A little candy-action for your Friday photos. The first two are our variation on a cherry cordial. They are a fondant-liquor cordial with a brandied cherry- potentially a bit messy to eat, but tasty.
The second type is our hazelnut praline. The top is textured as they are dual enrobed with a layer of crushed hazelnuts before the final coat. For the striping, they had to quickly pipe the dark chocolate over the milk chocolate before it set. This let the layers blend a little together, so that you have smooth striping instead of set-up stripes (most piping is done after a shell has set-up).
The last two photos are this year’s raspberry-caramel heart. Chef went with a red spray backed by white this year, as opposed to a red brush-in with or without the backing (brushing in gives a nice swirl effect). To get this effect (and for the cordials too), colored cocoa butter is held at about ~90 F and sprayed into clean molds held at about room temperature. The spray can be controlled to a smooth speckle, or a more thorough coating, since this is basically spray painting with colored cocoa butter. As we get into Easter Egg production, we’ll see other cocoa butter and coloring techniques.
Have a great Friday evening, and enjoy the weekend, everyone!
