A great snack recipe from Karen Solomon, author of Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It . I saw this book at the MakerFaire and requested a copy from the publisher, and the rest is history. Watch as Eric works with chocolate.
What are your favorite snack recipes? let us know below:
Tim
This is a must try. Chocolate and peanut butter were made for each other.
One thing you might want to try is different flavors of peanut butter. One I would recommend is banana peanut butter.
Another related suggestion – the next time you make s’mores at the campfire, use peanut butter cups instead of plain chocolate. The resulting s’more is in an entirely different league.
Shellie
Another great sweet snack or small sweet to serve guests after a meal is Black Raspberry Truffles. Just bake your favorite chocolate cake per regular directions. When cool enough crumb it up with a fork in a large bowl. (I know, it goes against nature to intentionally crumb up a whole cake!)
Stir in 1/2 to 1 c. of seedless black raspberry jam. ( just to moisten cake enough to be able to form into balls) Then form 1-2 tbsp at a time into balls, depending on size you want. When all are formed dip in your favorite melted chocolate coating and set on wax paper. Let set, then dip one more time. Can drizzle tops with white chocolate to dress them up. Very yummy and look like you worked harder than you really did.
Bruce Berg
I’ve always wanted to try a recipe that comes close to the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and now I have what looks to be a winner of a recipe!
Instead of shopping the day after Thanksgiving, I’m planning on making a few batches of my famous fudge and now I gotta try the peanut butter cup recipe.
Great video!
Scott
Hey Eric
The key to successfully melting or tempering chocolate is to do it gradually with indirect, very low heat, while gently stirring until the chocolate is almost melted. Remove from the heat source and stir until it melts completely. It may take awhile, but do not put it back on the heat source….l or use the microwave 🙂 lol
Make sure no beads of moisture are allowed to mingle with the chocolate while melting or it will become a grainy, lumpy mess called seizing. If this happens, you can try adding a little vegetable oil and heating the two together for use in a recipe, but it doesn’t always work. Once vegetable oil is added it can no longer be tempered.
Milk and white chocolate are especially sensitive to heat, more than dark. White chocolate is the most delicate to work with because it contains milk solids.
The chocolate can easily lump up if exposed to too much heat. Most people see this and turn up the heat, which causes further problems generally burning the milk solids.
Chocolate is as temperamental as it is wonderful. The two most common problems of working with chocolate are separating and seizing. There are steps to follow which ensure that neither separation nor seizing occur:
Separation happens when the cocoa butter separates from the solids because it is heated too hot. An indication is a gray film, called bloom, that you will see on the outside of the hardened chocolate, when cooled and there is no way to salvage it. Instead, use gentle heat and don’t forget to stir.
Seizing is what happens when chocolate clumps and becomes stiff and grainy from moisture being introduced or the chocolate burns. You can fix it sometimes, but then it becomes unusable for anything except baking recipes.
Looks like it tuned out bonza anyway
have a good’en
Scott
Eric Gunnar Rochow
thanks for the expert reply. i’ve never used chocolate much in recipes, except for brownies. eric.
Scott
Hey Eric
Once you have it down pat its a beautiful thing…
When are you going to do some more bee videos?
We are just coming its late spring/ early summer here and we are about get our first hive (inspired partly by gardenfork tv).
Scott
Hey Eric
Nice.. That’s what i was thinking, but i am on an urban block, our bi laws say our land is large enough to hold at least 2 hives, We have a killer vegie garden so i would love to get 2 but I’m a little concerned that there might be too many bee flying round the place, annoying the neighbors etc.
what do you think?
Thanks
Cookie
Eric, I am glad you did not give your dog any chocolate. I am sure you know that chocolate can make both dogs & cats very sick. Reminding your viewers of this fact, could save a pets life. Thanks. I loved the video also.
Andrea
OOhhhh yum, another good one is………take a package of oreos, crumble them up. Take a package of cream cheese, mix with crumbles oreos and form balls. Chill balls for a few minutes while melting (in a double boiler) a package of choc. chips. Dip the oreo balls in the choc and let set or you can chill to harden. MMmmmm. So easy.
Eric Gunnar Rochow
cream cheese makes everything good. eric.
Desiree Kennedy
Having a chocolate expert on the show would be cool. It’s not that easy to work with and there is that whole percentile of coca ratio…
This was really entertaining!
Eric Gunnar Rochow
i asked the one chocolate expert i know, but did not hear back. if anyone has suggestions on a guest , please let me know. thx. eric.
jenn
a trick i learned recently from another recipe for melting chocolate in a microwave: heat half of the chips, stirring often, then stir in the other half of the chips and the residual heat will melt the whole thing smoothly.
if i’m making candies and i want a really thin coating, i add a tiny bit of shortening to make it flow a bit better.
jenn
the more hip ladies might be able to point you in the direction of a great chocolatier to interview. they have chocolate (and beer!) in every show.
http://www.morehipthanhippie.com/
Becky
I’m thinking of making these – how many cups does this recipe make (approximately) because I need to make a lot – 30 or a bit more. I want to know if i need to double or triple the recipe. Thanks!
Amanda
Oh my. Where did you get that labrador? He looks exactly like my lab that I gave up for adoption several years ago.