Chocolate Week!

Chef Florent tempering a large batch of chocolate for the class.

This entire week in pastry all we did was work with chocolate and it was possibly the best week so far.  We learned how to temper chocolate properly depending on what kind of chocolate it is, without using a thermometer.  That pretty much meant that we were constantly eating the melted chocolate, because you have to test the temperature with your lips, and most of us had chocolate on our faces for pretty much the whole time.

The coconut and the liquorice chocolates

I was partners with Courtney, one of my roommates, this week so that worked out perfectly, because all of the treats we made ended up at our apartment.  The first chocolate we made was a dark chocolate that we tempered ourselves, then we mixed it with pistachios, roasted pine nuts, feuilltine, and dried apricots.  We brought that home on Tuesday afternoon, and since we had a party at our apartment that night, by Wednesday there was only about 1/10th of it left. I don't have pictures of it because it people ate it so quickly.  To be honest though, it wasn't very pretty, so not having a photo isn't a big deal.  It was so nummy though.
We also made two other kinds of chocolate.  One had a filling of caramelized coconut and milk chocolate, and the other had a filling of almond paste and liquorice.

Our final product!

For the finale, we wrapped up our week by making a chocolate sculpture that Chef Florent designed for us.  I'm not even gonna lie, I am so proud of the one Courtney and I made.  For our first time ever making a chocolate sculpture we kicked a lot of ass at it.

So proud of this sculpture, not gonna lie.