Thursday, October 23, 2014

Belgian pralines

For this first blog recipe, I've decided to share this beautiful, luxurious, delicious Belgian pralines - chocolate bonbons.   



It's not hard to make a chocolate layer of pralines, but requires a little more work and a lot of time and patience :) 

First, melt the chocolate and using a teaspoon pour it in the mold. Spread the chocolate with brush on the mold. Put in the fridge to tighten. Repeat 2-3 times, until you have a thick enough layer. When chocolate hardens, you can fill the pralines. Here you can let your imagination run wild ... Filling may be your favorite cream (nutella, chocolate cream ...), jam... or just experiment with your favorite flavours.
Here, I'll give the recipes for fillings that I've used. I have no accurate measures, I've just experimented :)



Raspberry filling



Put a handful of frozen raspberries into the blender or chop and grind. Return to freezer. Bring double cream near to boil and remove from heat. Add a spoon full of raspberry jam (I've used my homemade jam).


Stir and if necessary, return to the fire to melt the jam. When done, add the grounded raspberries from freezer. Cool down and pour into the molds with chocolate. Do not fill them to the top, leave some room for chocolate lid. Put everything back into fridge and when it hardens pour half of teaspoon of melted chocolate to cover the filling, Once again put in the fridge. When chocolate hardens, carefully remove pralines from mold. 


Raspberries are great with dark chocolate, so I've used it for chocolate layer. 



Caramel and walnut filling

You can find these heart mold at MakeMeACakeSupplies

Use white chocolate for this pralines.
For filling first heat approx, 10 tbsp of double cream. 
Heat the saucepan and add 3 tbsp of sugar. Stir gently till it's completely melted and light brown. Then add double cream (it will splutter, so be careful) - do not pour cold double cream it will splutter even more! 
Stir and cook till it thicken (up to 15 minutes). Add teaspoon of butter.
Leave it to cool a little then pour into the half of the mold. Put whole toasted hazelnut in the middle, then add caramel to fill the mold. Leave it in the fridge to cool, then pour white chocolate to cover the filling.

Marzipan and apricot filling



For chocolate layer of this amazing pralines I've used milk chocolate.
First, chop dried apricots and soak it in apricot liqueur or brandy for few hours or overnight (if you're in the hurry, cover the apricots with hot water and leave them for 5-10 minutes, then soak in the liqueur for another 5 -10 minutes).
Mix apricots with marzipan, and fill the praline molds (previously covered with milk chocolate).
Cool i n the fridge that add chocolate lid. 
When it hardens, gently remove from mold.



Chocolate filling



This one I made with dark chocolate layer, then added my chocolate cake filling. Recipe here!



Now, make a cup of coffee, relax and enjoy this wonderful pralines.




Thursday, July 24, 2014

Welcome

I recently started a blog about decorating cakes, and had an idea to share my decorating tutorials, my cakes an recipes. Than I realized that not all decorators like to bake and not all bakers like to decorate. So, I've decided to separate them. However, I'll try to make them connected with some same categories, like "Theme of the month", "My cakes" etc.
Hope you'll find them both interesting and useful!