Help with dark chocolate fudge and fruit caramel recipes

[oferl]

Hello, very long time reader coming out of the "shadows", very glad to be here !

 

Will be glad to get help and ideas for recipes for two items that i will help making as a present for a family wedding :-)

Have been reading through the archives getting general directions for the recepies, have also several confections books like Greweling's chocolate and confections, but not much expirience in making sweet stuff, so i think your help will be great to be much more focused and use hopefully reliable recepies to "spare the life" of the good supplies :-)

 

One item will be dark chocolate and finely diced amarena cherries fudge slabs for cutting, have manjari 64% for the task and will be glad to get recipes ideas from the professionals here..

 

Second item is passionfruit caramels (forgot to prepare mango puree at season so 100% passionfruit), and im familiar with the long Genin caramels thread, many small changing recipes ideas there and will appriciate getting help with the "right" direction.. 

Thanks a lot for any help on those !

Edited October 18, 2014 by oferl (log)

[Kerry Beal]

A thought on the Genin Caramels - where you add the fruit puree determines whether they will taste more caramel or more fruit.  Cooking the caramel first then adding the puree and recooking gives more caramel flavour.  

 

Linking to the final notes I have in my cookbook here 

 

Fruit Flavoured Caramels

• 300 grams glucose
• 375 grams sugar
• 75 grams water
• 50 grams butter
• 50 grams honey
• 500 grams cream
• 200 grams fruit puree 140 g passion fruit/60 g mango
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

1.Follow the usual directions, bring to 118 degrees C, then add fruit puree and bring back to 123 C. Test to see if firm enough in cold water.

2.Other option was 200 g cream, 150 grams each of mango and passion fruit, all added as for cream. Again bring to 123 C.

 

 

Not sure who would be the best fudge expert here on eG - perhaps Chocolot might be able to jump in with some ideas?

Edited October 18, 2014 by Kerry Beal (log)

[Chocolot]

I question the use of amarena cherries. The ones I have are canned in a heavy syrup. The moisture from the cherries will adversely affect the fudge unless you are able to dry them out first.

[oferl]

Thanks a lot Kerry and Chocolot :-) The caramels recipe looks good, thanks for sharing it. I will do a small batch test, probably going for option 2, if i understand correctly it should be decreasing cream from 500 to 200 (that's a pretty steep change..) and using 300 fruit puree, which will increase nicely the sourness, i like it a lot in the case of high sweetness involved in those confections.. Kerry what does it mean that "all added as for cream", that addition of fruit puree as if to replace cream "volume" ?

 

For the fudge i was also concerned with the "soggy" amarena, thanks for the warning.. I will probably have to think of something else, altough i can dehydrate the cherries (not sure effort worth it, they are already very sweet from the liquid..) or better, get good quality dried cherries or berries. 

Edited October 19, 2014 by oferl (log)

[Kerry Beal]

So in the second variation of the caramels you add the cream and fruit purees together at the beginning and just cook to 123ºC.

 

The thing about caramel - doesn't really matter how much liquid you add - boiling it reduces the liquid and it won't reach temperature until a certain amount of water is cooked off.  

[Sue Casey]

Minas -your citrus jellies look so cute and tasty.

 

Very interested in how you use puree in the  banana caramel.  I purchased Artisan Caramels by Sandy Arevalo.  Lots of interesting flavors but I was disappointed to see she uses banana flavoring instead of  real bananas in her recipe.  I like to use natural ingredients whenever I can.  Would you be willing to share your knowledge of how to use puree in making caramel - ratio puree, cream, sugar, etc and method? 

[minas6907]

Minas -your citrus jellies look so cute and tasty.

 

Very interested in how you use puree in the  banana caramel.  I purchased Artisan Caramels by Sandy Arevalo.  Lots of interesting flavors but I was disappointed to see she uses banana flavoring instead of  real bananas in her recipe.  I like to use natural ingredients whenever I can.  Would you be willing to share your knowledge of how to use puree in making caramel - ratio puree, cream, sugar, etc and method? 

Well my knowledge is all from Grewelings book haha, I'm no expert, I have always used Grewelings formulas for caramels. On the recipe for caramels using evaporated milk, he mentions a variation by adding raspberry puree, and I just subbed banana and it came out well! So I'm no expert haha, just following the book :-)

 

 

 

minas,

 

I'm even a fan of Brach's orange jelly wedges. I remember when you could scoop them from bulk bins in the grocery stores as a little kid.

 

I would probably swoon over your citrus creations. They are so pretty, and the peel/rind/flesh layers look so precise and more perfect than Mother Nature makes them. Are they as fiddly as they seem to an uneducated eye?

They really arent so difficult, although you do need a rather large frame to cast the jelly that makes up the rind, and you do need to have halfpipe molds. Other then that, they really are easy, agar is so simple to work with, much less finiky then pectin!

[Sue Casey]

Thanks minas.  I have the Grewelling book, but had forgotten about that recipe.  I'll give it a try.

[Rajala]

On 10/18/2014 at 2:01 PM, Kerry Beal said:

A thought on the Genin Caramels - where you add the fruit puree determines whether they will taste more caramel or more fruit.  Cooking the caramel first then adding the puree and recooking gives more caramel flavour.  

 

Linking to the final notes I have in my cookbook here 

 

Fruit Flavoured Caramels

• 300 grams glucose
• 375 grams sugar
• 75 grams water
• 50 grams butter
• 50 grams honey
• 500 grams cream
• 200 grams fruit puree 140 g passion fruit/60 g mango
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

1.Follow the usual directions, bring to 118 degrees C, then add fruit puree and bring back to 123 C. Test to see if firm enough in cold water.

2.Other option was 200 g cream, 150 grams each of mango and passion fruit, all added as for cream. Again bring to 123 C.

 

 

Not sure who would be the best fudge expert here on eG - perhaps Chocolot might be able to jump in with some ideas?

 

 

So, I understand it as this place = use old threads, do not create new ones. Here I'm bumping a 6 year old one.

 

Kerry or anyone else - I've been trying to make a fruit caramel that has a nice smooth texture and consistency that can be used to fill moulded chocolate shells, using only fruits and sugar, and that doesn't seem to work very well for me. Of all threads I found these seems to be the caramel one mentioning fruits a bit... What would the best approach be to create a raspberry caramel that taste more raspberry than caramel and that I can pipe?

 

Looking at the ratios here, it seems like I should go with 200 grams of cream, and 300 grams of raspberry puré and bring it up to maybe 115-116° or so? Do you think that would be a good start?

 

Sugars + water + honey + cream + fruits, and then add the butter when the mass reaches the temperature that I want to have?

[Jim D.]

The real issue I have found with fruit caramels is that the fruit can easily scorch when being cooked to the proper temperature. I have had more success with first reducing the fruit purée by itself (when it is easier to watch for burning), then cooking the caramel a little beyond the final stage for piping and adding the fruit after the caramel has been removed from the heat (that is, cooking the caramel to the hardball stage, then letting the purée bring it back to the ideal softball stage). This procedure gives a lot more fruit flavor because the fruit is cooked less. And aiming for caramel that can be piped gives more leeway with consistency.

[Rajala]

1 hour ago, Jim D. said:

The real issue I have found with fruit caramels is that the fruit can easily scorch when being cooked to the proper temperature. I have had more success with first reducing the fruit purée by itself (when it is easier to watch for burning), then cooking the caramel a little beyond the final stage for piping and adding the fruit after the caramel has been removed from the heat (that is, cooking the caramel to the hardball stage, then letting the purée bring it back to the ideal softball stage). This procedure gives a lot more fruit flavor because the fruit is cooked less. And aiming for caramel that can be piped gives more leeway with consistency.

 

Hmm, so looking at the recipe above. You would bring that up, and kind of deglaze with the fruit purée and the butter? Is that what you're saying?

[Jim D.]

20 minutes ago, Rajala said:

 

Hmm, so looking at the recipe above. You would bring that up, and kind of deglaze with the fruit purée and the butter? Is that what you're saying?

Yes, basically. I always test the caramel (per Greweling, as temp is unreliable) and wait until it is at the firmball stage. Then I blend in the butter.  I use an immersion blender to help prevent separating, since you are making an emulsion and are now "playing around" with the proportions--you have reduced the liquid, thus increasing the proportion of fat, and are now adding some more fat. Once the butter is in, I add the flavoring. If the butter causes some separation, I don't panic because the purée will help balance the amount of fat. I do recommend reducing the purée as much as you can in advance to get the most flavor using the least amount of it. In actuality I ordinarily use the Amoretti natural flavorings, which are reduced purées (I suspect they make them with vacuum so that burning is not an issue), but I didn't think you could probably get those easily where you are (maybe there is a European equivalent).

[Bentley]

I had the pleasure of tasting @Pastrypastmidnight caramels (sold under the Bliss Chocolatier label now).  They were outstanding and I believe she uses the maillard method where everything but the butter is added to the pot and cooked once to temp, then finished with butter.   Kriss Harvey does it the same way.  He has videos about it on his IG page, but not a recipe.  

 

Chef Nicolas Botomisy is doing a live Zoom class on Sept. 1 on caramels and included in the course are passionfruit-mango caramels and raspberry caramels.  I believe he uses the double cook method but I can't swear to it. 

https://www.nicolasbotomisy.com/product-page/online-live-class-caramel-1-st-of-september

[Rajala]

The first attempt I made yesterday, even though Jim told me different, was to just add it all execept the butter and I brought it up to around 115°. I taste the blueberry pretty well, but it's still too much cream taste in there. I want it to be a burst of fruit flavor rather than butter/cream. 115° was too high though, probably need to be at 112° or so. But with the blueberry purée I have left, I'm going to try a ganache with white chocolate and no cream added. Can be interesting. Buying more blueberries at the farmers market on Saturday though.

[Rajala]

I'm thinking, that I might be looking at this the wrong way. Maybe caramel is the wrong word. You know? I'm looking for a semi fluid product that's extremely fruity. I'm not interested in the caramel taste, but its texture.

[Jim D.]

9 minutes ago, Rajala said:

I'm thinking, that I might be looking at this the wrong way. Maybe caramel is the wrong word. You know? I'm looking for a semi fluid product that's extremely fruity. I'm not interested in the caramel taste, but its texture.

 

You could achieve that with a water ganache (that is, substituting the purée for the entire amount of the usual cream--as you plan to do with the blueberry). Wybauw does that with his black currant ganache. You can do it, but you will have a short shelf life. Wybauw adds a considerable amount of sorbitol, which helps with shelf life, and a large amount of alcohol, which may or may not help with that issue. I will be interested in your blueberry experiment since I did that a couple of weeks ago (following the black currant recipe). I tried it with both white and milk chocolate, and the white was not delicious, the milk was better. I couldn't help thinking that the blue color of the shell was actually what made it taste like blueberry.

 

In your caramel experiment, adding the blueberry at the beginning reduced its flavor to some degree. The water in the purée (as well as in the cream) has to be cooked off at some point.

[Pastrypastmidnight]

18 minutes ago, Rajala said:

I'm thinking, that I might be looking at this the wrong way. Maybe caramel is the wrong word. You know? I'm looking for a semi fluid product that's extremely fruity. I'm not interested in the caramel taste, but its texture.

You can up the amount of fruit purée and reduce the dairy (cream and butter). If you want a fruit-forward filling, yes, add everything but the butter at the beginning. Do not caramelize the sugar and deglaze. That would bring out the caramel flavor. 
 

The nice thing is that with a bonbon filling you have so much room to play around because it doesn’t have to hold its shape, not stick to the cellophane, etc. 

 

104C will give you a more liquid caramel, 107C will hold its shape better but still ooze. A more fibrous purée with hold it’s shape better than a liquid one, but I generally stay between those temperatures. 
 

Does any of that help?

[Rajala]

26 minutes ago, Jim D. said:

 

You could achieve that with a water ganache (that is, substituting the purée for the entire amount of the usual cream--as you plan to do with the blueberry). Wybauw does that with his black currant ganache. You can do it, but you will have a short shelf life. Wybauw adds a considerable amount of sorbitol, which helps with shelf life, and a large amount of alcohol, which may or may not help with that issue. I will be interested in your blueberry experiment since I did that a couple of weeks ago (following the black currant recipe). I tried it with both white and milk chocolate, and the white was not delicious, the milk was better. I couldn't help thinking that the blue color of the shell was actually what made it taste like blueberry.

 

In your caramel experiment, adding the blueberry at the beginning reduced its flavor to some degree. The water in the purée (as well as in the cream) has to be cooked off at some point.

 

24 minutes ago, Pastrypastmidnight said:

You can up the amount of fruit purée and reduce the dairy (cream and butter). If you want a fruit-forward filling, yes, add everything but the butter at the beginning. Do not caramelize the sugar and deglaze. That would bring out the caramel flavor. 
 

The nice thing is that with a bonbon filling you have so much room to play around because it doesn’t have to hold its shape, not stick to the cellophane, etc. 

 

104C will give you a more liquid caramel, 107C will hold its shape better but still ooze. A more fibrous purée with hold it’s shape better than a liquid one, but I generally stay between those temperatures. 
 

Does any of that help?

 

Thanks both of you! I'll check Wybauw and try that, and also try to go just to 107° as well with less cream.

 

At 115°, it feels like I have a part for a filling of a future blueberry and lemon bar, or something.

[teonzo]

On 8/13/2020 at 2:52 PM, Rajala said:

I'm thinking, that I might be looking at this the wrong way. Maybe caramel is the wrong word. You know? I'm looking for a semi fluid product that's extremely fruity. I'm not interested in the caramel taste, but its texture.

 

You can make a jam without reaching gelification point. Throw 1000 g of blueberries and 800 g of sugar in a pot, cook until 104°C, wait until it cools and then pipe it in the shells.
I'm talking wild blueberries here, they are very small, so you can keep them whole for texture. Do not reach gelification point, they have TONS of pectin, so you would end up with a brick.
You will not get 3 month shelf life with this, but this should not be a problem in your case.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[Rajala]

43 minutes ago, teonzo said:

 

You can make a jam without reaching gelification point. Throw 1000 g of blueberries and 800 g of sugar in a pot, cook until 104°C, wait until it cools and then pipe it in the shells.
I'm talking wild blueberries here, they are very small, so you can keep them whole for texture. Do not reach gelification point, they have TONS of pectin, so you would end up with a brick.
You will not get 3 month shelf life with this, but this should not be a problem in your case.

 

 

 

Teo

 

 

I'm getting a delivery of 2 kgs tomorrow, so I'll try that as well. It's the wild ones. The REAL blueberries. Those weird large American "blueberries" are trash compared to these. Sorry guys.

[Tri2Cook]

I think I already know the answer to this but that's not gonna stop me from asking anyway.  I make a caramel as part of a dessert by caramelizing 220 grams sugar and 80 grams glucose then adding 110 grams soft butter and 450 grams banana puree. Would this be way out of range for any sort of half decent shelf life in a bonbon? If yes, as I suspect, does it sound like something that could be adjusted to work or would I be better off looking in another direction entirely?

[Kerry Beal]

23 hours ago, Tri2Cook said:

I think I already know the answer to this but that's not gonna stop me from asking anyway.  I make a caramel as part of a dessert by caramelizing 220 grams sugar and 80 grams glucose then adding 110 grams soft butter and 450 grams banana puree. Would this be way out of range for any sort of half decent shelf life in a bonbon? If yes, as I suspect, does it sound like something that could be adjusted to work or would I be better off looking in another direction entirely?

Hmmm - I suspect high Aw - though caramel helps. Would likely have to be tested to know for sure. 

[Tri2Cook]

40 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

Hmmm - I suspect high Aw - though caramel helps. Would likely have to be tested to know for sure. 

That's what I was worried about... worried enough that combined with you suspecting the same, I'm just gonna leave that one in the dessert where I already use it. The older daughter really likes the dessert I use it in so I was gonna try to capture it in a bonbon but I'll explore other ways to get the same flavors in it.

[Kerry Beal]

33 minutes ago, Tri2Cook said:

That's what I was worried about... worried enough that combined with you suspecting the same, I'm just gonna leave that one in the dessert where I already use it. The older daughter really likes the dessert I use it in so I was gonna try to capture it in a bonbon but I'll explore other ways to get the same flavors in it.

These percentages gave a low Aw center - but its acidic so if you were to use these percentages for banana you might want to acidify in some way. Make a caramel of sugar and glucose. 

 

500 grams passion fruit puree 
500 grams sugar 
50 grams glucose 
360 grams milk chocolate (try white)
80 grams cocoa butter 
150 grams butter 
 

[Tri2Cook]

23 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

These percentages gave a low Aw center - but its acidic so if you were to use these percentages for banana you might want to acidify in some way. Make a caramel of sugar and glucose. 

 

500 grams passion fruit puree 
500 grams sugar 
50 grams glucose 
360 grams milk chocolate (try white)
80 grams cocoa butter 
150 grams butter 
 

That might work without a whole lot of adjustment. Just a little balancing of banana puree and the passion fruit puree so the banana flavor holds it's own. Chocolate, banana and passion fruit are the primary flavors of the dessert this would be based on. Minus some assorted textural items, the basic dessert is a banana chocolate flourless cake with banana caramel and passion fruit whipped cream. I made it for a catering job years ago and gave some of the extra to older daughter. That was a mistake, I've had to make it for her birthday every year since. 😆