Chocolate

For the past 4-5 days, we've been learning all about how to work with chocolate. We've tempered all kinds of chocolate in all kinds of ways (the two main methods involve using the marble to cool the chocolate to temper and an alternate, quicker, but not quite as strong, method called "seeding," which involves bringing the temperature of the melted chocolate down by adding bits of already tempered chocolate to it). With the tempered chocolates, we've coated nuts and made ALL kinds of truffles. We made the truffles with the rich ganache centers, coated them in chocolate and cocoa powder, we made filled truffles on Thursday(using candy molds that make really nice shapes) and we've poured the truffle ganache into frame molds, let it set and cut the chocolates into squares, which we then dipped in chocolate (a lot like coating petits fours). We're saving these chocolates for my graduation party next Friday. Today (Friday), we started work on our final project, which is the chocolate showpiece. This afternoon, my management class took a field trip to Rosa Mexicano, a local upscale Mexican restaurant chain. Here's a picture of my favorite girls in class (Nicole, Gabriela and Anastasia). Have a great weekend!