Cake & Bake show London, Chocolate Orange Truffles, and Paul A. Young!

Hiya guys,

In the first weekend of October, the Cake & Bake show took place in London. After seeing the ads every year in various baking magazines, me and my boyfriend finally decided to go. It was fun, not entirely living up to my expectation, but still very useful and above all, tasty.

There were loads of stands with baking supplies, but also many stands of local bakeries, all bringing their best products. Some were disappointing, some were excellent, and in the end, I hadn't the opportunity to try everything I wanted. I missed out on a medium sized aragostini, which I saw but forgot to buy later.. such a shame.

We did see many beautiful cakes, breads, cupcakes, pies, meringues, etc etc, which was totally worth it. What we were most enthusiastic about was the so-called "classrooms" we'd booked, thinking we'd get some sort of 30 minute workshop. That was a bit too hopeful, as it turned out, because the classrooms were more like lectures. Nevertheless, they were very interesting and still very useful to us.

The classrooms we'd booked were a sugarcraft rose-making demonstration, something I've always loved to try, and a masterclass chocolate making by Paul A. Young! The master of chocolate, London's best chocolatier, gave a 30 minute demonstration of tempering chocolate and making ganaches, the basic choc stuff.

It was very interesting, and I have learned that ganaches don't need cream or anything dairy to be extremely luscious and delicious! Very good news for my Paul, who has a dairy allergy. Apparently, any off boil liquid can be used, as long as it's not too hot and you whisk vigorously. That I can do. Also, double cream or single cream is a pain to get in the Netherlands, and if you can find it at all, you'll have spend a small fortune which is much better spent at good quality chocolate. I'm all for water ganaches!

Of course we had to visit his stand at the show as well to buy his awesome books (which he signed, aw yeah). I couldn't resist buying this brownie. One of his sales people offered me a sample of brownie, and bam, I was sold. That is literally the best brownie ever. I kid you not. It brings a smile to your face, no matter how depressed you are because it's simply that gorgeous and chocolate-y. BEST. EVER. BROWNIE.

I think it's clear how strong I feel about Paul A Young's brownie, sorry about that. But really, worth every four of the pounds I spent on it (unlike a certain "singsongy fowl's" bakery slice of cake I've had >_> ).
Perfect. It's perfect.

Back home, however, it was time to try out Paul A Young's cookbooks, and at a friend's place we made Paul's chocolate orange truffles, which is basically chocolate/orange juice ganache, handrolled, and covered in tempered chocolate. It would be my first time making truffles and tempering chocolate. It worked out fantastic, though not without some hiccups.

We didn't have the allotted four hours to let the ganache chill, so we sped it up by stirring it a few times while in the fridge. The ganache set in two hours that way, which was fine by us.

We had, unfortunately, started melting the coating chocolate at the same time as making the ganache, which was a bit stupid as it turns out.

 In itself, melting chocolate for a long time isn't that bad; Paul A Young himself said that he likes to melt his chocolate for 12 hours at least, overnight preferably. So keeping chocolate melted for two hours is not horrible at all.

 The problem is maintaining the right temperature. Or rather, getting the melted chocolate to the melting point at the moment you want to temper is. By the time we were ready for the tempering process, our chocolate had cooled down again to somewhere between 30 and 40 degrees (we lacked a good thermometer).
In order to temper it, chocolate should be around 55 degrees, if I interpret the directions correctly.

In the end, it was difficult to keep the tempered chocolate/chocolate in the process of being tempered body temperature, but as you can see, my truffles are still glossy, so obviously we succeeded. More sheer luck than wisdom, but hey, that still works. And it was a first time, so it's only natural to muck about a bit.

They're not beauties in my opinion (some of them have rather big 'feet,' if you get what I mean), but their imperfections have a certain something to them that I like. Artisan. Something like that. Don't really care about that. They were tasty! Now that's the important stuff. Very tasty. The recipe definitely works. Buy his small How to Make Chocolates book for 5 pounds, and you'll have the recipe as well. 

 Enjoy your bakes! (with a cup of chocolate, aw yeah!)