It's
Daring Bakers time again, and this month's challenge were candies and confections. There was a choice of a wide variety of recipes. One option was the Pâte de Fruit, which is fruit gelée, something I wanted to make for a long time. You can use any fruit, which would be suitable for making jam. The process is also very similar to jam making. You puree the fruit, add sugar and pectin, then boil it until it sets. I thought the recipe given by the organizers was a little too meticulous on temperature measurement. I found another recipe which is a lot easier and doesn't need a thermometer. If you made jam before, it's a really easy treat to make. And they taste fantastic!
My second choice was chocolate truffles. They were dark chocolate filled with a milk chocolate and passion fruit ganache. It was really too hot to make anything with chocolate (how do you maintain the mixture at 27 C when the room temperature is already 30 C?), but I gave it a try anyways. I have made different types of filled chocolates before, but I still find the process of tempering the chocolate intimidating. One reason is that I usually do it by feel, since my thermometer is not very precise. So I usually estimate the temperature with my lips. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This time it didn't go so well, and I got some white streaks on the chocolate. They still tasted very good, though.
I will definitely keep both choices of confections on my list for gift ideas later this year. I hope by then I will have a better candy thermometer.
The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies!
