I love playing with my food, especially dessert, chocolate. Chocolate is the greatest blank canvas in which to embellish and you have the added benefit that it can melt both in your mouth and hands. I’m thinking of finger painting my lips and giving someone a kiss. Yes, chocolate, the amazing fun food, dessert.
The end of summer means fall is soon approaching and I start thinking about popcorn. Popcorn...... buttery, rich, sticky caramel, cheese, spiced..... popcorn. Ohhhhhh and popcorn can be as easy as putting an already weighed bag in the microwave, or putting kernels in an air popper, or the classic way of measuring out oil and allowing it to get hot before adding kernels. Either way you like to get it done is always the right way.
But, lets get back to Chocolate......which involves 7-8 days and roasting beans, measuring cocoa butter, thinking about which sugar to use and sometime which milk powder. Chocolate is more satisfyingly complicated. But worth the struggle and time.
Now I want to talk about white chocolate..... which doesn’t contain cacao beans and is mostly made from cocoa butter which is derived from the cacao bean so we comfortably call it white chocolate.
Well this particular white chocolate wanted to be more and came to me in dreams and had me being inspired by others who had recently worked with white chocolate. This white chocolate of mine wanted to be a conversation piece. I was obedient. Cocoa butter, whole milk powder, muscavado sugar, granulated sugar and mushroom kernel air popped popcorn began there polyamorous journey together.
For seven days, 24 hours a day they were harmoniously mixing to become one. At the end of the seventh day I enjoyed a creamy concoction of white chocolate that finished with notes of popcorn. I excitably tempered, poured into chocolate bar molds and sprinkled a pinch of salt on the back.
Fall reminds me of popcorn..... and chocolate, well it’s always ready for a good time.