Allergy free chocolate experiment #6: cream filled Easter eggs recipe

Look just like the previous egg experiment? Ah, but there's two surprises. First is, the chocolate is coconut rough. The second is, there's rum cream in one and lime in the other.

This time around I had an idea.

For most cream fillings you need milk, butter, cream or condensed milk which leaves those with dairy allergies without a cream to use when filling their eggs. 

So here's what I used for the cream.

Cream ingredients and method:

• The initial ingredients are 150gms plain goat's cheese, beaten until soft, 1-2 cups icing sugar (to taste), 1/2-1 tsp vanilla essence.
• Beat these together until soft and blended.
• Divide into 2-3 tsp portions per egg.
• To each portion add your choice of other essences: rum, peppermint, lime, lemon, strawberry etc, and 1/3-1/2 drop of food colouring: green and red (if acceptable).
• Blend together and refrigerate each portion.

Chocolate egg construction:

• For these I made the coconut rough chocolate (Chocolate Experiment #5) and moulded it into egg halves. Temporing is near impossible for coconut rough so don't bother.
• Of the initial ground cacao beans I reserved some for painting the two halves of each egg together. If doing this you have to keep this batch warm the whole way through the setting process of the coconut rough chocolate.
• Once the chocolate egg halves have set, pop them out of their moulds onto a clean tea towel (handle them through the tea towel so they don't melt with the heat of your hands).
• Spoon in the cream fillings, making sure you add the filling to the correct halves and leave some room so it doesn't slop over the side as soon as you tip them.
• Do the following steps to each egg in turn: paint the still warm extra chocolate around the top of the egg halves.
• Quickly close each egg, using the tea towels to keep the chocolate from melting, and hold them firmly together for a second or two.
• Pat the edges to squish down the excess painting chocolate but don't worry too much about looks (it'll only be eaten anyway).
• Refrigerate immediately so the painting chocolate can set.

Allergy free chocolate experiment #5: Easter coconut rough recipe

Today's chocolate experiment (two already eaten by my husband and myself).

Ingredients

6 tbsp cacao nibs, ground into a liquid paste

150 mls powdered sugar

Pinch of cardamom

1/2 tsp mixed spice

1/8 tsp vanilla

60 mls finely powdered coconut milk

1 tbsp honey (instead of soy lecithin)

2-3 tbsp cocoa butter

I had a few stops and starts along the way as I'd intended a different sort of chocolate, I broke my pestle and I was feeling all-round grumpy. Breaking your favourite pestle does that. But all that amounted to nothing as I didn't ruin the chocolate and ended up with a rich and probably addictive chocolate. I'm definitely making this again.

Now just to sort out how to make the chocolate I was intending in the first place...

Allergy free homemade chocolate Easter eggs making tips

Before you start, if you haven't made homemade chocolate from cocoa nibs before please refer to my earlier posts on chocolate making at home, leaving out experiment #3 for the moment.

Making hollow chocolate eggs can be hard but you do end up with proper Easter eggs. They are a little rough but here are my first efforts at Easter eggs. I made two batches of chocolate for this collection. What I didn't use to make hollow eggs I used to make these. There are two solid eggs included.

Tips for making chocolate Easter eggs:

• Use an Easter egg making mould with nice patterns.
• Grind the cocoa nibs well to decrease the graininess and increase the smooth shine of the chocolate once set.
• Remember to keep some warm liquid chocolate aside so that you can use it to glue the two sides of the eggs together.
• To set the egg halves quickly put them in the fridge. Decreasing the setting time well help in keeping the reserved chocolate liquid until you need it.
• Use a small clean brush to brush the warm liquid chocolate around the edges of the egg halves.
• Press the halves together quickly and be sure to use a tea towel or gloves so as to stop the chocolate melting under your fingertips.

Note: 

• I found it easier to create eggs on my second attempt as a little practice and knowledge went a long way.

Allergy free Easter chocolate making tips and tricks part 1

Cacao Nibs

Here's what I've learnt so far from experimenting with making chocolate from scratch:

• Grind longer than you'd like using the coffee or spice grinder. The smoother the chocolate mix at this stage the fewer granular bits will remain in the final product. Only so much will melt.
• Use the mortar and pestle until your arm falls off but half way through add in some cacao butter.
• Use a large mortar and pestle for the main work but obtain two different sorts, one with a long heavy pestle and the other with a wide pestle so that there's more surface area.
• If you couldn't grind as much as you'd like using the grinder then grinding or 'conching' with a pestle that provides a greater surface area will help get the job done faster.
• Before tempering, take a tiny bit of chocolate and set it on your cold tempering surface. If the chocolate starts to set momentarily then you have enough cacao butter in the mix and it should be fine to start tempering. 
• Temper quickly until the chocolate turns gluggy but don't panic during this stage, temper at a reasonable pace just remember to transfer the chocolate to and fro quickly.
• Use flexible silicone spatulas to temper the chocolate as you'll be able to move, scrape and replace the chocolate much easier and you'll be able to use the spatulas to scrape down the mortar and pestle as well, getting the most out of your chocolate mix.
• If using spoons to transfer chocolate then use two spoons, one large and one small. Also use a spatula to scrape out as much chocolate as possible for molding.
• Chocolate should set very quickly. If it doesn't then either the tempering didn't work or you've over tempered and overworked the chocolate and it won't due to a deterioration of certain types of crystal structures etc. For the longer explanations go here: The Chocolate Doctor
• The goat's milk flavour is completely overpowered by the normal chocolate flavour (I don't know about white) so don't worry about your chocolate tasting funny.

Cacao Liquor

I'm still experimenting so I'll get back to you on milk chocolates and advanced molding techniques (not using spoons but icing decorators).

I just thought these would help you get started in time for Easter.

Cacao Butter

Sources of cacao nibs (mostly Australian as that's where I am): 

Australia

Biovea

Chemist Direct

eCrater

Organic Beauty

Pharmacy Online

U.K.

24/7 Healthfoods

AltHealth

U.S.

My Natural Market

Allergy free chocolate experiment #3

I'm no longer following directions. Now I'm starting to experiment on my own. In this one I added goat's milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, cacao butter and cacao liquor.

I also ground the nibs for longer and kept the mortar and pestle warm for longer. Then I tempered and poured into some moulds I have.

The quantity, as you may have guess, is more again. This time I got a tray of shaped chocolates (rocket, flower, heart, squares etc) and a small block.

And it tastes better again. So happy!
Easter chocolate is possible now. Though my arm is again about to drop off...

I used a different arrangement of mortar and pestle after grinding in the grinder so that I had a greater surface area to work with.

When the chocolate became more liquid switched over to this arrangement so I could keep my hands clean (otherwise the chocolate would be all over my hands and not in being ground at all).

I added goat's milk and mixed it in until smooth (those are bubbles).

Tampering. The photo is a bit dodgy as my arm is shaking...

Poured. Just waiting for it to set in the fridge. The less milk the quicker to set so for this one I need to wait. Tastes great even at this stage though.

Allergy free chocolate experiment #2

This time I followed a combination of instructions from this:

And from the John Scharffenberger instruction video.

I ground the sugar then added the cacao and ground for 3 minutes. Then I added the spices that I wanted and ground (my pour grinder is resting now) until the mix was approaching liquid. Afraid my grinder was about to conk out I decanted the chocolate mixture into my warmed mortar and pestle and started grinding by hand. They say to grind until the chocolate tastes nice or your arm falls off... My arm hurts but at least the chocolate tastes nice, if a little more granular than I like (next time I'll sort that out). Then I added a little chocolate liquor and cacao butter and kept on grinding. Finally I thought my arm was about to fall off so I decanted again onto a glass cutting board and went about tempering with two plastic spatulas. After that I poured the chocolate into the mould and stuffed it in the fridge to set. Then I popped the chocolate out and snapped off the uneven edges as best I could without melting the chocolate.

Grinding

More Grinding

Trapped Teddy Bears

Free But Very Edible Teddy Bears

Basic allergy free chocolate recipe

As per the instructions given by John Scharffenberger in Make Chocolate At Home, I did the following:

Ingredients

• Cacao beans, roasted and shelled, or cacao nibs (I used Loving Earth cacao nibs)
• Sugar (6 cacao nibs: 4 sugar for 60% etc.)
• Small pinch chilli
• Pinch cardamom (tiny bit more than chilli)
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

Method

• Add cacao the sugar to the spice or coffee grinder. 
• Grind for 2-3 minutes, opening the grinder and scrape down sides every minute or so.
• 2-3 minutes for icing mix.
• 3-5 minutes for the cacao to become almost liquid
• Open grinder and add spices.
• Grind for 30-60 seconds more.
• Add mix to warmed mortar and pestle. 
• Grind by hand until liquid it is edible.

Initial mistakes

• I reversed the order of chilli and cardamom. Luckily I love chilli.
• I took the cacao out of the spice grinder too soon. But putting it back in for a little more grinding worked with no ill effects.

Taste test

• Pretty strong on the chilli but like I said, I love chilli so that's all fine by me. 
• Taste of chocolate is very strong otherwise. Even though there is little gain produced from 6 tsp nibs and 4 tsp sugar I do believe it will take me a day or so to eat it. (I see why it is 'watered' down for general consumption and sold as milk chocolate - it would be easier to handle and people would eat more without rather than saying they were fine with just two little squares).
• There is some graininess to the chocolate that isn't present in industrially made chocolate, simply because home grinders do not match in efficiency to industrial grinders.

Variation from John Scharffenberger's guidelines

• I put the chocolate I didn't immediately eat into a mini cup cake mould (one of those silcone ones) and put it in the fridge to set.
• Chilli amount.

Result

• Awesome. I was impressed with this and although it isn't store bought smooth it was very nice. It also worked extremely well when melted for chocolate milks, coconut milks or sauces.
• I shall be doing this again.