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Hi, welcome to In the kitchen with Chris.
Today we're going to be making some milk chocolate
pecan caramel Turtles.
Oh, I always make these for my family.
Thanksgiving time these are the best thing because these
are so fast and easy.
What you want to do is use a microwave
because it's the fastest way to do this.
You can do this on a double boiler if you wish,
but it takes a little more time.
You're going to take your caramel
and you're going to put it in a microwave proof bowl-- glass,
doesn't really matter-- anything at all
that you can put in the microwave.
What I have here is a big five pound log of caramel
that in the industry is how we buy it.
But if you have to go to the store then just
get yourself a bag of little caramels, unwrap them all,
and just put them in the bowl.
That's all you have to do.
If you want to add a little bit of cream, you can.
But don't add too much or also at the very end
your Turtle will be too soft and you
want to have a nice little resistance to it
when you eat it.
So you take the caramel and put it in the microwave.
This should probably take about a minute to melt.
And you want to fully melt it.
While this is melting what I have done is taken some pecans
and I've put them right on a piece of wax paper on a pan.
And I've made them a very thin layer.
If the layer of pecans is too thick, what you'll find
is all you'll taste is pecans.
If the pecans is too thin, all you're going to taste
is caramel.
So you want to have just the right balance
of caramel and pecans.
What I recommend on your caramel is
that you maybe try and stir it once or twice
and you want to check the consistency.
It is possible that you could burn your caramel.
So you don't want to just leave it
in there for five minutes, 10 minutes, that
would be a problem.
So we're going to check our caramel here and see
how it's doing.
As you can see our caramel is now melted
and it's ready to go.
So we take our scoop and we take it and put it right
on top of the pecans.
What's going to happen is because the caramel
is semi-liquid it's going to settle down
into a nice flat candy.
It's not going to stay tall like you see.
It's going to keep settling, and settling, and settling.
And so it'll look like a traditional Turtle.
So we take this and make as many as you want.
And again you're only limited by how much time you have
because as you can see this is a very, very fast candy.
All right I think that's enough.
And then we take this and we place it in the refrigerator
until the Turtles are hard because we're
going to be dipping these milk chocolate.
So what I'm going to do next is I'm
going to show you how to melt milk chocolate in the microwave
so that it stays in temper is what
we call it in the industry.
OK, I've taken a pan of pre-prepared Turtles
and so as you saw me all I did was take the caramel,
drop it on the pecan.
And now we have to melt chocolate in the microwave.
Take your milk chocolate, put it in the bowl.
Here's the important part about melting chocolate
in a microwave.
You need to only do this for approximately 10 to 15 seconds
at a time.
Milk chocolate is especially easy to burn,
so you must only do it for 10 to 15 seconds at a time.
While that is going I'm going to take our hardened caramel
and take them right off the pecans.
And as you can see the caramel has
stuck to a amount of pecans on the bottom
and then we're going to dip these in milk chocolate.
Now what you can do also, if you're really adventurous,
is you can buy the half size pecans
and you can actually make a little Turtle.
So you've got one as the head, and then the two little feet,
and then two feet here, and little tail.
And then you can-- they actually look like Turtles
and that's where they got their start from in case
you didn't know it.
So we'll check our chocolate in the microwave.
And again you can shake it like this.
And as you can see you can still see
the chunks moving around a little bit
so it's not ready yet.
So we can put in for about another 10, 15 seconds.
And then we're going to check it again.
The most important part about melting chocolate
in the microwave is that you only melt it halfway.
Do not melt it all the way.
We need this milk chocolate to stay what we call in temper.
If you only melt it halfway and you
keep stirring until it melts the rest,
your chocolate will have a very nice snap and shiny sheen
when you go to work with it.
All right, here we go-- now as you
can see the chocolate has got a real nice stirring quality.
See how it's starting to melt?
All the chips are going to melt all the way in.
So you stand here and stir it.
And this should probably take 30 seconds to a minute.
OK, and you can see how the chips are melting in slowly--
that's exactly what you want.
It's perfect just like this, exactly what you want.
OK, this will be ready in just a few seconds.
Stir it in.
And also another nice thing about working with chocolate
that most people don't know is that if you actually
melt like five pounds at a time it's
easier to work with because it's going
to hold the temperature longer.
If you have just a small 12 ounce bag like this,
you actually have to work pretty quick.
So you've got an excuse to go out and buy
five pounds of chocolate.
Take one of your Turtles and drop it on.
Just take a regular old fork and you just move the chocolate
right on the top.
And here's what I like to do.
Pick it up on the edge of the bowl.
Knock it for a few times-- you see the chocolate dripping off
because you don't want it really thick.
Wipe it off on the edge of the bowl,
and then set it down right on your wax paper.
Now what you can do also, if you'd like,
is while the chocolate is hardening
you could take your fork and if you want
to make a little pattern you could make a little pattern
like that on the top.
And then people will say, hey how did you do that?
That's very impressive.
So now what you do is you take these
and you put them in the refrigerator,
and when they cool they are ready to eat.
Well, that's all you have to do to make caramel Turtles.
I'm going to go ahead and finish all these now.
So thanks for coming in.
See you next time. [MUSIC PLAYING]
If you'd like the recipe for this or other delightful dishes
from Chef Chris, visit the Hospitality Administration
website at www.cod.edu/hosp italityadministration and start
cooking.