It was a push, but we did it! Our run is done and all is packed and ready to move! We will be contacting all of you who got your orders in soon!
Happy holidays to all!
We did it!
December 11th, 2011Holiday happiness
November 28th, 2011What’s the best part of the Thanksgiving weekend? Family? Football? Turkey? All of the above?
Well, in our kitchen, Thanksgiving means one thing: making chocolates! We have been very industrious this past week, mixing cream and butter, melting chocolate, grinding spices and teas..all to make our bites of deliciousness. Mmmhmmm good!
Stay tuned!
Re-invented: Saffron Cardamom (Crunch)!
November 28th, 2011I’m really excited to tell you about this new piece. It’s actually a new take on one of our all-time favorites: Saffron Cardamom. The new Saffron Cardamom (Crunch) piece pulls the cardamom out of the ganache and marries it with hand-chopped cacao nibs in a crunchy, caramelly brittle. Bits of this brittle are sprinkled over silky saffron and white chocolate ganache squares, which are then dipped in tempered dark chocolate. It’s a favorite…re-invented! The complexity of the crunch paired with the buttery smoothness of the ganache add a whole other dimension to this already sophisticated piece. I hope you approve!
Chocolate workshop
November 28th, 2011
We had our latest chocolate workshop a few weeks ago, sponsored by the generous parents who bid for it at the Thousand Oaks Elementary auction! A fundraiser for the school, the workshop featured 4 parents, early on a Sunday morning, eager to roll up their sleeves and get elbow-deep in tempered chocolates. Together, we prepared transfer sheets, melted and tempered chocolate, mixed ganaches, made caramel… what a morning! Each participant took home various pieces they made…just in time for the holidays. Can’t wait to do this workshop again next year.
Secret Experiment: Pistachio
December 3rd, 2010
Pistachio
I have long wanted to do a pistachio ganache. Not something that looks green and tastes vaguely pistachio-ish. No. Something that actually starts with real pistachios. A lot of real pistachios. Something similar to the Indian sweets that I’ve known since childhood. But with chocolate.
Now, a ganache is an emulsion of chocolate, fat, and liquid. Very often cream plays the role of both fat and liquid. This provides a convenient means of imparting flavors to ganache: simply steep whatever spices, teas, etc, in heated cream before adding it to the melted chocolate. This is the way I make most of my confections.
But pistachios don’t impart much flavor when handled this way. So I’ve been grinding the pistachios in the food processor, adding cream to ensure that the resulting mixture stays liquid. It requires nursing the food processor for several minutes, and frequent scraping down, but it does extract the flavor of the pistachios pretty well.
However, making ganache directly after grinding would leave uneven bits of pistachio inside each finished confection, which I want to avoid. I prefer ganaches to be smooth and luscious, not grainy. So I add the step of pushing the pistachio+cream mixture through a fine sieve to homogenize the texture. The danger, though, is that if the grind of the pistachios is not fine enough, too much of it will get hung up in the sieve and not make it into the ganache, resulting in a weaker-flavored ganache. The key then is the fineness of the grind. And grinding pistachios fine is not an easy task.
To help, this past week I tried soaking the pistachios in the cream for 2 hours before dumping them in the food processor. The resulting nut paste was much smoother than I’d ever been able to get before from my trusty Cuisinart. And when I pushed it through the sieve, much less of the pistachio got left behind. The ganache that resulted after I emulsified this sieved mixture with some 31% Guittard white chocolate was extremely smooth, with only the tiniest flecks of pistachio embedded within. The flavor was much more distinct too.
These hand-cut ganache squares got enrobed in dark chocolate. The ganache was pretty deep in the pan I used, yielding some pretty tall confections – I’d prefer that the pieces be a bit shorter. But otherwise, I’m really digging these. One step closer to perfection…..
New flavor number 2: Caramelized White
December 3rd, 2010
Caramelized White
Caramelized white chocolate? What on earth? That’s what I thought when I first read this blog post from David Lebovitz, former pastry chef at Chez Panisse. It was sent by a friend of a friend, and at first it looked a little too crazy. You’re supposed to BAKE the white chocolate? In the oven? Seriously? Everything I know knew about chocolate, especially about white chocolate, says you don’t want to heat it up past about 115ºF. Bad things are supposed to happen. We’re talking cacao armageddon, folks. I once overheated some dark chocolate in the microwave, and I had to dump the whole lot AND air out the kitchen. But David’s rave review gave me fortitude, and I dove in….
It’s a slow process – an hour in the oven at 250ºF, with repeated stirring. Baking at relatively low heat like this allows the sugar and milk solids in the white chocolate to caramelize while leaving the cocoa butter intact. So what results is a decadent mixture of cocoa butter and caramel. Come on, what’s not to like? When incorporated into ganache, the result is divine: nutty, creamy, and distinctly caramelly – this is a new species of chocolate altogether! I added just a touch of fleur de sel to offset the sweetness and add crunch, and enrobed these in dark chocolate (61%). YUM!
New flavor number 1: Malabar
December 3rd, 2010
Finished Malabars
So here is the first of the new flavors: Malabar. Inspired by our recent trip to India, especially the South where we spent a good chunk of time. It’s 2 ganache layers: one a curry milk chocolate ganache, the other a coconut white chocolate ganache. The two layers are then enrobed in dark chocolate (61%).
I tried a 41% milk chocolate from Guittard in the curry ganache, and it works really really well. The flavor of the whole piece is rich and sultry…the faint peppery notes from the curry powder melding seamlessly with the sweetness of the coconut. It’s something you just HAVE to try……
2010 Holiday production gears up…
November 28th, 2010Ganaches are being made and chocolate is being tempered in the anandconfections kitchen….where Anand and Yuke are hard at work making the latest batch of anandconfections chocolates. Anand just got back from India and came back rejuvenated and inspired. We have some brand spanking new flavors to introduce to you….in the next few days. Sorry for the tease, we are just getting final word in from our volunteer “beta tasters”. Stay tuned!!!
Malabar ganaches
Bake sale to benefit Haiti earthquake victims: Saturday 1/23
January 21st, 2010Come on out this Saturday morning to a bake sale near you to get your fix of anandconfections!
We’ll be at the Bi-Rite Market, Pizzaiolo and Gioia- come show your support to earthquake victims.
100% of proceeds of sales of anandconfections products will be donated to Partners in Health.
Saturday, January 23, 2010, 10am – 2pm
Bi-Rite market: 3639 18th Street at Guererro, San Francisco
Gioia Pizzeria: 1586 Hopkins St, Berkeley
Pizzaiolo: 5008 Telegraph Ave, Oakland
Featured in TastingTable San Francisco
December 2nd, 2009We’ve been featured in the latest article in TastingTable! The article describes Anand and the confections we are making for the 2009 holiday season. Read all about it…
