Creating An Original Chocolate Recipe

[carol lang]

I am fairly new at working with chocolate.

I feel quite confident with my tempering skills and preparing a great ganache.

I want to learn to create a bon bon or bar that is unique to me.

How does one go about recipe creation when it seems that the best is already out there.

Would any of you fine chocolatiers here be willing to share your methods of experimentation?

Carol

[pastrygirl]

Any time I have an idea that I think is so clever and unique...it's in Gourmet the following month. I so wanted to make toast ice cream until that happened. But seriously, most things have been done, but that doesn't mean you can't put a little twist on it.

I dunno, sometimes you just get a vision. Sometimes the aha! comes 6 months and 19 versions into a recipe. Sometimes you wonder what the hell you were thinking. I don't know if I'm convinced the best is already out there, and some part of you must not be convinced either, otherwise why try?

[Darienne]

This isn't quite 'chocolate', although marshmallows do get dipped into chocolate, especially the raspberry ones.

My husband wants me to include nuts right in the marshmallows, but I can't find a recipe that includes nuts IN the marshmallow and I am beginning to think that there is probably a good reason why I can't find a recipe with nuts right IN the marshmallow. Every Google result is about nuts coating the marshmallows, etc.

I am nowhere up to creating a 'new' chocolate recipe, but I am an inveterate meddler and can't resist adding and subtracting things from chocolate recipes. If I don't go too far overboard, it's usually OK.

[Tri2Cook]

It's difficult to do something that hasn't been done in some variation by somebody somewhere but that doesn't mean you didn't create something new. If you have a concept you haven't seen done and develop it to a finished item/dish/etc. you have created something new. Finding out later someone else already made pickles and ice cream mousse doesn't make yours less of a creation. The odds that they did it exactly the same way are small and, even if they did, you didn't know about it. I've had a lot of ideas that I worked on only to discover later by typing it into google that 8,319.63 other people did it yesterday... it was still an oiginal idea for me.

[Darienne]

pickles and ice cream mousse

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Mmmmmmm..... Yummmmy. !!!!

Edited September 13, 2008 by Darienne (log)

[Tri2Cook]

pickles and ice cream mousse

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Mmmmmmm..... Yummmmy. !!!!

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Yeah, that may have been carrying the point a bit too far I guess.

[jgm]

I would suggest you start with something that hit your "wish I'd thought of that first" button, and go from there. Vary something, add something. If an intriguing ingredient would be...oh, chili powder, for instance, think about everything you've had that had chili powder or that flavor in it. Corn? An herb? Let your mind wander and keep a notebook handy to jot ideas.

[carol lang]

Thanks to everyone who has given me suggestions. It really helps to hear what you have said.

jgm I really like that "wish I'd thought of that first" and go from there.

Tri2cook your reply gave me some confidence to just go with my ideas.

Carol

Edited September 13, 2008 by carol lang (log)

[Kerry Beal]

For me a new recipe usually starts with "I wonder how that would taste dipped in chocolate?"

So after I fell in love with Suvir's tomato chutney (which, by the way, it's time to make again since the tomatoes are ripe) I wondered what that combination of warm south indian spices would taste like in a ganache.

I have some basic recipes - ie cream based ganache, butter ganache, caramel, fruit jellies - I just have to decide which filling to plug my idea into.

When I was at the Spice House in Chicago I discovered freeze dried corn - makes a lovely bark - then the brain moves on to adding a bit of crispy bacon to that - now I'm wondering where I can find the remaining freeze dried ingredients to make succotash bark.

[Darienne]

When I was at the Spice House in Chicago I discovered freeze dried corn - makes a lovely bark - then the brain moves on to adding a bit of crispy bacon to that - now I'm wondering where I can find the remaining freeze dried ingredients to make succotash bark.

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You are not pulling our collective legs...you mean chocolate bark with succotash ingredients in it?

Makes me think of the first time I tell someone that yes, the piccadillo really does contain olives, raisins, almonds, bananas, pineapple, chocolate, etc,...and meat.

[Kerry Beal]

No, I'm serious.

[Edward J]

For me a new recipe usually starts with "I wonder how that would taste dipped in chocolate?" 

So after I fell in love with Suvir's tomato chutney (which, by the way, it's time to make again since the tomatoes are ripe) I wondered what that combination of warm south indian spices would taste like in a ganache. 

I have some basic recipes - ie cream based ganache, butter ganache, caramel, fruit jellies - I just have to decide which filling to plug my idea into.

When I was at the Spice House in Chicago I discovered freeze dried corn - makes a lovely bark - then the brain moves on to adding a bit of crispy bacon to that - now I'm wondering where I can find the remaining freeze dried ingredients to make succotash bark.

←

[Edward J]

Kelly, check out Canagra Technologies (don't have the website handy right now) Located in:(drum roll please....) The center of the universe, S'toon, Sask.! They've got a range of about 8 or 9 freeze dried fruits--including pommegranate and of course, saskatoon berries.

Creating a unique chocolate takes a bit of time. It's what I call "back of the brain" time, where you're semi-conscious of a particular flavour, but don't kow what to combine it with. I had mango-on-the-brain for about 2 weeks untill it finally hit me to combine mango with jalepeno. It's a good seller.

And sometimes it's completly spur-of-the-moment....

Waiting at the dentist's after months back I was thumbing through an old magazine and came across a photo of someone who looked alot like the chef saucier at the place I did my apprenticeship at. I had a run-in with him once and accused him of stealing my strawberry coulis--which he did!, and used it to make a strawberry and cream-black pepper sauce to accompany veal tenderloin. (this was mid-'80's)

Within a 250/th of a second of looking at the photo I was already tasting a strawberry and black pepper ganache encased in white chocolate....another good seller.

Chocolate is always fun.....