Matcha Green Tea Truffles

My Cocoa Roar truffle kitchen closes up shop after Valentine’s Day until Thanksgiving each year. It makes sense to go on hiatus during the warmer months, not only for a whole slew of practical purposes but also in the interest of the chocolatier’s sanity. However, the response to this year’s Valentine’s truffles was so overwhelmingly positive that I decided to ride that momentum with a round of St. Patrick’s Day truffles.   How could I possibly deny my chocoholic customers, after all?

Many enthusiastically put in their two cents about which flavors I should do, and it was unanimously agreed that several flavors should be appropriately boozy. Guinness! Jameson! A green crème de menthe! Guinness again! Bailey’s! One friend said quite frankly, “I think you should just make whatever you want, and we’ll buy them!” 

Mini trial batches: Guinness bittersweet ganache and
swirly green tea&white chocolate ganache

I couldn’t resist doing the obvious flavors such as Bailey’s and Guinness for St Patrick’s, but I also wanted to do a token green truffle for the occasion. I figured that matcha green tea powder would fit the bill, naturally tinting the white chocolate a beautiful green without any artificial coloring. And it worked like a dream.

The 2009 CocoaRoar Report

Whew...

After a whirlwind December, I am now sitting in my quiet clean apartment, taking stock of the past month. The CocoaRoar factory has been dismantled, my cleaning angels have worked their magic, and I’m daydreaming about all the savory dishes I’m going to enjoy cooking in these next weeks. But before that happens, I wanted to thank you all for your great support and chocolate enthusiasm this month!

Last year I enjoyed typing up the CocoaRoar Report for you, and I felt compelled to do the same thing this year. Here are a few photos from these past weeks, and once again, I present to you The Twelve Days of Christmas a la CocoaRoar.

TWELVE Favorite Movies Playing In The Background. I had fun raiding my own personal movie collection and picking out a dozen fun films to keep me going as I truffled my way through the month: L.A. Story, Chicago, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Victor/Victoria, What’s Up Doc?, Quiz Show, Hannah and Her Sisters, Little Miss Sunshine, Cabaret, Waking Ned Devine, The Graduate, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, of course.

ELEVEN Meyer Lemons. I love taking advantage of these seasonal smooth-skinned beauties, finely grating their floral peel and squeezing their juices into a luxurious white chocolate ganache. This irresistible citrus-flecked truffle has beguiled even the most hardcore white-chocolate haters, and some have even gone so far as to proclaim it their favorite of the six flavors!

TEN-Times-Thirty Pieces of Golden Raffia Ribbon. I did everything I could to prepare the packaging materials, including lining all the boxes with leopard tissue paper and precutting 300 pieces of ribbon to the exact length required. This was definitely a time-saver once I was in the middle of the chocolate trenches.

On The Chocolate Homestretch

Greetings from the CocoaRoar factory!  I must apologize for neglecting my dear Kitchen Fiddler readers in these past two weeks, but I'm finding it difficult to do much as my hands are semi-permanently covered in chocolate these days.  That can actually be a lot of fun, but I don't recommend blogging or doing anything else near your computer if you happen to find yourself in a similar chocolatey state.

  

It makes sense that my hands would be perpetually chocolate-covered this month since i had to fill all of these red boxes with my homemade truffles before Christmas.  The boxes were stacked 4-deep on my shelf two weeks ago, about 300 boxes total.  But as that stack has diminished considerably, I'm racing towards the finish line of the CocoaRoar Christmas '09 season with only five dozen more orders to fill in the next two days.  I think I'm going to make it.

Louise and Her Chocolate Factory

It should surprise no one that my favorite childhood book was Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Right from my very first reading of it at age six, I was transported into a magical world, one where a chocolate river churned by waterfall ran through the heart of it while chocolate delights beyond my wildest dreams waited at every turn. I was always disappointed in the Halloween loot I collected each year, thinking that none of it ever held a candle to the scrumdiddliumptious chocolate I imagined that Mr. Wonka created for children and adults all over. I used to have dreams about winning a golden ticket to that chocolate factory, as well as dreams in which I was capable of creating chocolate wonders of my own that made people swoon.

Sometimes you just have to take matters into your own hands. In my 17 years of serious cocoa-based experimentation, I can say with confidence that I’ve made more than a few swoon-worthy chocolate creations by now. My apartment is certainly not big, and my kitchen lacks adequate storage and counter space. But I’ve managed to create my own little chocolate factory in here, regardless, and I’ve just begun my third Christmas season of CocoaRoar truffles.

You can create your own chocolate factory too. First of all, you’ll need some chocolate. Lots of it. I happen to have FIFTY-SIX pounds worth of Valrhona bittersweet chocolate in varying percentages of cocoa in my kitchen right now, as well as some Callebaut white chocolate too. (I hope that will be enough to get me through this month.)

Amaretto Truffles For A New Season

I’m very happy that the new concert season has finally swung into full tilt. After a quiet summer, it’s been a treat to reconnect and make music again with so many friends and colleagues whom I hadn’t seen since May. What cracks me up is how many times I’ve been asked the same three questions in rapid succession: “How was your summer? How’s CocoaRoar? When will you make more truffles?!” I guess I’m not the only person who often has chocolate on the brain!

Since chocolate is highly temperature-sensitive which makes it too difficult to work with in warm weather, I take an extended break from chocolate-making in the summers, but I think it’s time for me to spend some consistent time in the CocoaRoar kitchen again. (Okay, you all know I don’t have a separate kitchen for my little chocolate truffle side business, but a girl can dream, right?) Granted, I only make truffles around specific holidays—partly in order to avoid burn-out and also because I need time to be a violinist—but CocoaRoar has been on hiatus ever since February and I’ve missed it. 

The CocoaRoar Report

I’M BACK! Many of you know that I have been up to my eyeballs in chocolate since my last posting, as my apartment was transformed into a veritable chocolate factory this month. During the first three weeks of December, I somehow managed to hand-craft and package nearly 2,000 CocoaRoar truffles in between gigs, which left me very little time for any sort of writing. Obviously I love making chocolate, but I love writing just as much and I have genuinely missed having the time to do that. And I apologize profusely for neglecting all of my dear readers in these past weeks.

I had all the best intentions of posting frequent updates here on Kitchen Fiddler from my CocoaRoar chocolate factory during the past month. Honestly, I really did. I wanted to show you pictures of what was going on in my little kitchen, especially during those times when I made such a hilarious mess. There were times when it looked as though Jackson Pollock had gone to town in my kitchen, using my baking trays and counters for his canvases and pouring melted chocolate instead of paint! I had every intention of including a truffle recipe for those who weren’t able to partake of these truffles first hand, as I was so eager to share my chocolates with everyone in any way I could.

However, reality hit. No matter how many thousands of truffles I’ve made in my lifetime, I’m always surprised that the process takes longer than I think it will, especially since each truffle has to be scooped out and shaped by hand, then hand-dipped in melted chocolate. Every spare moment at home this month was spent creating truffles, boxing up truffles, or arranging to get those truffles to so many wonderful customers. (Thank goodness for Sylvia, Ming, and Cenovia who were my little elves, occasionally coming over to help me put chocolates in their crimson boxes, providing much laughter and moral support as well as much-welcomed practical help!) This was all happening in the midst of a crazy-but-happy December performance calendar, one which included multiple Christmas concerts and church services on top of my regular show/orchestral schedule. So between truffling, warming up for various concerts and trying to get a halfway decent amount of sleep, there simply was no time for me to write. And I missed it terribly!

It was a crazy month but truly in the most fun and celebratory way. I felt like I was hosting a month-long chocolate party. Friends continually came by to pick up their truffles, following the enticing scent of cocoa that emanated from my apartment and wafted down the hallway almost to the elevator. I felt like the Chocolate Fairy whever I'd show up to gigs loaded down with shopping bags filled with truffle boxes, ready to spread cocoa joy and chocolate happiness all around.

And now that the CocoaRoar factory has been dissembled and I’ve had a few days to catch my breath, I’m all yours again and am thrilled to be back on Kitchen Fiddler. My culinary imagination has been running on overdrive lately, and I'm envisioning all the many savory dishes I want to cook in these next weeks. I’m already imagining how I’m going to photograph and write about these favorite winter comfort foods to share with all of you, and I can assure you that there will be many yummy postings on this blog in January. (Wait till I tell you about the killer roast chicken I made for Christmas dinner, for you're going to love it! Stay tuned...)

But for now, here are a few photos from these past weeks, and I present to you The Twelve Days of Christmas a la CocoaRoar.

TWELVE Quarts Of Heavy Cream. Some of it was combined directly with the chocolate, while much of the cream was steeped with herbs or tea leaves or, in this case, with fresh mint sprigs.

ELEVEN Favorite Films Playing In The Background. I had many of my favorite movies playing to keep me company while I truffled and boxed, including Moonstruck, Amadeus, Dangerous Liaisons, Pulp Fiction, Annie Hall, Manhattan, The Graduate, Michael Clayton, Ocean’s Eleven, Out of Sight, and The Full Monty!

TEN Performances of “South Pacific”. I managed to put in a few appearances at the show from the time truffle-production commenced on December 3rd, and I was very happy to have friends in the South Pacific orchestra trying these chocolates for the first time!

NINE Batches of Caramel & Sea Salt Ganache. This was definitely the most popular flavor this round, as some of you ordered boxes filled solely with caramel truffles! (You know who you are…)

EIGHT 6.6-lb Bags of Valrhona Chocolate Discs. It is a beautiful thing to open one of these substantial bags and be greeted with the intoxicating aroma of fresh deepest darkest chocolate. But when you have eight of those in your kitchen??? All I can say to that is MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

SEVEN Hours of Sleep Nightly (almost!) Unlike last December when I first launched CocoaRoar and was massively sleep-deprived, I was thrilled to average more than six hours of sleep a night this month!

SIX Fabulous Flavors: extra bittersweet, caramel&sea salt, Grand Marnier, fresh mint, raspberry earl grey, and ginger. I loved them all, and I hope you all did too.

FIVE Golden Spools of Raffia Ribbon. The scarlet boxes tied with gold ribbon look so festive, but this color scheme is not limited just to Christmas and is in fact the CocoaRoar signature look.

FOUR-and-Forty Batches of Ganache. Life can’t be all that bad when you’re blending ridiculous quantities of bittersweet chocolate with obscene amounts of heavy cream to make one silky batch of ganache after another, then scooping countless truffles out of the ganache once it has set.

THREE Memorable Performances of Handel’s “Messiah” at Carnegie Hall. My hands still smelled like cocoa, no matter how frequently I washed my hands before the concerts! But my heart was filled with joy to play this incredible music in such a magnificent hall with treasured friends and colleagues. Between sharing chocolate and music-making with dear friends, to say nothing of playing music of such hope and a love so incomprehensibly great, life felt undeniably full and rich this month.

TWO Hundred+ Leopard-Tissue-Lined Boxes, all of which were eventually filled with either six or twelve truffles. I lined the boxes up on my bookcase just so that I would have a visible sense of accomplishment as the towers got smaller. The three-deep stack of boxes originally was so high that it covered my movie-still photo of Mrs. Robinson’s extended leg in “The Graduate”! I felt happier as the stack got lower and lower, eventually revealing postcard-sized movie posters of Paul Newman in "The Hustler" and Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's". And soon enough, all 200+ boxes were filled with chocolates and delivered to their happy recipients!

Instead of "a partridge in a pear tree" to finish off the Twelve Days of CocoaRoar Christmas, I would be remiss if I failed to include ONE HUGE THANK YOU to all of you who have responded to my truffles and other culinary endeavors this year! You have no idea how much I love sharing these morsels of chocolate decadence with you all, and sharing my other food-related adventures with you here on Kitchen Fiddler has been a true delight.

I wish you all a happy and healthy 2009 filled with friendship and love, great music and fabulous food, and joyful adventures of all kinds!

Your Chocolate Opinions Are Requested

It’s almost that time again. CocoaRoar time, that is. Do you have any idea how happy that makes me?!

I’m remembering the email I sent out a year ago today announcing the launch of CocoaRoar, my little homegrown chocolate truffle company, and you can not even imagine how excited I was about it. For years I had been on a mission to create the truffle of my dreams, one that combined the finest chocolate with exquisite flavors that enhanced the chocolate even moreso. This dream truffle had to have silky texture inside and a shatteringly thin coating of extra bittersweet chocolate which would not detract from the beautifully flavored ganache inside.

Many of you participated in my countless chocolate experiments over the years, in which I tested different truffle-making methods and endless varieties of flavors on enthusiastic friends and musical colleagues. I had years of refining my technique and focusing my flavor profiles, and I was encouraged by so many of you who kept urging me to make these bonbons available as gifts. After a chocolate epiphany or two of my own in 2007, I finally decided that I was ready. I announced myself to you all as CocoaRoar a year ago tonight, and I could not have imagined what an incredible ride I had in store for me!

Twelve months and approximately 6,000 truffles later, I am STILL excited about making truffles for all of you in these coming weeks. I am glad that I have limited myself to doing this seasonally, as I love playing the violin too much to ever go full-time into the chocolate business! By only doing this for isolated weeks around holidays, it allows me to thoroughly enjoy my truffle-making without becoming burned out. My absolute favorite childhood book was Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, so you can only imagine how CocoaRoar is my childhood fantasy come to life!

Last year’s learning curve was steep, but I am feeling much more calm about production this time around since I have a much better idea of what to expect. I have spent the last few days preparing to turn my 1-bedroom apartment into an honest-to-goodness chocolate factory. I have ordered more of my signature red boxes, as well as a hefty assortment of gorgeous Valrhona chocolate in bulk, and I’ve already begun cutting tissue paper to line the boxes in advance. Flat surface areas have been cleared off, providing plenty of space for trays of freshly-dipped truffles to rest while the chocolate sets. The kitchen will get a most thorough scrubbing in these next days, but the pots and pans which normally live on my stove have already been transferred into the oven, since I probably won’t even have time to turn on the oven once during the entire time of truffle production. (It’s not quite as bad as Carrie Bradshaw storing sweaters inside her oven, but nonetheless, that’s Manhattan kitchen life for you, using whatever storage space you can find!)

The one thing I have NOT done, however, is send out the official email announcing this season’s flavors. I really must do that over the weekend, but the truth of the matter is that I CAN’T DECIDE which flavors to make this time around!!!! With over 40 different truffles in my repertoire, I have so many favorites, and I really struggled last year to narrow it down to ten flavors for my inaugural truffle launch.

I’ve since realized that ten flavors are a lot for me to juggle at one time, but SIX is the perfect number. (A small box has six truffles and a large box has twelve.) I am definitely doing an Extra-Bittersweet truffle, as well as the Raspberry Earl Grey which is one of my long-time favorites. But as for the other four possible flavors??? I’m in a quandary. And this is where you come in.

Would you do me the favor of responding to this post and sharing your chocolate opinions with me? I invite all of you readers to write a comment in the appropriate section and vote for your Favorite FOUR Flavors from the following list of possibilities:

CARAMEL WITH SEA SALT: not a gooey caramel (which has never been my thing anyway), but instead this is a bittersweet ganache deepened with caramel and sea salt, dipped in extra bittersweet chocolate and sprinkled with Maldon sea salt flakes

PEANUT BUTTER WITH SEA SALT: bittersweet/milk chocolate ganache blended with peanut butter and a dash of fine sea salt, dipped in extra bittersweet chocolate and sprinkled with Maldon sea salt flakes

CHILE&CINNAMON: bittersweet ganache heightened with a spicy little kick of ancho chile, chipotle chile, and cinnamon

SAFFRON: deep milk chocolate ganache kissed by imported Spanish saffron threads and a touch of honey

FRESH MINT: bittersweet chocolate ganache infused with fresh spearmint leaves

GINGER: bittersweet ganache steeped with fresh ginger

JASMINE: bittersweet ganache beautifully perfumed with exotic jasmine flower tea

LAVENDER: bittersweet ganache infused with fresh lavender buds

GRAND MARNIER: white chocolate ganache enlivened with Grand Marnier and fresh orange zest, dipped in a thin coating of bittersweet chocolate

LEMON-BASIL: white chocolate ganache infused with fresh lemon and fragrant basil, dipped in bittersweet chocolate

I know, it’s painful to narrow it down to four! You see why I’m in such a dither?! I am grateful to hear your thoughts, and I will take all opinions into consideration! In the meantime, I leave you with promises of beautifully decadent chocolate truffles to come…

A somewhat hilarious photo of me with the MGM lion from 11/17/06 which eventually contributed to the name CocoaRoar on 11/17/07...

Truffle Masterclass: Bittersweet Caramel Sea Salt Truffles

Starbucks came out with a salted caramel hot chocolate this fall. I’ve heard some people puzzling over this combination, but it sounds delicious to me. I’ve ALMOST been tempted to go into one of the four Starbucks stores within ten blocks of my apartment (!) and try a cup for myself, even though I don’t like to patronize the ubiquitous ultra-corporate coffee chain. I also have a mental block with Starbucks because I never manage to phrase my order to their liking, and I hate being corrected when all I usually want is a double espresso. (I once encountered a snippy-but-hilarious barrista who corrected my request for a large cappuccino. “Uh, we don’t have ‘Large’ here,” he said, making quotation marks with his fingers in the air. “Our three sizes are ‘Huge’, ‘Ridiculous’, and ‘Oh my God!’”)

Since I’m not about to darken the door of a Starbucks anytime soon, yet the salted caramel hot chocolate sounds so appealing, I’ve come up with a much more interesting solution to the dilemma. It would be my extreme pleasure to introduce you to my Caramel Bittersweet Truffles With Sea Salt this evening.

In a word, they’re lovely. Oh so very lovely indeed. In fact, they’re much more than lovely. They’re downright divine. The bittersweet chocolate ganache is deepened with luscious caramel notes. As if that weren’t enough to make the chocolate sing, the sea salt adds another layer, keeping your taste buds interested and ensuring that you are not lulled into sweet complacency. This truffle is one decadent and delicious ménage a trois of flavors.

The Birth of CocoaRoar

It’s funny how an idea can take hold of you. Sometimes it is gentle, politely tapping you on the shoulder to get your attention. Some ideas knock you over with the force of a hurricane. And other times it is a simple moment of clarity, an inevitablility, and you know that you MUST follow through with it. I had a hilarious idea a year ago and decided to see it through. And because of that willingness to pursue it, I ended up making more than 5,000 chocolate truffles within the space of six months.

This adventure began when I was invited by Kristina to attend a chocolate tasting and lecture with her a year ago tonight. (I think she knew that out of all of our friends, I would be the most enthusiastic about such an event!) As I listened to the different chocolatiers talk about their journeys through a life in chocolate, and I kept thinking, “I can do this. I would like to do this too.” My imagination began to fly in all sorts of directions as the evening progressed.

By the time we had moved on to the actual chocolate tasting, a thousand-watt light bulb went on in my head and I knew what I had to do. In between bites of chocolate samples and sips of wine, I turned to Kristina and said, “You know what? I think I need to go into the chocolate business for the month of December. Is that crazy?”

"Oh, you absolutely have to do it! For a long time we've all been saying you should do this! We all LOVE your truffles!" she exclaimed, and we both burst into laughter. I could not have asked for a more wonderfully enthusiastic response, and we immediately clinked our champagne flutes to the beginning of a new adventure. I consider October 15th to be the night that CocoaRoar was born. (Kristina received the first unofficial batch of CocoaRoar peanut butter &sea salt truffles a few weeks later for her birthday, which were cropped out of this self-portrait but are shown below in an individual close-up.)