Gin flavoured alcohol syrup for chocolates - some questions

[martin0642]

Hi all, so I'm trying to work on some gin chocolates for a local restaurant I already supply with chocolates.

 

They have a huge range of speciality gins and we want to do a gin chocolate board. I tried a ganache but gins are way too delicately flavoured to get the botanicals to shine through a ganache and discern individual gin flavours. So I'm going to try doing gin flavoured liqueur chocolates. So my questions are:

 

I never see gin chocolates like this......which makes me think there's a reason for that! Any ideas? I can't see a reason it wouldn't work but I know very little about making alcohol syrups.

 

Secondly - if I wanted to add a hint of fruit flavour with fresh fruit puree; is that going to cause problems? (I'm pondering whether the fruit acids would affect the syrup negatively)

 

Finally - Grewelling and thers seem happy doing these (i'm going to use molded shells not starch molding...i'm a one man show working out of my own kitchen so a starch mold process is a non-starter). but I saw Eddy van Damme state that the sugar syrup will break down the chocolate, giving a short shelf life. I'm not convinced but any input there would be helpful!

 

Cheers

[Kerry Beal]

I suspect you don't see them because not a lot of people are making liquor chocolates these days. They are a bit of a PIA.

 

With the fruit purees you just need to account for the decrease in percentage of alcohol when you calculate out the amount of sugar. 

 

I do find that the shells tend to get leaky. 

[pastrygirl]

I actually just started experimenting with liquor-syrup filled truffles, so I don't have any experience but am interested in what you discover.  They do seem like a pain, but one in a collection of several bonbons might be fun, and I have booze to use up!

 

I, too was considering some acid in the mix, but wouldn't acid inhibit the sugar crystalization?  Would it be enough to cook the syrup a little thicker if you were going to add acid so it would still be prone to crystallization?  Or stir it too much ... ?

 

 

[FrogPrincesse]

About your ganache idea, maybe you could infuse the botanicals that are used to make the gin directly into your cream/ganache, rather than the gin itself, for a more concentrated flavor. I am not a chocolate expert by any means, so this is just a thought! But it sounds quite delicious to have juniper & citrus peel - infused ganache chocolates!

[lesliec]

6 hours ago, FrogPrincesse said:

About your ganache idea, maybe you could infuse the botanicals that are used to make the gin directly into your cream/ganache, rather than the gin itself, for a more concentrated flavor. I am not a chocolate expert by any means, so this is just a thought! But it sounds quite delicious to have juniper & citrus peel - infused ganache chocolates!

 

Exactly that.  Use juniper berries, coriander seeds and a bit of orange and/or lemon zest (to start with) to flavour cream and make your ganache from there.

 

I more or less proved the concept a while ago with ice cream flavoured with gin botanicals, which you've reminded me I need to try again.

[teonzo]

You can use the hollow balls by Valrhona:

http://www.valrhonaprofessionals.com/ready-to-fill.html

You can fill them with your preferred spirit using a syringue.

Closing them needs a bit of practice. Take a disposable plastic pastry bag, fill it with tempered chocolate in the low working temperature zone (about 28°C for dark chocolate, if not a bit lower, it must be pretty viscous), cut a small hole at the tip of the pastry bag, then start piping a spiral from the outside of the hole of the hollow ball. The chocolate you are piping must attach to the border of the hole, then you make a circle to follow all the border, when you reach the point where you started you continue to pipe following the previous circle you made, so on until you reach the center of the hole and close it. It takes a bit of practice at the beginning, you need to be quick because you need viscous chocolate and the thin hole in the bag tends to get obstructed if you wait some seconds and the chocolate in it starts to cristallize.

Of course you need to advise your customers to put the whole piece in their mouth and not cut it in half with their teeth, otherwise they get pretty messy and ruin their clothes.

 

Here in Italy various chocolatiers use this method to fill those hollow balls with grappa.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[ChocoMom]

This post made me giggle.  The shop is not completed just yet, and I've already had requests for the liquor cubes.  (Very popular amongst the folks at the retirement home!)   Below is the tutorial I went through to get the basics down, and I did manage a batch of the starch molded ones as in the video.  If you can get down the basics of the formula, temp, and baume, you should be fine.  After the mess and ridiculously long time it took for the starch molded ones to set, I started using the magnetic molds with different transfer sheets to reflect the differences in flavors.   So, you'd cast your mold with whatever type of chocolate- (I stuck with dark for most of them). Once set, I filled them 2/3 of the way with the liquor-syrup and let them set roughly 24 hours before finishing, so as to create a bit of crystallization on the syrup's surface.  If you don't go through that step, the melted chocolate used in finishing will displace the syrup and make a mess. Been there, done that.  As long as the crystallization was sufficient, I had very little problem with them leaking. (Any defects were promptly devoured by myself and friends.)   

While I do not recall using gin, I don't see why you couldn't. I've used raspberry vodka, caramel vodka, coconut rum...and a few others I don't presently recall.  I made large batches of the syrups, and filled those squeezie bottles from the food service store.  As long as the tops were closed, they'd keep for a few months without crystals.    Not sure if any of that helps, but do give it a try.  The bonus here is- that if you don't like how it turns out, you can eat the mistakes. 

 

[martin0642]

I love this place

 

Thank you so much for all the answers, very much appreciated! I did try the perfect serving idea but i's not what they're after really (tasted great though!) I'm basically planning to go with ChocoMom on this one and yes...I saw that video...urgh. I would love the time and resources to do something like that but in a very small kitchen with a lot of chocolates to make; it just isn't feasible sadly. One day..you know...when I'm a proper chocolatier with a decent sized production space..maybe a shop....*dream*

 

Now I just need to find out why people add oil to aerated chocolate........and attempt casting honeycomb in a chocoflex mould.... 

 

Because you know - why make life easy eh..

[keychris]

1 hour ago, martin0642 said:

Now I just need to find out why people add oil to aerated chocolate

 

I'd imagine it's just to make it flow out of the canister easier.

[martin0642]

1 hour ago, keychris said:

 

I'd imagine it's just to make it flow out of the canister easier.

 

Ah.... I hadn't thought of that possibility. Sounds vile though... Adding rapeseed oil to chocolate... No.