Chocolate Boxes

Today in school we made chocolate boxes. Literally, boxes made out of chocolate. Edible boxes that we filled with chocolate truffles worth more than my little finger with the amount of Valrhona chocolate in them.

These aren’t your mainstream marketed truffles. No preservatives, no additives, simply clean ingredients. Chocolate, butter, cream, and liquor. Covered in tempered chocolate and cocoa powder. They were so good I wouldn’t let myself bring them home because I’d eat them all.

The box on the other hand was a little more difficult. The goal was to create a box more than 6″ long, 2″ high and 4″ inches wide, in any design we wanted as long as it included two different types of chocolate (white, milk, or dark).

The skill we were meant to master was tempering. Which means heating and cooling the chocolate (depending on type) to certain temperatures to create an ideal “snap and shine.” The problems I encountered were tempering the correct thickness, the tendency for the chocolate to break, and the streaky quality chocolate gets during “fat bloom.”

I’ve included a few pictures. The truffles are supposed to look organic and not perfect circles, as they would in an artisanal hand rolled shop. Godiva isn’t artisanal, sorry. But then again, my box doesn’t look ANYTHING but sloppy. Eh, it’s a learning experience.