Jumping Hurdles

Here is what my dark chocolate usually looks like:

 And here is a box I made today:

And true, I will admit that part of this lovely box of truffles is partially made of couverture chocolate. Still, I'd say no more than a third of it is couverture. Besides, the top picture contains it too. I did this box without using a thermometer, so if I did this well without it, I think I'll be ready to take off my couverture training wheels soon.

In addition to getting better at tempering, I'm also getting better at making white chocolate ganache. At first, whenever I made it it would come out like pudding or would not mix. Now, I'm getting it right on the first try. I'm pretty comfortable with white chocolate at this point.

So you may be asking what's next on my hit list.  Well, I'd like to keep refining my tempering, for one. I want to be sure that second picture wasn't just a mistake, so I'll keep on working with dark chocolate. Also, currently, I do not make milk chocolate ganache; I'd like to change that very soon. One more is that I need to find out how to keep rice crisp crunchy when I put it in truffles. And of course, I have those new recipes to work on. So while I am very proud of the progress I'm making, one mustn't get complacent from one little success.

For now, here's a nice cross-section of some of the truffles I make: