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08/04/2021
NuiWhakakore
62 Reviews
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NuiWhakakore
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VHS course "Make your own chocolate
As soon as I saw it, I signed up. Make your own chocolate, I'm in, of course! It was scheduled for one day, which seemed like a long time, but was explained by the fact that we had to conch the chocolate first. By hand. That was my first mistake, four hours of stirring liquid chocolate is huge on the upper arm. Some training in advance would have been good.
I decided on a dark chocolate with 60% cocoa content and cocoa from Nigeria and Colombia as a base. A fine spicy, beguiling aroma, at least the first two hours of conching, after which a mental feeling of fullness spread. Then it was on to the topping. And here I would warn against the second mistake: think about what you want beforehand! There are thousands of options, it can be easy to get a little overwhelmed.
I went for a handful of candied citrus first, you can't go wrong with that. Right next to it was a small bowl of rosemary lavender brittle. It looked very nice, so green, so on with it. So that it's not too tart, I then added some pineapple on top.
Maybe I should have left it at that, but there were still so many ingredients there and if you already have the opportunity, then you have to go into the full! I then added some myrrh powder on top. Honestly, I don't remember why, I had tasted quite a bit by then and I was feeling slightly nauseous and maybe a bit over-sugared. By the way, that's the third mistake I'd like to warn against: don't taste everything!
Then I grated some tonka bean over it - I'd never seen a tonka bean before, I couldn't help myself. I only pressed the vanilla bean into the still soft mixture for visual reasons.
The instructor said that looked but very interesting. He did not want to try. He gave me but the tip to glaze everything still, so that the colors shine more and the ingredients last longer. It's possible that he said something about "applying it thinly", but I wasn't listening that closely anymore. Anyway, he gave me a resinous clear liquid that I applied liberally. I liked that, so I did it more often. I didn't keep count. After it cured, the layer was hard as glass, but everything looked really nice.
The board was still packed in a beautiful sandalwood box. I'm relatively sure you can't eat it anymore, but it looks really nice. I think I'm going to hang it up.
Anyway, the "brew your own beer" class is in 2 weeks, so that has potential, I'm really looking forward to it...
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The Intenso d'Agrumi has a somewhat misleading name, in my opinion. The agrumi (i.e. citrus) is present, along with some pepper, but is immediately buried under a large ladle of liquid chocolate. This one really smells like melted dark chocolate, very, very luscious. After 5 minutes the green notes come through, lavender and rosemary are evident. I find the combination of chocolate and lavender rosemary pretty gross at first, I certainly wouldn't buy that variety!
Fortunately, after another 10 minutes, the chocolate recedes a bit and the lavender becomes more prominent. This is much more enjoyable. This trend continues, although the chocolate note never completely disappears. A fruity pineapple peeks in briefly, but it wasn't needed. It doesn't stay for long though, thankfully. The whole thing warms up a bit with the addition of myrrh and dry wood. This middle part pleases me quite well.
Towards the base, of course, it comes as it must: sweet-resinous amber, a little tonka and increasingly vanilla - as expectable as boring and unfortunately not at all mine. I confess, however, that the fragrance is exciting, varied and also well made. At the same time, it is not too overbearingly sweet. For chocolate and gourmand fans so certainly worth a test.
Thanks to Cafeliberte for the exciting hiking letter!
I decided on a dark chocolate with 60% cocoa content and cocoa from Nigeria and Colombia as a base. A fine spicy, beguiling aroma, at least the first two hours of conching, after which a mental feeling of fullness spread. Then it was on to the topping. And here I would warn against the second mistake: think about what you want beforehand! There are thousands of options, it can be easy to get a little overwhelmed.
I went for a handful of candied citrus first, you can't go wrong with that. Right next to it was a small bowl of rosemary lavender brittle. It looked very nice, so green, so on with it. So that it's not too tart, I then added some pineapple on top.
Maybe I should have left it at that, but there were still so many ingredients there and if you already have the opportunity, then you have to go into the full! I then added some myrrh powder on top. Honestly, I don't remember why, I had tasted quite a bit by then and I was feeling slightly nauseous and maybe a bit over-sugared. By the way, that's the third mistake I'd like to warn against: don't taste everything!
Then I grated some tonka bean over it - I'd never seen a tonka bean before, I couldn't help myself. I only pressed the vanilla bean into the still soft mixture for visual reasons.
The instructor said that looked but very interesting. He did not want to try. He gave me but the tip to glaze everything still, so that the colors shine more and the ingredients last longer. It's possible that he said something about "applying it thinly", but I wasn't listening that closely anymore. Anyway, he gave me a resinous clear liquid that I applied liberally. I liked that, so I did it more often. I didn't keep count. After it cured, the layer was hard as glass, but everything looked really nice.
The board was still packed in a beautiful sandalwood box. I'm relatively sure you can't eat it anymore, but it looks really nice. I think I'm going to hang it up.
Anyway, the "brew your own beer" class is in 2 weeks, so that has potential, I'm really looking forward to it...
--------------------
The Intenso d'Agrumi has a somewhat misleading name, in my opinion. The agrumi (i.e. citrus) is present, along with some pepper, but is immediately buried under a large ladle of liquid chocolate. This one really smells like melted dark chocolate, very, very luscious. After 5 minutes the green notes come through, lavender and rosemary are evident. I find the combination of chocolate and lavender rosemary pretty gross at first, I certainly wouldn't buy that variety!
Fortunately, after another 10 minutes, the chocolate recedes a bit and the lavender becomes more prominent. This is much more enjoyable. This trend continues, although the chocolate note never completely disappears. A fruity pineapple peeks in briefly, but it wasn't needed. It doesn't stay for long though, thankfully. The whole thing warms up a bit with the addition of myrrh and dry wood. This middle part pleases me quite well.
Towards the base, of course, it comes as it must: sweet-resinous amber, a little tonka and increasingly vanilla - as expectable as boring and unfortunately not at all mine. I confess, however, that the fragrance is exciting, varied and also well made. At the same time, it is not too overbearingly sweet. For chocolate and gourmand fans so certainly worth a test.
Thanks to Cafeliberte for the exciting hiking letter!
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