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Getting strawberry flavor into ganache


tammylc

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Strawberries are tricky. My husband - an avowed strawberry lover - always laments the ease of finding raspberry flavored chocolate. In my one venture into strawberry before I did a strawberry pate-de-fruit paired with a balsamic ganache, and that worked well. But this time I'm looking to make a white chocolate + strawberry + rose combo for a truffle center. I did a test batch last night using strawberry puree, and there's a hint of strawberry flavor, but not a lot. I did not, however, concentrate my puree a la Grewling, so I expect that will help some. Any other hints for imparting strong strawberry flavor? With raspberry you've got Chambord, orange you've got Grand Marnier, but there aren't any strawberry liqueurs like those, at least that I know of. There's eau de vie, but it's pricey and only available in large bottles.

Eagerly looking for tips!

Tammy's Tastings

Creating unique food and drink experiences

eGullet Foodblogs #1 and #2
Dinner for 40

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I wonder if those freeze dried strawberries, put through a spice grinder, would help? Possibly a strawberry flavored oil or essence, though I don't know of any right off hand.

John DePaula
formerly of DePaula Confections
Hand-crafted artisanal chocolates & gourmet confections - …Because Pleasure Matters…
--------------------
When asked “What are the secrets of good cooking? Escoffier replied, “There are three: butter, butter and butter.”

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Tammy, do you want it to taste very fresh? I've used strawberry preserves/jam before. You can make your own version with strawberries in season and that way, you can season them to make it have a different flavor profile, but still be very strongly strawberry. I also like it when there are some chunks of fruit still inside. Not sure how that would affect shelf-life, but jams and jellies, when made properly are very stable.

edited to add: I'm assuming you don't want to use a flavor compound to punch up the puree? Like the Amoretti products? There are also Monin flavored syrups...the advantage of the compounds is you're not messing too much with your ganache formula. The disadvantages of syrups would be more sugar and messing with ganache formula because you're adding bulk.

Edited by alanamoana (log)
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I do try keep things "natural" and avoid things like compounds. And my volume isn't such to make Amoretti sizes cost effective for me.

I was just thinking about syrup myself, and will probably look and see what's available to me. I'd definitely consider using jams/jellies - can you talk to me about how you've worked with the ones that have chunks of fruit? Do you mix it up in a food processor first to distribute it better?

Grewling has a ton of recipes that use jam (mostly butter ganaches) so I'd have a good starting point for a recipe.

I'm going to try the strawberry powder idea too.

Thanks!

Tammy's Tastings

Creating unique food and drink experiences

eGullet Foodblogs #1 and #2
Dinner for 40

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Tammy, I've used jam as alanamoana suggests and it works well - I think I just boiled it with the cream from memory (no big fruit chunks). I've also seen dried starwberries ground and used in white chocolate - you can actually buy fruit powders from one of our local ingredient suppliers here and although I haven't used them before, I'm tipping that's exactly what they are.

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I make a center with reduced strawberry, freeze dried strawberry powder and sometimes a bit of strawberry compound.

The suggestion seems to be that when you use one fruit puree that you use a different fruit for the alcohol you add, so I would usually add either some kirsh, or maybe some lemon vodka to the center.

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There is a wild strawberry liqueur from Italy called Fragoli.... www.fragoli.com

It looks pretty interesting...contains whole wild strawberries

Edited by Tiny (log)
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I have had this same problem. It seems that I don't get a good strawberry flavor but when I add more puree it seems to sweet. ditto with using jams and syrups.

I tried the powder, but again just couldn't get it to come out.

Will have to give the Fragoli a shot, thanks for the tip!

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A good dash of raspberry vinegar in water is a cure for strawberries with little flavour (allow to absorb for ten minutes or so). Jean-Pierre Wybauw, Fine Chocolates Great Experience, page 29
Just an idea.
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I believe Stoli does a Strawberry Vodka avaliable in the US. I used it in a Strawberry Vanilla ganache for a white chocolate I did with pop rocks in it to honor the birth of my daughter and it came out awesome

"It only hurts if it bites you" - Steve Irwin

"Whats another word for Thesaurus?" - Me

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Do you remember your formula, Pringle007?

I made some over the weekend with reduced strawberry puree, strawberry powder, and some natural strawberry flavor i found. Still nowhere near the intensity i'm looking for.

At this point I think I'm going to try rose with the pomegranate instead, and work on the strawberry later. I need to get my flavors finalized soon.

Tammy's Tastings

Creating unique food and drink experiences

eGullet Foodblogs #1 and #2
Dinner for 40

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There is a wild strawberry liqueur from Italy called Fragoli.... www.fragoli.com

It looks pretty interesting...contains whole wild strawberries

I've used this product!! It's DELICIOUS It's great in buttercream...very lovely strawberry flavor.

I'm a big user of flavored vodkas in fillings. The Stoli raspberry really works well with

raspberry puree and a little lemon juice. The flavor is really heightened.

www.onetoughcookienyc.com

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I've used this product!!  It's DELICIOUS  It's great in buttercream...very lovely strawberry flavor.

I'm a big user of flavored vodkas in fillings.  The Stoli raspberry really works well with

raspberry puree and a little lemon juice.  The flavor is really heightened.

And it's easy to make:

http://italianfood.about.com/od/aperitifsc...e/r/blr0492.htm

Notes from the underbelly

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I make a white chocolate strawberry ganache. I make a reduced puree- if I remember 100g puree to 100g cream to 340 g chocolate, I can look it up later. I add some balsamic which seems to bring out the strawberry. I think it tastes just right...
Lior,

By how much do you reduce your puree? It seems like it would have to be reduced down pretty far for your proportions to make a firm ganache.

And how much balsamic do you use? I like this idea. Do you add it to the puree or while emulsifying as you would a liqueur?

I'm trying to make a Neapolitan truffle and need a really good strawberry flavored layer to go with the milk and vanilla layers. I’ve tried reducing the puree to ½ the weight (don’t know exactly how much water that removes, but it’s more than half and leaves it as a kind of sticky paste) and combining it with the cream at about a 1:1. I’ve been using Lindt white chocolate because it doesn’t have a strong flavor and I usually have luck getting other flavors to come through…no such luck this time.

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Hi. Firstly, it is not too firm- I pipe it into my frog shapes- (kinda like the frog's blood...) It is in my kid's line, but adults seem to like it also. I reduce till it is thick and would just burn if I continued reducing. Then I squish it through a sieve so there are no stringy parts. To the puree I add the balsamic about 1 -1 1/2 tablespoons-- according to taste as the strawberries always taste different. Some are very flavorful so I add less balsamic, some are more watery so I reduce more and add more balsamic. Here is the basic recipe:

200 ml cream 38%- long life

100ml reduced strawberry puree

1Tbl Balsamic

360 g White chocolate- I use Valrhona

pipe into shells and wait for it to firm up- close and that's it!

gallery_53591_4944_65325.jpg

gallery_53591_4944_70629.jpg

Good luck!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Okay, I tried these again and got much better results...they were at least edible, ha!

Actually, the flavor turned out really well, but the texture is a little off.

Here's what I did: Fresh strawberries in the food processor. Added some balsamic vinegar and sugar. Cooked it down to a thick BBQ sauce consistency. Heated white chocolate so about half was melted. Added a little bit of cream to the reduced strawberries and heated. Poured over the white chocolate and let the chocolate melt all the way. Emulsified the two. Added a bit of butter. Added some strawberry vodka. Emulsified.

This produced a very lively strawberry taste, but a somewhat gummy (only slightly) texture. The jelliness of the reduced strawberries seemed to overpower the structure of the white chocolate and they didn’t set up as firm as I would have liked.

I served some enrobed in dark chocolate and some enrobed in milk chocolate at my daughter’s birthday party on Saturday (she just turned 3). She was having a Strawberry Shortcake themed birthday, so I thought the strawberry truffles would fit right in. I got good reviews on them, and some people even liked the texture better than regular truffles (to each his own I guess)…the milk chocolate coating seemed to go over better than the dark, even for a few people that like dark better.

I still need to work out the texture issue, since I plan on using these in a Neapolitan truffle and this texture probably wouldn’t hold up well as the middle layer.

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200 ml cream 38%- long life

100ml reduced strawberry puree

1Tbl Balsamic

360 g White chocolate- I use Valrhona

My method:

cook cut up strawberries on a very very low flame and when they are warm I squash them gently with a fork until it is a lumpy mixture and when it can nolonger be reduced I put it into a sieve(strainer) and squash it through. Then I add the balsamic. I heat up the cream and pur over half melted chocolate wait a bit and mix. If you need to zap it in the micro for a few secs that is OK. Then I add the warm but not hot puree. At this point you could the strawberry vodka.

I guess you need to play around with it a bit until you find your preference! Glad it went over well andeveryone enjoyed the event! Happy bday to the little one!

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Dehydrating strawberries into a powder could be an idea.

Requires an investment of 65 bucks or so but you get intensity & dry matter so you don't screw up your liquids, fat, etc.

My two cents :wink:

Good Luck!!!

2317/5000

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