return the tray to the fridge and allow the chocolate to set.

Before serving sprinkle with cocoa powder and matcha green tea.

3 comments:

  1. Um, excuse me, this is looking a little too good (smile). Yum!

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a great treat! You cannot go wrong with chocolate and tea. The sprinkling of green tea for color is a clever idea.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anything with chocolate is YUMM...great recipe!

    ReplyDelete