This is not a true ganache recipe because real ganache consists of just chocolate and heavy cream (for more info, check out my Ganache 101 post.) While this version may not be the real thing, it is a healthier version that can be enjoyed by people who don’t do dairy. I used this “ganache” to frost my spiced chocolate avocado cupcakes but you can also eat it on its own like a pudding.

If you aren’t an avocado addict like me, this probably isn’t the ganache for you. On the other hand,  if you do have an avocado addiction, you’ll love this chocolate-avocado combo. The avocado flavour is subtle, but if you have super-sensitive taste buds you can try using just one avocado instead of two.

Ingredients

2 avocados, mashed (~250 g avocado meat)
1/2 cup maple syrup OR honey (125 mL)
2 tbsp. dark cocoa powder
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips (90 g)
Pinch of salt
1 can full fat coconut milk- my fave brand is Thai Kitchen (400 mL)

Directions

In a food processor, puree the avocados until smooth.

Add the maple syrup,cocoa powder, and salt to the food processor.

Melt the chocolate chips and add to the food processor.

Open the can of coconut milk and transfer the thick coconut cream from the top of the can to a separate bowl. Add the remaining liquid to the food processor and mix until completely blended.

Using an electric mixer, beat the coconut cream until light and fluffy. Beat in the chocolate mixture until you have a nice fluffy consistency.

Allow to cool in fridge for 2 hours before piping onto cupcakes.

When author and designer, Bria Lear of Wit & Polish, asked me to write up a guest post about chocolate for her blog, how could I say no? First of all, if you want me to do something, using the word chocolate will definitely get my attention. Second of all, Wit & Polish is an awesome and creative lifestyle blog so I was just happy to have to chance to contribute.

Her blog is focused on fashion and beauty, but she likes to throw in recipes now and again (her whole grain apple-cinnamon muffins are very yum.)

She has recently started a boutique copyrighting and design studio so if you need anything from logo design and brand development to marketing and social media, she is the girl to get in touch with. She was the one who did my logo and I couldn’t be happier!

She also has some great new ideas and projects for the near future so be sure to follow her…(oh and let her know how good my chocolate  post was so she will ask me to write for her again.)

Tempering chocolate ensures proper crystal formation when the chocolate re-solidifies after being melted. There are different types of crystals found in chocolate, which have different melting points, shapes, and stabilities. The aim of tempering chocolate is to obtain many small beta crystals. Beta crystals are more stable and have a higher melting temperature than other crystal forms. They are also more compact. These beta crystal characteristics give the chocolate a smooth, glossy finish. Untempered chocolate, that is just simply melted, will most likely form alpha crystals, which are unstable. Alpha crystal formation results in chocolate that is dull and soft. It can also caused unsightly chocolate bloom.

All you need to temper chocolate at home is a thermometer, a bowl, a rubber spatula, and some good quality chocolate (all the tempering in the world will not help you if you have bad chocolate.) You need couverture chocolate, which has a higher cocoa butter content. You can buy couverture chocolate online by clicking here. I’ve tried to temper cheap chocolate, and it was disastrous; this is a technique that requires good quality chocolate to work properly.

The main steps in tempering chocolate are as follows:

-Gently melt the chocolate to a certain temperature to ensure that all the crystal forms are melted.
-Cool and agitate the chocolate to promote beta crystal formation.
-Reheat chocolate slightly so it has a texture that is easier to work with (being careful to not heat too much or your chocolate will be out of temper again.)

The nice thing is that if you mess up, you can just remelt the chocolate and start over again.

To start, finely chop the chocolate, or use chocolate buttons (remember couverture, NOT chocolate chips.) Do not use large chunks of chocolate because you want to chocolate to melt evenly.

Take 2/3 of the chocolate and melt it over a double boiler. You want the bowl over about an inch of simmering water (not crazy boiling and the bowl should not touch the water.)

Be VERY careful to not get any water into the chocolate as this will cause the chocolate to seize. Once chocolate is seized there is no fixing it and this chocolate will have to be thinned out and used to make a glaze or ganache. Seized chocolate results from contact with water because the water clings to the sugar molecules in the chocolate, making them sticky. The sticky sugar clumps together and you no longer have a smooth texture in your chocolate. This is what seized chocolate looks like. This was melted chocolate with just a couple of drops of water:

Gently melt the chocolate to a temperature of 50 C for dark chocolate, 45 C for milk chocolate, or 40 C for white chocolate. Once temperature is reached, remove bowl from heat.

Transfer the remaining 1/3 of unmelted chocolate to the bowl and stir together to melt the remaining chocolate and to cool the mixture. Place the bowl in a cold water bath to cool more quickly. Cool to a temperature of  27 C, while stirring.

Place the bowl back over the heat for a few seconds and stir. The temperature will rise quickly and if it rises too much, the chocolate will be out of temper. If you accidentally let the chocolate get too warm, it won’t be ruined, but you will have to re-temper it. You are aiming for a temperature of 30 C for dark chocolate, 29 C for milk chocolate, and 28 C for white chocolate.

A summary of the different temperature is shown below:

*NOTE: These temperatures are just guidelines and could vary depending on the brand of chocolate you use. Check manufacturer’s details to know what  temperatures you should be using.

Once the tempered chocolate is at the correct temperature, it should be smooth and shiny. You can now use it to fill chocolate molds, dipping strawberries, making chocolate decorations for cakes, etc.
When allowing chocolate to harden, do not try to speed up the process by putting the chocolate in fridge or freezer. This can promote alpha crystal formation and could result in chocolate bloom (see photo below)

Chocolate bloom is fixable, but requires you to remelt and re-temper the chocolate.

Tempered chocolate will harden very quickly and will pull back slightly from its mold. It will by shiny and will snap when you break a piece off. If you haven’t tempered your chocolate properly it will take longer to harden and will be dull.

As promised, here is a quick post with the recipe for my Egg Nog Fudge.
Oh it is good.
For all the sciency details behind this recipe, see yesterday’s post on The Science of Fudge.

Ingredients

2 cups white sugar (400 g)
1 cup egg nog (250 mL)
1 tbsp. golden corn syrup
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 cup butter (56 g)

Directions

Butter the sides of a large pot. This will prevent seed crystals from forming on the side of the pot.

Add all ingredients (except for butter) to pot and attach candy thermometer to side. Make sure thermometer does not touch the bottom of the pot, but is fully immersed in the liquid.

Over med-high heat, stir the mixture constantly until it comes to a boil.
Once it begins to bubble, stop stirring the mixture.

Allow to mixture to reach the soft ball stage (238 F or 114 C.) This should take under 10 minutes. Remember to use the cold water test because candy thermometers are not the most reliable pieces of equipment.

Remove from heat. Add butter but DO NOT STIR.
Adding the butter at this stage allows the sugar crystals to dissolve properly in the liquid. If you add butter before the mixture reaches a boil, this can result in premature crystallization.

Leave mixture in pot and allow to cool to 110 F or 43 C. This will take approximately 45 minutes. The mixture should look something like this:

Beat the mixture until it thickens to a fudge-like consistency and becomes dull. The mixture should not look glossy anymore. It took me a long time to achieve the right consistency using a Kitchenaid mixer (~15 min.) I would not recommend doing this by hand. You can see that it is much thicker and lighter in colour.

Once the desired texture is achieved, transfer the fudge to a butter/wax paper lined dish. Allow to set in fridge.

Sprinkle with nutmeg, if desired.

If you aren’t successful, you can always use a failed batch for making homemade egg nog lattes!

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Making bad fudge isn’t such a terrible thing so if it doesn’t work for you right away, don’t give up! If you understand the process of fudge making (which you will by the time you finish reading this post), each failure is a learning process and a step towards making you a fudge master! Some fudge experts are so skilled that they can make fudge without a thermometer and will dip their fingers into boiling sugar. Yeahhh you won’t see me doing that any time soon.

Epic Fudge Fail

One of my friends, who also loves to bake, and I got together one day to attempt fudge. She shall remain anonymous, at her request. I, on the other hand, have no shame. Now, while most people mess up fudge through problems with sugar crystallization, we found a way to have an even more epic fail. We managed to melt–get this– not one but TWO DIFFERENT types of plastic into the fudge. Oh yes, we managed to do that. In our defence, however, I would like to point out that one of those plastic melt-downs was not our fault. My friend had bought a candy thermometer earlier that evening. I’m not sure if we had a faulty thermometer or if the problem was the brand of thermometer but, it decided to partially melt some type of plastic into the fudge. This led to my friend’s rage outburst: “Curse you PC [president's choice]!! PC?! That must stand for piece of crap!” How I love her. I still have no idea what this plastic was doing in the thermometer but I checked the packaging and it did NOT say there was a piece of plastic that needed to be removed. I stand by what I said that this one wasn’t our fault. The other plastic, on the other hand, … well let’s just say… use a wooden spoon for fudge making.

I wouldn’t say that fudge is difficult to make, per se. Just very easy to mess up. When you do succeed,though, it feels good. After tasting our first delicious, smooth, and creamy fudge my friend and I began prancing around the kitchen saying things like “We are so good” or “We are the fudge masters.” I guess I spoke too soon because I had three successive failures afterwards. I blame faulty thermometers. I undercooked one batch, and then overcooked another, both of which are really easy to do if your thermometer is off. After learning this the hard way, I’ve decided to not rely on candy thermometers alone.

Testing Thermometers

I tested two different thermometers after beginning to get frustrated with fudge-making. I put a pot of water on the stove with the thermometers immersed in the water. I made sure that the thermometers were not touching the bottom of the pot, as this can give a false reading. When the water began to boil I checked the temperature. One thermometer said 90 C and the other one said 110 C. Since the boiling point of water is 100 C, I’m not very confident in either reading.

Cold Water Test

I’ve decided to start using the cold water test to double check that my thermometer is not really lying to me. Fudge needs to be cooked to the soft ball stage. I found this video on YouTube to help determine if you are at this stage.

Basic Steps in Fudge-Making

1. Dissolve sugar in liquid ingredients, and add corn syrup or acid to prevent big crystals from forming.
2. Cook mixture to the soft ball stage.
3. Allow mixture to cool, slowly.
4. Mix mixture to form small crystals.

The Science Of Sugar

Regular white sugar is also called sucrose. I got out my old Principles of Biochemistry textbook so I could draw a picture of what a sucrose molecule looks like.

or more simply represented as:

As you can see above, sucrose is made up of two other types of sugar (glucose and fructose.) Sucrose can be broken down into these two components when you add heat and an acid.

Sucrose has a tendency to crystallize when making fudge and other confections. This is because when you dissolve sugar in water, and then begin to cook this mixture, the water begins to evaporate. This leaves less water for the sugar to be dissolved in. The sucrose molecules do not like this, and decide to crystallize out of the sugar solution. Like I said earlier, a good fudge texture relies on the perfect balance of crystallization. You eventually want the sugar to crystallize to a certain extent, but you want the sucrose molecules to form little tiny crystals that are so small, you won’t be able to feel them in your mouth. If crystallization occurs too early in the fudge-making process, they will be big, gritty crystals. There are a few factors that affect sucrose crystallization. These factors can be manipulated to impede crystal formation so that you only get nice, tiny crystals.

• Glucose and fructose
  Glucose and fructose molecules get in the way of sucrose crystallization. If enough glucose and fructose molecules are present, they surround the sucrose molecules, preventing too many sucrose molecules from joining up to make a big crystal. Remember that heat and acid will convert sucrose to its two components? By adding acid such as cream of tartar to a recipe, some of the sucrose will break down into glucose and fructose. To achieve a similar effect, you can also add corn syrup, which is made up of glucose.
• Butter
  Butter plays a similar role in sucrose crystallization. Like glucose and fructose, butter gets in the way to control the number of sucrose molecules that can join to form a crystal.
• Temperature, agitation, and seed crystals
  This should be a small refresher of high school chemistry. Allowing the fudge to cool slowly makes for a smooth texture. If cooled too quickly, if the fudge is agitated during cooling, or if seed crystals are present, this can start a chain reaction of sucrose molecules crystallizing out of the mixture. Here is a video from a chemistry class that I found on YouTube. It demonstrates this crystal chain reaction. Seed crystals are any particles that can set off the crystallization chain reaction. They can be sucrose crystals or any other surface that sucrose molecules would like to cling to.

Fudge Troubleshooting

-Doubling the recipe
It is not a good idea to double or triple fudge recipes, unless you have some good equipment that will allow you to do so. By doubling the recipe, some parts of the sugar mixture may cook faster than others. So while some of the sugar is at the soft ball stage, others parts of the mixture may not have reached this stage yet (or be past it.)

-Too soft or runny
If you keep beating the fudge mixture and it just won’t turn into fudge, you likely undercooked it. Make sure you reach the soft ball stage.
Humidity also affects the crystallization. Sugar is attracted to moisture, so on a really humid day, some moisture from the air will be absorbed into your fudge. If there is too much moisture present, it will dissolve your sucrose crystals and not allow your fudge to set. If you in a humid area, you may need to cook your sugar a few degrees higher to make up for this.

-Too hard
If you let your fudge cool and go to mix it, but find you can’t, then you’ve overcooked your fudge.

-Gritty
This could be due to a variety of things:
Fudge did not cool to 110 F in pot before it was stirred.
Butter was added before the mixture reached a boil (and impeded the ability of the liquid to dissolve the sugar crystals.)
Mixture was stirred throughout boiling or during the cooling stage.
Fudge was cooled too quickly (i.e. in fridge)
Seed crystal formation on side of pot (try buttering the sides of the pot to prevent sugar from sticking.)
Not enough acid, corn syrup, or fat in recipe.

If there is one thing for you to take away from this post, it is this: small sugar crystals = good. Large, gritty crystals = bad.
I made some delicious, creamy egg nog fudge today, but in the interest of keeping this post from becoming a novel I will post the recipe tomorrow.