A colourful assortment of Homemade Holiday Chocolate Bonbons are the perfect edible gift for the chocolate lovers on your list.
Happy Holiday!! There is nothing quite like homemade gifts made by loving hands, especially when they're made with chocolate. This colourful assortment of Homemade Holiday Chocolate Bonbons were some of my gifts to my closest peeps.
The last few weeks have been CRAZY, in and out of the kitchen. My office, where I perform my full-time gig unrelated to food, was in the middle of a move right at the end of November.
During that time, I received two job offers, one I turned down pretty much immediately because it was too lateral a move. The other, I saw through to the negotiation phase and passed when one of my non-negotiable terms was not met to my satisfaction.
This all occurred without me actively searching, so it was comforting to know that I still got it, in a time when I was feeling pretty low and dealing with a number of personal struggles.
Then it was office parties and get-togethers with friends and too many December birthdays and baking and shopping and... PHEW! Oh, and these pretties that almost did me in. They were a labour of love that went something like this:
- Weeks before: decided on flavours and designs and shopped for any missing ingredients.
- Night before: Added chocolate to melter and melted overnight and tempered in the morning. I only have one melter, so I used it for the dark chocolate, as I used a greater quantity (I melted and tempered the white chocolate as I needed it, on the stovetop). Added various cocoa butter colours to warmer to melt over night. Buffed molds. Breathe.
- Day 1: Tempered cocoa butter and decorated molds. Tempered chocolate and cast molds. I wrapped all the cast molds well in plastic wrap and stored them in my basement kitchen (not the refrigerator), where I have the temperature set cooler.
- Day 2: Made the fillings and filled cavities for those that needed to rest overnight. This took the longest, but my batches were fairly small and I'd done a few test runs months in advance, which included testing shelf life.
- Day 3: Tempered chocolate and sealed the filled molds from the previous day. Made the fillings for those that did not require overnight rest, filled and sealed. Package!
- Day 4: Went to spa for half day of pampering!
It was a lot for one person, but was made manageable with good planning and the Dude's foot rubs, shoulder massages, kitchen clean-ups and dinner preps.
I don't have a recipe for you today, but will be sharing the recipes for some of these bonbons with you in the New Year. Just wanted to pop in to say HEY and wish you all a wonderful holiday season!
Sue MacKay says
Your chocolates are beautiful!
I have a question. Do you know what is used to make pin stripes in moulds? I can’t find any information on what the tape is, or if it is tape at all.
Thanks!
Sue
jacquee | i sugar coat it! says
For pinstripes, I use chocolate - dark, milk, inspiration, or white that I colour myself - and pipe the lines. For thicker lines, I use low-tack craft tape, or make my own template using food-safe material.