Saturday, September 15, 2007

Help!

There are two blog events dedicated to grapes this month, so I decided I wanted to post two different recipes. One of my ideas was chocolate-grapes. I wanted to dip grapes in chocolate and have them covered by it, let them cool down, and eat them as delicious chocolates. Sounds intriguing, right?
I tried, and here is my result :(
I haven't been able to produce a nice smooth coverage. I repeated the coating twice, hoping that it would improve, but it didn't. They are actually really good and if possible more addictive than regular chocolates, but I cannot present them for a dinner. Does anyone have any helpful suggestions about how to improve it?
What I did was to take some baker's chocolate, add sugar to it, melt it with a tiny bit of milk and dip the grapes in it. Then I let them cool down overnight and repeated the procedure. The chocolate breaks into pieces on the surface of the grapes, and part of it remains attached to the dish where I put them to cool down, so part of the grapes is not covered by chocolate when I lift them.. Sigh :( :( As I said, Lucas and I are trying to restrain ourselves from finishing them all at once, which implies that the idea is good.. but how do I make it presentable? HELP!!!!

5 comments:

Rome said...

Hey Marta :) Something like that happened to me some time ago and I remember reading it was probably because of humidity, if you add any water to melted chocolate it becomes granular and breaks (maybe your grapes were not completely dry or the milk did it). Some people add butter or heavy cream to fix it (I think it also makes the coating shiny), apparently it's all got to do with water-solids-oil ratios... I also read at that time about tempering to get the right sugar crystals size etc, my geeky nature just loves those kind of science oriented food explanations ;)

chemcookit said...

Hey Romelia!
Thanks a lot for the suggestions!! So, I'll definitely try to eliminate the milk and I'll try the addition of butter or cream.. If you want you can come try some since you've been so kind to give me suggestions!! :) :) :)

Rome said...

Hey :) sorry I didn't see your post before, thanks for the invitation though, we should do some more cooking one of these days :)!!!

whozyerdanny said...

i also believe they are cracking because they are wet or humid. try drying them overnight. i f that does not work try rolling them in chopped nuts! if you cant fix it - hide it!

Vida said...

I think the sugar you are adding to the chocolate is crystalising. Try using cream with the chocolate and maybe icing sugar (confectioners sugar). Heat the cream to bubbling stage add the sugar and then the chocolate once you have taken it off the heat. Vida x