Thread: powdered sugar
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Alex Rast
 
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Default powdered sugar

at Wed, 31 Dec 2003 18:30:33 GMT in
>, (Conny) wrote
:

>Alex Rast wrote:
>
>> 0.5 lb = 227 g.
>>
>> Typically, butter has 80% fat. Thus, 227 g butter + 227 g 35% cream =
>> 452 g total dairy, at 57.5 % fat. Roughly, this is equivalent to
>> clotted cream.
>> ...
>>
>> As written, the recipe is somewhat confusing. Is it supposed to create
>> buttery, cream centers with no chocolate in them, surrounded with a
>> hard chocolate "shell"? Or is it supposed to be creamy, chocolatey
>> centers coated with the same shell? The first would really be
>> chocolate-covered clotted cream frosting. The second is true chocolate
>> truffles, albeit with the shell.
>>
>> If you really do want a white, cream center, it might be worth seeking
>> out clotted cream which will help you avoid mixing butter and whipping
>> cream. Instead of using powdered sugar, I might suggest using the
>> candy-making method: dissolve some ordinary sugar in a bit of water,
>> bring to the soft- ball stage, then pour carefully into the cream. ...

>
>Hi Alex;
>
>This is not the first time we converse about truffles. I knew, when I
>saw your name, that it was familiar to me.
>Sure enough, I think it was December 1997, you advised about making
>chocolate truffles. I made them and they were delicious!!!!
>Now on to the cream truffles.
>They are a white , soft center, in a jacket of either white or regular
>chocolate.


OK, now I'm clear what you're talking about. IMHO the people who made this
recipe are rather stretching the term "truffles" - I'd give this confection
a different name. The original truffles are, of course, the mushrooms.
Chocolate truffles, in the classic recipe, are balls of firm ganache that
have been crudely rolled and then dusted with cocoa, so that they look a
lot like the mushroom. In this context, the term makes sense.

But the next step people seem to have taken was to call a ganache center
enrobed with a hard chocolate shell a "truffle" - already a stretch IMHO
since they don't look anything like mushrooms at this point, obscuring the
logic of the name. However, at least the center is essentially identical
with the classic chocolate truffle, so perhaps one can understand the
point.

Now, however, this recipe is calling "truffle" an object which does not
actually contain ganache, and doesn't look like the mushroom truffle
either. Where does it end? At some point the definition of "truffle" would
become so blurred that it would be almost impossible to pinpoint what the
terminology meant. Certainly it seems as though the way we're headed is
towards "any confection with a soft, creamy consistency that can be sold at
a suitably high price at a confectionery".

OK, end of tirade.

> Of course they melt in the mouth. I translated the recipe
>from the Dutch language, and yes I meant "couverture" instead of the
>(jam confiture) Sorry about that. In my haste to translate and find a
>solution, I boo-booed. I'm not sure if I can find "clotted cream" here,


Clotted cream is a very British thing - you can get it here in Seattle, and
I suspect in most major urban centers in the USA. In Canada it should be
even easier to find. In Britain it's ubiquitous, and you can find it in
Europe with a bit of searching. You're looking for a sweet cream product
that's solid and spreadable, sort of the consistency of cream cheese, with
a slightly yellow colour.

>but I think I have a recipe how to make it.


It's not easy to make. You need unhomogenized milk, an oven that can go at
a low setting, a wide pot, and lots of patience. Without experience it's
not very likely you'll get it right. It's easier to buy than make.

> other than the
>aforementioned recipe. I have all ingredients, (Belgian chocolate for
>the outer jacket) and I will as per your advise, melt the sugar in the
>water and cook it to a syrup. I wonder if I could instead of making the
>syrup, use white syrup from the bottle?


No, because it has far, far too much water. Candymaking technique creates a
very concentrated sugar solution - even the soft-ball stage is almost
entirely sugar. In addition, white syrup often has other ingredients and
typically includes a liquid sugar - either invert sugar or corn syrup, both
of which never solidify and so will never reach the soft-ball stage.

>And do away with looking for powdered sugar w/o corn starch.


Another option which would achieve very similar results is to make white
chocolate truffles - simply substitute white for bittersweet in the truffle
recipe I already described. Be sure to use El Rey white chocolate if you
can, far and away the best. Scald the cream only lightly - if the cream is
too hot when you add it to white chocolate, the truffles will be grainy.

Again, powdered sugar without cornstarch isn't impossible to find, but it
does require some persistence and in any case I think using soft-ball sugar
will yield even smoother, silkier results.

--
Alex Rast

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