Welcome to How To Cook That I am Ann Reardon Today we are making a chocolate book. Now
this is like a box of chocolates but much more fun.
Firstly for our cover take your milk chocolate and I like to melt it in the microwave so
30 seconds stir, 30 seconds stir and then once it's starting to melt 15 seconds stir
and repeat that until it's melted.
Then pour that onto some non-stick baking paper you could use foil here if you don't
have non-stick paper. And then spread it out to a rectangle in the size you want your book
to be if you imagine it being opened flat. Think about the width of the spine here as
well.
You must be using real chocolate for this so check your ingredients and check it has
cocoa butter in it. and we don't want to temper it we just want to melt it. We are relying
on it not setting firm at room temperature we want it to be soft.
Bang the tray on the bench to get rid of any air bubbles. Then just leave it to one side
at room temperature and because it is not tempered it will take ages to start to set
so we can start working on our pages.
To make our pages first of all draw a template the size that you want them
to be then place some non-stick baking paper over the top and pour on some melted white
compound or fake chocolate now this is chocolate that does not contain cocoa butter, so this
time I want you to read the ingredients and look for something that has vegetable fat
and not cocoa butter . This doesn't need tempering to make it set crisp.
Place a second sheet of baking paper over the the top and gently rub it with your fingers
to remove any of those air bubbles. Peel off the top sheet so you end up with
two thin pages and you're gong to need to jiggle them around a bit to smooth them out.
For two of these pages before they set I am going to add some strawberry powder. I found
these freeze dried strawberries in the supermarket and just crushed them up in their packet to
make a powder. Then sprinkle them over the top and then tip it around to make sure you've
got some all over it.
Once they are starting to set use the template that you made to cut them to the right size.
Then continue to make more pages in exactly the same way but keep the others plain. When
they are setting you may need to place another sheet of baking paper over the top and then
a book or something flat to keep them from curling up we want to keep them completely
flat. And then trim them all to size, I'm going to make 14 pages altogether.
Now for the fun part adding some fillings. Take one of the sheets an spread it with your
chosen filling, on this one I am using dulce de leche and the recipe for that is on the
channel Spread it out thinly leaving a plain border on three of the edges so that we don't
have heaps of it oozing out of our book. We just want to see the white chocolate on the
edge. Then place another sheet on top. Next I am using some white chocolate vanilla
ganache which is one of my favourite pages in this book. For ideas and recipes and fillings
that you can use the chocolate truffles recipe videos will help you the most. If you link
you through to the channel at the end of this video and you'll find them all there under
the chocolate playlist. Spread it out and get your second sheet and
put it on top so you get two pages stuck together like this.
Repeat that with your other fillings, this one is a spiced dark chocolate ganache.
You can use as many flavours as you like. Now back to our cover that should be about
ready by now. Take one of your pages and use it to mark how big you want the cover to be,
make it a bit bigger than the pages and remember to leave room for the spine in the middle.
Because this chocolate is not tempered it will still be very soft so cut it and then
scrape off the excess. Put all your pages into place I started with
a blank one so it can stick to the cover, then caramel, vanilla ganache, spiced dark
chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, strawberry, caramel and finishing with another plain one.
Now you can lift up your cover using the baking paper and wrap it around your pages just like
the cover of a book. Now I am not fusing the pages together at the spine because we want
people to be able to just take out individual pages. If you want it all fused together then
you could add some melted tempered chocolate or compound chocolate down the spine to keep
it altogether.
Slide the whole thing onto something flat and place it in the freezer for about 10 minutes
this is so it firms up enough so we can peel off the paper.
Take it out of the freezer and have your serving platter ready. Unwrap the book and place it
onto the platter. Now once the cover softens again you wont be able to move it so make
sure it is where you want it to be. While it is still firm use your knife to trim off
any rough bits from the edges of your chocolate cover.
Now wait for that chocolate to come to room temperature and soften up again, if you live
somewhere very cold you may need the heater on in the room for it to become soft enough
to do what we are going to do next.
Take a rubber stamp and push down gently into the cover to make an indent. You can of course
write whatever you like. I am writing How To Cook That on the front of mine.
Then on the spine of the book I am using the back of the stamp here You can use anything
that is rectangular and I am just making indents and then leaving a little space making another
indent. So it looks like the back of an old leather book.
Now roll out a tiny amount of fondant and cut it into a skinny rectangle, to make a
ribbon. Take a 'v' out of one end and then pick that up and add it in between a couple
of your pages.
Serve it as a dessert with hot drinks and strawberries.
[music: David Bulla High Life, used with permission]
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You're awesome, have a great week and I'll see you Friday.