This year we made the best box of chocolates so far, and created a new flavour. As usual I worked with Callebaut, opted for a less sweet white, but kept the same cocoa solid percentages for the others:

• milk chocolate 823NV, 33.6% cocoa solids, 21.8 milk solids
• dark (semi-sweet) 811NV, 54.5% cocoa solids
• dark 70-30-38NV, 70.5% cocoa solids
• white CW2NV, 25.9% cocoa solids, 23.7% milk solids

Ran into  a lot of trouble with fat bloom, starting with the Toblerone.

I paid it no mind and got to work.

Later I had switched to the Callebaut and got bloom 3 times in a row.

WTF.

I know how to temper.  What is going on here?  I think it was the heat in my home, we ended up opening all the windows, and after that the problem went away, so I just remelted all the chocolate without fillings or centres.

Ah! Ever so much better! I just love those little ornament shapes.

Tried a new flavour this year, white chocolate vanilla bean with matcha ganache.  It was good. I have embraced using a squeeze bottle to pipe my fillings now and does it ever work better than a piping bag.

I was quite happy with the peppermints this year. I switched the centre to a milk chocolate peppermint ganache, and it came out very delicious and creamy. Much better than previous years.

After a few nights of tempering and filling like mad, the boxes were all made up and ready for shipping to my family.

I always have such fun making these.  Even though sometimes I want to throw all my chocolatiering supplies off the balcony…

So now that I’m back to making chocolate again, and looking after my blog again, what I have planned for the winter of 2016 is mostly flavour experiments and review of new products I’ve tried and courses I’ve taken.

Where to get supplies:

• Callebaut Belgian chocolate ordered from Golda’s Kitchen in Mississauga
• LorAnn oils ordered from Golda’s Kitchen
• Fat Daddio’s silicone moulds ordered from Golda’s Kitchen
• boxes (1/2 lb square Bordeaux stripes) ordered from Chocolat-Chocolat Inc  in Montreal QC
• Chocovision Rev 2 tempering machine, available from Amazon.com and Amazon.ca