chocolate Archives - The Man, The Chef, The Dad

Tag: chocolate

December 17, 2015

Salted Caramel & Peppermint Hot Cocoa Snowflakes

Happy holidays!! Just to be clear, I’m not the politically correct type to tell everyone happy holidays. No offense to anyone, but I’ll Merry Christmas your ears till the elves come home. But since we’re in the holiday season and it’s not Christmas yet, that’s how …Read More….

The Chef

1 Comment

October 30, 2015

Caramel & Chocolate Apples

So yeah, we’re at the end of October. If you haven’t caught on, I usually start my blog posts with a reminder of how fast time flies. It’s not my fault! Whenever I start writing something, the first thing I do is look at the date. …Read More….

The Chef

2 Comments

August 3, 2015

S’mores Truffles

Here we are again! Like it or not, we are quickly approaching the end of summer. I know, it feels like it just started, but what can you do? Personally, I cannot wait to start enjoying that fresh, crisp fall air. It’s just the way I’m wired. Call me crazy, but I’m not a huge fan of being uncomfortably hot. So sayonara, summer, I hardly wanted to know thee.

But before it goes, I wanted to give it a final oorah. With so many different ways to celebrate summer with food, you really can’t go wrong. Something fruity, refreshing, light, full of herbs or other garden treasures. There’s plenty of things you can do to send off summer in a respectful way that doesn’t involve obscene hand gestures. Let’s be honest though, even with the dozens of great flavors you can get with summer, not many things can compare to the s’more. It’s a perfect balance of everything that is good and just in the universe. So again, I’m picking it as my final farewell to summer. I figure since it’s one of my all time favorite flavor combinations, it should be able to balance out the dislike I have for my least favorite season.

Fun fact: August 10th is National S’mores Day! I mean, do you really need any more reasons to give these a try?! And if you remember, for last year’s National S’mores Day, I made some pretty sweet S’mores Shot Glasses. Just thinking about those makes me want s’more… Get it? Want S’mo…….

The inspiration for these little treasures come straight from Wilton. During the Sweet-Up I was fortunate enough to be a part of earlier this year, they gave us a sample of two treats: A Marvelous Merveilleux, and a S’mores Truffle. They were talking about flavor combinations and introducing the S’mores Candy Melts that are currently a Limited Edition for the summer. The wife was a little disappointed when I returned to the hotel room truffle-less, so that gave me the push to give it a shot. If you’re wondering about the exact recipe they used, you can find it here. You’ll noticed how ridiculously easy both our recipes seem to be. And that’s because truffles themselves are insanely easy to make. A little time consuming, but easy nonetheless. How easy? Check it out…

S’mores Truffles (adapted from Wilton)

2 bags – Wilton Limited Edition S’mores Candy Melts
1 1/4 cup – Heavy Whipping Cream
1 cup – Mini Marshmallows

1 1/2 cups – Chocolate Chips or Bakers Chocolate

1 package – Graham Crackers, crushed

Notes:

As it turns out, I didn’t think to look for the recipe on Wilton’s site. I created my own recipe, and as I was writing this, I searched for s’mores candy melts on their site and it popped up. Duh, Los.

I felt like the amount of cream I used may have been a tad too much. There were no problems, it set fine, and everything was good. But I feel like they could’ve had more structure instead of the softer, more velvety way they turned out. If you don’t mind it, stick with it. If you want your truffle more dense and firm, omit like a 1/3 cup of cream.
Originally, the plan was to roll then coat in graham like it was when I tried it at Wilton. But they were so soft, you wouldn’t have been able to handle them out of refrigeration. So that’s why i decided to coat in chocolate.
Coincidentally, that’s also why they’re not perfect spheres. But I’m a rustic kind of guy, and I dig how they don’t look like a traditional truffle. Come to think of it, they look like actual truffles! So if you’re sitting there judging my skills, know that I was purposely going for that look. Yeah, that’s right, I’m owning it. Like a boss.
A BOSS.
Speaking of chocolate, if you had more S’mores Candy Melts, you could use a bag of that instead of the chips.
You can heat the cream in the microwave or stove top. I prefer stove top because something happened one time that I don’t like talking about.
I would start this in the morning. There’s a lot of cooling involved and that takes time, so start in the morning and plan accordingly. You don’t need to sit by the fridge while it’s cooling, but it does need to sit in there a few times before finishing them. I’d imagine there would be less time if some cream was omitted.
This recipe will give you about 20 truffles. If you go smaller, you can easily get 40. I used a big scoop so they came out a little bigger than I was planning, but it’s ok. Why?
Like a boss.

This is exceedingly simple. I’m not saying that to try and instill confidence in you either like all the other times I say it. I’m seriously, 100%, without a doubt telling you that if my kid could reach the microwave, he could probably make truffles. I’m just sayin’. The only thing is that it takes time. So patience is needed.

Get a microwave safe bowl (I prefer glass), and put the candy melts in.

In a pot, put your cream and turn the stove to medium-high. You’re waiting for it to start steaming. And by waiting for it, I mean waiting for it. Don’t put the cream on the heat and then turn around to wash your dishes. I did that once too and just like the Great Microwave Incident of 2011, I don’t like to talk about it.

When it starts steaming good, pour it over the candy melts and let it sit for a few minutes. After a few, start stirring it carefully.

It might not seem like it, but eventually it will get incorporated. When it’s nice and smooth, congratulations, you made ganache.

Once it does incorporate, just set it aside and wait for it to cool a bit before tossing it in the fridge for about 2 hours.

This is where the patience starts coming into play. You need to let it cool. When it cools, it solidifies and that’s how you need to work with it to make truffles. So go do your dishes, take a walk, play some Destiny, whatever. Just let it chillax.

Next, get yourself a nice size tray and slap some parchment paper on it. Get the chilled ganache out along with a cookie scoop. Remember, mine was pretty big and made truffles that could take 2 good bites. I think truffles are typically about half this size but hey, I didn’t hear anyone complaining. #boss

What you’re doing now is just scooping out portions. Don’t worry about how they look or anything else. Just scoop out the ganache, line they up on the parchment, and then stick the tray in the fridge again. Patience!

While they’re in there for the next hour or so (patience!), get your graham crackers and crush them up. You could put them in a food processor if you want to dirty something up. Or just do like I do and pound them out with a rolling pin. Put the crushed crackers in a bowl, and wait some more for the truffles to chill.

When they’re ready, get your mini marshmallows and put them where they’re easily accessible. take out the ganache, get some gloves on (trust me), and get your hands dirty.

Make an indentation and put a marshmallow or two, fold it up, and roll them into balls with your palms. You have to be quick because the longer they’re out, the hotter they get. The hotter they get, the harder they are to work with. Having them cold is key. If you have to, put them back in the fridge for a bit in between. House elves love to help with this part.

Once they’re rolled up, guess what? Back in the fridge! For how long? Eh, about 30 minutes is fine. They’re going to be going in chocolate so you don’t want them falling apart there. Probably be better in the freezer for a bit but I didn’t try it.

So when they’re close to coming out, get your chocolate in another microwavable bowl and melt it the way you melt chocolate… You do know how to melt chocolate, I hope. 45 second intervals, 50% power? Yeah, I thought so.

Once melted, get your rolled up ganache from the fridge. You should have the chocolate, crushed graham crackers, ganache, and an extra tray with parchment along with an ice cream scoop set up in front of you.

The ice cream scoop is used to apply the chocolate. You’re meant to dip it in, and get a coating of chocolate on the scoop. Not a puddle, but a coating. Then you take the ganache and roll it around the scoop so you could get a thin coat of chocolate on it. The main event should be what’s inside the truffle, not a crazy thick chocolate layer.

Here is where I started getting annoyed with the consistency of my ganache. I couldn’t roll it because they were a little too soft even out of the fridge. I could’ve put them in the freezer, yeah. Maybe it would’ve made a difference. But either way, as I said, it didn’t hurt the end product. There was just a little more chocolate coating on them than there should have been.

Anyway, get a good coat on your ganache, and immediately drop it in the crushed graham cracker. Roll it around and dredge it there, then leave it for a few while it sets in there good. Meanwhile, repeat the process. I had two truffles in the crackers at a time. When the third went on, I removed the first one that went in. It’s an easy process, don’t stress about it.

When you take the truffles out of the graham crackers, place them on the sheet tray. When you’re done, put them in the fridge to set one.. last… time.

And that’s that. Congratulations, you made truffles! And pretty addicting ones at that.

I wasn’t exaggerating before. The flavor explosion that happens in your mouth when you have s’mores is one of my absolute favorite flavors ever.

Being able to play with those flavors, make them and experience them in different ways is immensely gratifying.

So I have to give a thanks to Wilton for giving me the inspiration to play with the ideas of shot glass s’mores and s’mores truffles these past 2 years.

So make these. And when they’re done, take one outside, raise it up high, and say “peace out, summer!” and proceed to stuff your face with some awesomeness.

The Chef

2 Comments

May 5, 2015

Italian Tricolor Rainbow Cookies (Neapolitan Seven Layer Cookies)

Mama Said Knock You Out Happy mother’s day! Wait, what? I’m early?! Whoa, that’s a first! But it’s for good reason. A couple of months ago, Wilton asked if I had anything inspirational to share about my mom. Without even thinking about it, about a …Read More….

The Chef

11 Comments

February 13, 2015

Heart-Shaped Brownies

Happy Valentine’s Day! It wouldn’t be a holiday on this blog if I didn’t cut it super close! I’ve been pretty busy and I wasn’t really planning on doing something for Valentine’s Day, but I had a pretty big reason to besides the undying love …Read More….

The Chef

1 Comment

August 10, 2014

S’mores Rolls

Happy National S’mores Day!

…..Again!!

You know me, I don’t usually do these food holiday things due to my lack of coordination and planning. But hey, it’s not like I was busy doing anything else here, right?

Now, this was originally going to be my only post for the #WiltonSweetTreatTeam since I had made the icing with some marshmallow candy melts. Because come on, candy melts deserve the love. But as you may have read in the last post, I received a pretty sweet mailer from Wilton and I just had to use the shot glass molds. So I figured, why not? I’ll post two s’mores recipes!

I know, I know. The whole food blogosphere seems to be posting something about s’mores, but I couldn’t help it. I mean, is there anything really wrong with that? They’re s’mores! You can never get enough of them. Speaking of not getting enough, these rolls may not look as amazing/spectacular/jaw dropping as Beth’s Fire Pit S’mores Cake from Hungry Happenings, but they are pretty freaking addicting if I do say so myself.

S’mores are one of those treats that are so iconic, they actually deserve their own special day (unlike random holidays like National Vichyssoise Day [November 18th if you’re curious]). The absolute perfect combination of melting chocolate, gooey marshmallow and a crunchy graham cracker is possibly one of the best combinations ever put together by man (I’m a fan, can you tell?).

Of course, leave it to the Girl Scouts to make such a crack-like treat. The first recorded recipe dates back to 1927. But it wasn’t officially referred to as a s’more until 1973 when it’s addictive qualities were acknowledged and gave inspiration to the name. But even before that, the Girl Scouts have recipes in various publications decades before 1973 where they call it a s’more. And it makes sense when you think about it.. With names like Tagalongs, Samoas, and Do-Si-Dos, the name S’more, or “Some Mores” as they were first referred to, totally sound like something the Girl Scouts would have made up. I could even picture it plastered on a brown box and sold for $20 or whatever the drug dealer price for their cookies are right now. Whatever the case, they deserve whatever recognition they get because everything about the s’more from the name to the taste to the feeling of euphoria they give you fits perfectly with its name.

So now that we know why s’mores are so addicting, let’s get started with putting these bad boys together.

If there is one food I love in this world more than pizza, it’s a good cinnamon roll. With that said, I shock myself when I say I’ve only made them once. It was this past Christmas and its success pretty much guaranteed that I’ll be making them for every Christmas from now on.

When I made them I used Alton Brown’s famous Overnight Cinnamon Rolls recipe. It worked perfectly for me so I figured I’d just base this off of that with a few alterations.

S’mores Buns (altered from Alton Brown)

Dough:

4 each – Egg Yolks
1 each – Egg
1/4 cup – Brown Sugar
6 tablespoons – Butter, melted
1 cup – Buttermilk
4 cups – Flour
1 cup – Graham Crackers, crushed
1 packet – Instant Dry Yeast
1 1/4 teaspoons – Salt

Filling:

1 1/2 cups – Light Brown Sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons – Cocoa Powder
1 cup – Graham Crackers, crushed
2 1/2 tablespoons – Butter, melted
Pinch of Salt

About 3 1/2 cups – Miniature Marshmallows

Icing:

1 bag – Wilton Marshmallow Candy Melts
1 tablespoon – Milk

Notes:

I love using Instant Dry Yeast. Works the same as regular yeast and you don’t have to worry about proofing it. Just add it straight into the dry ingredients and you’re good. Don’t even have to worry about salt, it’s great!
You’re going to need about 1 1/2 packages of graham crackers.
I tend to always forget to buy buttermilk but luckily I seem to always have lemon juice for some insanely odd reason. While I know it’s not the same, it’s a fairly good replacement in a pinch. Just a teaspoon or so of lemon juice in a cup of milk and let it sit for a few minutes.
I threw the grahams in a food processor but it didn’t make a difference compared to just crushing them by hand. So if you want to save yourself from washing something else, just break out the mallet or rolling pin and go to town (kids love that job).
In my excitement to get everything rolled up I totally forgot to throw in chunks of Hershey’s chocolate like I was originally going to do. It’s alright though because they’re fine just the way they are.
As the name indicates, it’s best to plan ahead and make these the day before you want them. Leaving them alone overnight will ensure the dough is well rested and all the flavors will mend.
To proof your dough, you can put the bowl on top of a recently used toaster oven, on top of the refrigerator, or like I did, on top of my dryer since I was coincidentally doing laundry at the time.
When you need to proof again just before baking, if your oven doesn’t have a Proof feature, Alton’s way of doing it is perfect: In a cold oven, put a baking pan on the lower rack and fill it up halfway with boiling water. Then in the center rack put the buns out of the fridge. Once risen, take everything out of the oven and preheat it.

Alright. Bloggingbots, let’s roll out!

First off, crush up your graham crackers like I mentioned. Either food processor or by hand. You’re looking to get it as fine as you can. Once it is, mix it with the flour.

To get the dough started, get your mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Then take your egg yolks, egg, sugar, melted butter and buttermilk and whisk them up for a bit. Next add about 2 cups of the flour with the salt and the yeast and mix it up some more. Once it’s incorporated, change the whisk out for Captain Hook’s hook (what we call it in our kitchen), and throw in the rest of the flour. When it’s all together and the dough forms give it a feel. It should feel soft and moist. If it’s too sticky you’ll have to add some more flour. Once it gets to where you want it, knead it in the mixer for about 5 minutes or until the dough clears the side of the bowl while mixing.

At that point, plop it onto your floured work surface and knead it for a little more till you feel it nice and elastic-y.

When it’s ready form it into a ball and put it into a bowl. Rub the top of the dough with oil so it doesn’t dry out, find somewhere a little warm, cover it and let it double in volume for about 2 – 2 1/2 hours. This is where doing the laundry while making the dough comes in handy!

Sometime while it’s rising, go ahead and mix your filling stuff. Just take everything – brown sugar, cocoa, graham crackers, melted butter, and salt – and mix it all together. And for Pete’s sake, don’t sit there with a spoon and eat it.

When the dough has risen, butter or spray a 9×13 glass baking pan, and get your floured work surface ready again. Roll out the dough into a rectangular shape. You’re looking for a size of 18 x 12 inches, with the longer side close to you. Get a ruler and try and be precise if you can because you’ll only have enough filling for that size. If you roll bigger than that then you’ll have some edges that aren’t covered with goodness.

Once it’s rolled out, brush on some melted butter leaving about 1/2 inch on top. And then sprinkle the filling on while also leaving the 1/2 inch on top. Smooth it out and then gently press the filling into the dough. Once it’s in there, get your marshmallows and spread them around covering everywhere there’s filling.

When you’re ready, take the edge closer to you and start rolling it. Roll it tightly as you go, and when you get to the end, pinch the dry 1/2 inch strip to the roll to seal it. Make sure the roll is nice and even then with a serrated knife cut it in half. Then cut those halves in half, and so on until you wind up with 12 rolls.

Now, if something went wrong and your roll is shorter for some reason, don’t go trying to get 12 rolls out of it. Use your better judgement! The rolls should be about an 1 1/2 thick.

Arrange the rolls on the greased baking sheet and wrap them up for at least 16 hours. Or, *slaps forehead* overnight.

Alright, rise and shine! Make sure you brush your teeth and do whatever else you normally do before you run to the kitchen and finish these up.

You’ll notice they rose in the fridge. Time to get them to rise some more! Take them out and turn on the proof feature on your oven. Or, put them on top of your toaster oven, or whatever it is you do. I’ve even turned on my oven to the lowest it’ll go, and once it reached that temp I turned it off and put the pan in there. It works! Whatever the case, put them in for about 30 minutes. You’ll know they’re ready when they look nice and puffy.

…Alright, not that Puffy…

Take them out of the oven and preheat it to 350. Once it’s ready, slide them in for about 25-30 minutes. Or until they look like this:

While they’re cooling, get the icing ready. What I did was put the candy melts in a glass bowl with the milk and microwaved it on 50% power for 45 seconds. Stir it around and go a little more if it needs it until it looks smooth enough to spread.

When the rolls have cooled slightly, pour on the icing and spread away.

Once that’s done, so are you. And so are the rolls because they are freaking good. Seriously, they’ll never see it coming.

Have I said addicting? I did right? If I didn’t, then listen… They’re addicting. That pool of chocolatey grahamy goodness on the bottom.. pure happiness. My wife said they’re better than regular cinnamon rolls. And that’s like, almost blasphemous to my ears, so they have to be good.

The Chef

0 Comments

August 10, 2014

Shot Glass S’mores

Happy National S’mores Day!! I had original plans to celebrate this day, but thanks to a surprise mailer full of fall goodness from Wilton (Pumpkin Spice Candy Melts!), I decided to put in the extra effort and do something else. And if you know anything …Read More….

The Chef

12 Comments

April 16, 2014

Humpday Update – 4/16/14

Valio La Pena I don’t always do it, but I try my best to keep up with fellow bloggers. I honestly feel like I’m doing something wrong with how I go about my days because I hardly ever have time to juggle my small list …Read More….

Humpday Updates, The Man

4 Comments

March 17, 2014

The Ambassador’s Dirty Shamrocks

Lucky Strike

I know, I hardly ever do recipes that coincide with holidays or special occasions.

Well, except for Pi Day a couple of days ago…

And fall. I love doing fall inspired recipes. Spring too, now that I mention seaso-ok, fine, I rather enjoy posting recipes that go with certain times and days.

But this is different. It’s an actual holiday, and those I don’t usually do – until now.

Some of you may know, but if you don’t, I am extremely lucky and I’m not even Irish! See, a few weeks ago I was chosen to be a part of Wilton’s Sweet Treat Team! We’re a team of 15 bloggers who will be ambassadors for Wilton and their products! I promise I’ll try to curb the exclamation points from now on, but it’s exciting! (Sorry.)

Every few months we’ll be sent a box full of new and fun products to try out and experiment with, and in turn I get the privilege of letting you know what the products can do and how awesome they are. I say that because I have been using Wilton’s stuff for yeeeeeears. And since I’ve been using them for years you know they’re worth talking about and praising. Keep that in mind if you think I’m just talking up stuff because it was given to me. That’s not the way I roll and you should know me better than that. Shame on you..

Anyway, I’ve always loved their products and I’m proud to be on the Sweet Treat Team as their ambassador!

So what type of stuff will they be sending me? I’m glad you asked! I just so happened to do an unboxing video..:

I know unboxing videos may not be the norm in the food blogging world, but in the video game blogging world it’s all the rage. Over the years I’ve done dozens of them and it’s led to this unhealthy fixation I have that I can’t open something substantial without a camera in my hand.

Don’t understand? Let me see.. Ok.. It’s kinda like going out to eat and the minute they put your plate in front of you, you’re ready to take a picture of it to post on Instagram. Hahaha, you know what I’m talking about now, huh? Sadly, I have that fixation too, and it’s kinda the same thing, just with tech and toys instead of food.

Alright, now that that’s cleared up let’s get to it..

If you watched the video, one of the main things that caught my eye was the shamrock silicone baking mold. If you listened closely you could even hear the gears in my head turning as I looked at it. I knew I wanted to make a post with it but I didn’t know what. To save the embarrassment, I won’t tell you about the 3 or 4 different ideas that I tried to execute and utterly failed at. But, I will tell you that I finally came up with something the night before St. Patrick’s Day as I was cleaning out and reorganizing my pantry – which, by the way, is still in shambles along with my kitchen because I just had to make these to try and get this post up by St. Patty’s Day.

Dedication. Ambassador status, baby.

So what I did was a candy, essentially. Something I never did before (hence the 3 or 4 failed attempts that I will not talk about), because I never owned a silicone mold before this one. I know there are other ways to make candy but truth be told I’d rather just make cookies and stuff my face with those.

But these… I dunno. These are pretty freaking good. Because of our diet we had to split one. Then, due to the experimentation process and ensuring the recipe was as best as it could be, I made an executive decision to split another one. You know, for science and all that jazz. We’ve been good, we earned it.

So what’s going on with it? Why is it so freaking good? Maybe it’s the chocolate together with the mint infused white chocolate. Or maybe it’s the crushed up sea salt potato chips that are found throughout the center.

Yeah, I think it’s the potato chips too.

I was originally going to do pretzels, but I figured, hey – potato, St. Patrick’s Day – why not.

Pretzels or chips, the one thing I knew I wanted was that salty & sweet combo. The explosion of happiness that happens on your taste buds when those two get together.

So, how do you do it? Simply, that’s how:

Dirty Shamrocks

1 1/2 cups ~ Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1 1/2 cups ~ White Chocolate Chips
1 teaspoon ~ Mint Extract
2-3 toothpicks ~ Wilton’s Kelly Green Food Coloring
about 1 cup ~ Kettle Brand Sea Salt Potato Chips, crushed

Notes:

You’re going to need Wilton’s Shamrock Silicone Baking Mold
My wife came up with the name when she said they look like they just came out of the ground. I admit, I was going for more of a swirled/marbled effect, but the fact that it was last minute and looked edible made it a winner. Fresh out of the ground shamrocks, they’ll be! Even got crushed chips in there to act as the grindy dirt. My wife is a genius.
I used what I had on hand, but you can also use Wilton’s Candy Melts instead of the chocolate chips.
If you didn’t know, you measure Wilton’s amazing food coloring gels by the toothpick. Meaning you dip a toothpick in the gel and then swirl it in whatever you’re coloring. Why? Because these gels are no joke. They are insanely powerful. I cannot begin to describe how serious I am when I say “a dab’ll do ya”.
I used Kettle Brand because I really like them and I wanted a real good crunch. Feel free to use your favorite brand chip.

Of Melting Chocolate

Alright, the trickiest part of this whole thing is going to be melting the chocolate. If you’ve ever melted chocolate before then you know what I’m talking about.

I have no doubt in your abilities, but I will not lie to you – It’s insanely easy to mess this up.

Chocolate is extremely sensitive. If the tiniest drop of moisture gets into it during the melting process it tenses and seizes and leaves you crying in a corner for hours on end while you call yourself a failure.

Why? Because chocolate is dry, believe it or not. Even when it’s melted. Explained by thekitchn.com, the process of refining cocoa into chocolate leaves it incredibly dry. So adding water to melted chocolate has the same effect as adding water to flour – it clumps up into a paste.

An evil, hate-all-things paste.

This paste kicks you when you’re down. It called you mean names and teased you in Jr. High and it didn’t even know you. If Hitler were a food, he’d be this paste.

I hope you’re catching my drift.

While there are ways to salvage the terrible tragedies that happen to chocolate when we’re melting it, it’s best to just be careful. Keep everything you’re using completely dry – the utensils, the bowls – everything. And when using a double boiler (see below), keep the bowl on the pot at all times. You’re working with simmering water. When water simmers it releases steam. Steam is the vaporous form of *smacks forehead* water. So if you lift your bowl and steam comes pouring out like an ash cloud from a volcano, it can build up moisture on the rim of your bowl and it could drip down and get into your chocolate. Then you’ll have no choice but to throw the whole bowl at the wall in an angered rage. It happens, so just be careful.

So if I haven’t scared you off already swearing you’ll never use chocolate again, there are 2 ways you can go about melting it:

First – Using a double boiler. That sounds like a fancy machine the size of your refrigerator but in fact, it’s just putting a glass or metal bowl over a pot of simmering water. Seriously.

Get a pot of water simmering and get a bowl big enough to sit on top of it – make sure the water does not touch the bowl – or you’re going to have some problems. That would make it too hot and next thing you know your chocolate will be scorched. You want to heat the chocolate using the gentle, consistent heat from the steam. So once the water is simmering, throw the chocolate in the bowl and stir until it melts.

Now, I know what you’re thinking because I’m thinking it too…

And if you are, the second method is for you.

Using a microwave – it’s easily the more dangerous of the two methods. There are many uncontrollable factors if you’re not careful. The main thing to be careful with is you could not compensate for how powerful your microwave is and you could scorch the chocolate. It’s just as bad as adding water, you don’t want to do it.

The best, most cautious way of doing it is in intervals. Put your chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and put it in for about 20-30 seconds (depending on amount of chocolate) at 50% power. Take it out after every interval and stir. It’s going to take a few goes so it’s tedious, but in the end you have a better chance of coming out with your sanity in tact.

Now, you’re probably wondering how are we going to add the extract and food coloring to the chocolate after I just told you you basically need a hazmat suit to melt it.

Well, if you add anything – extract, food coloring, butter, cream – to the chocolate while it’s still in its solid form (pre-melted) then it’s ok. Gradually heating up whatever you’re adding with the chocolate helps it blend together a lot easier. So as long as it’s in the bowl when you start the process you should be safe.

I know, melting chocolate doesn’t sound like fun. But it’s all the more reason to want to swim in it when you do melt it correctly. Don’t be scared!

Ok, now that you have a little science in your head let’s get into the simple recipe.

First, crush your chips and set aside.

Next, get the semi-sweet chocolate into a bowl and melt it using either method I described above. I prefer the microwave because ain’t nobody got time for a double boiler. Once melted, set aside.

In another bowl, add the white chocolate chips, mint extract, and food coloring and stir together. Like I said, add the food coloring with a tooth pick.

Please don’t think I’m being over protective and add half the container. You’ll probably pass out because your brain wouldn’t be able to process the color of green that would occur if you did that.

Once stirred, melt in the microwave. It took me about 4 intervals of 30 seconds and 1 of 15 seconds to get it melted – just to give you an idea. All microwaves are different.

Once you get here, you can let the residual heat melt the rest.

20140314_132127_1 — Here’s a little behind the scenes shot with Lucas and my not-a-DSLR cam

Now, take about a tablespoon of the smooth, not pasty, green chocolate and put it in a mold. On top of that – next to, whatever – plop down a tablespoon of the semi-sweet. On top of that, sprinkle a good teaspoon or so of crushed chips. Then take small spatula or butter knife and swirl it around, making sure to get all the chips in there – without pushing them all the way to the bottom and keeping them as much away from the edges as possible. Make sure to keep the top as flat as possible or it’ll come out all lop sided and uneven.

Once you’ve done one mold, go on to the next. Do them one by one so your chocolate won’t cool on you and get hard in the mold during the process.

When they’re all done, put them in the cooler for about an hour and they should be ready to go. Just stretch out the mold, pop then out from the bottom and boom – a minty, salty sweet, dirty shamrock.

I decided to go with a swirled effect because I wanted a look that I didn’t have to control. So if yours comes out looking totally different then be happy because there’s no real way they’re supposed to look. Unless they come out with actual swirls. Then know I’m jealous and not really liking you at the moment. Mine just so happened to look like they came out of the ground so they’re “dirty”. But if they actually came out looking how I imagined they definitely would’ve been “swirled”.

So that’s it! Wasn’t such a chore now, was it? And you thought working with chocolate was going to be a disaster.

Once again, thank you to Wilton for choosing me to be a member of the Sweet Treat Team!

I hope everyone enjoyed this and I hope you look forward to more posts like this in the coming year. I might even be able to host as little giveaway, who knows!

Till next time, happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Other things you can do with the mold:

Simple Shamrock Sundaes by Momma D and da Boyz