Choc Absorbers

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday April 4, 2006

Judy Adamson

The best Easter confectionery is handmade, even homemade.

Melt your own couverture and follow the experts' tips.

The smaller members of the household are jealous. I'm about to spend a couple of hours making chocolate Easter eggs, and they're aggrieved at missing such a sugar-loaded opportunity - until I promise to bring some home and am quickly waved on my way with a smile.

Like most Australians, my daughters have rapidly mastered the fine art of Easter chocolate consumption. Our country has led the world for years in the number of Easter eggs scoffed per capita - which is hardly surprising, given that supermarkets start stocking their shelves with them in January.

The Confectionery Manufacturers of Australasia expects $230 million to change hands this year as we celebrate Easter with about 20 chocolate eggs apiece. I'm all for keeping the sweet tooth happy and, when I walk into Adora Handmade Chocolates in Earlwood, it looks as if this won't be too difficult.

The room is heady with cocoa - and with coffee, which everyone is drinking to prepare themselves for two hours in a refrigerated room wrangling Easter egg moulds.

Tina Vamvoukakis runs the monthly classes, and the business, with her sister Katerina Stavropoulos. They've been making chocolates together for more than 10 years and began in the family home, next door to what is now a thriving little shop and cafe.

Classes are held in their parents' garage. It was converted to a kitchen and coolroom at the end of 2004 when the old shop was burnt out the week before Christmas. It proved so successful that classes are still held here.

The chocolate fountain is a big drawcard. Despite it being so cold that I've got my cardigan on within five minutes, I could happily sit for ages and watch the little vat of milk chocolate, its mixing wheel and mouth-watering chocofall (calling it a waterfall would simply be inadequate).

But there's no time to drool. We need to concentrate. There are seven of us in the class and the main point, says Vamvoukakis, is to teach us how to temper good quality chocolate and be confident to use it at home. We could, of course, buy compound chocolate from the supermarket - which is easy to melt and use straight away - but when we each dip a finger into the melted Callebaut couverture we all know what kind of chocolate we'd rather eat.

We will use pre-melted chocolate from the chocofall to save time, but she takes us through the basics so we'll know what to do at home (see Melting moments, right).

"Water is the enemy," Vamvoukakis says. One drop in the chocolate mixture will spoil the lot. It could still be used for a cake, but not for chocolate making. Thus warned, we start checking our benches and egg moulds for any signs of water. I find a few drops on the outside of my moulds and dry them with anxious care. There's no time to ponder the spoiling of our chocolate, however, as the couverture is cooling and has to be used fast or it will need to be warmed all over again.

Vamvoukakis quickly pours what seems like a huge amount of chocolate into the mould, which makes four half eggs. She fills these to the brim and bangs the mould smartly three or four times on the bench to bring any air bubbles to the surface. Almost all the chocolate is then poured back into the bowl - only the "shell" of the egg half is left - and the top and sides of the mould are scraped clean so there won't be any gaps created when both sides of the mould are put together.

The process is repeated with the second half of the mould but this time Vamvoukakis leaves a little pool of chocolate in the bottom before clipping the two halves together. She shakes the mould briskly, banging it a few times on the bench, and as she pops her eggs into the fridge to set she explains that the pool of chocolate is now the glue that will hold both halves of the egg together.

Now it's our turn and I'm a little apprehensive: Vamvoukakis moved quickly by necessity and I'm not sure I'm going to remember it all.

We start by piping white chocolate decorations in the bottom of our moulds, which eventually will blend seamlessly into our main egg. I pipe hearts into two of my four half-eggs and am just starting to create squiggles for the third when my piping bag - made cleverly by the sisters from a triangle of greaseproof paper - bursts because the hole I cut in it was too small.

By the time I've cleaned up and finished my egg decorations most of the class is way ahead. There is chocolate everywhere as people temper, pour chocolate into moulds, scrape, worry about water droplets and get their eggs ready for the fridge.

I pour masses of chocolate into my mould, bang it heartily on the bench and then start pouring the excess back into the bowl, scraping carefully. Some of the chocolate stays resolutely on the top of the mould and Stavropoulos shows me how to get it off more efficiently.

The second half is quickly done, then I clip the mould together and shake it frantically up, down and sideways. I'm thinking, as I shake, that I may not have filled the chocolate completely up to the brim the second time around ... but it's too late to do anything about that now. Popping the mould in the fridge, I draw breath for the first time in 10 minutes. "I don't think I've got a future in chocolate making," jokes one woman, and I'm with her. This is not easy, although some of the class - who've attended workshops before - show that practice certainly helps your confidence.

Vamvoukakis has taken her eggs from the fridge and, when she removes the top of the mould, she points out that the finish on her eggs isn't completely shiny. Not washing the moulds between each batch of eggs leaves a nice film of fat behind and provides a more even gloss, she says - we can wash them after the season's chocolate making is done.

Most of the class has followed her lead and taken the moulds out of the fridge. Are they still too wet? Are they dry enough to risk it? I check mine: three are quite dry and coming away slightly from the mould. The fourth is definitely wet, so back in the fridge it goes.

The first of my classmates removes the top of her mould and all her eggs stay together. There's a burst of applause and she's flushed with pleasure. Another opens her mould and all the eggs split in half; the next has one whole and three split.

Anxiety is high, but Vamvoukakis tells us not to panic: half-egg seams can be placed for a moment on a slightly warm surface to melt a little before being rejoined, or the seams can be piped together with white chocolate. The latter is also handy when there's an unintentional gap in an egg seam - the white chocolate covers everything over and looks as though it was meant to be there.

"At the end of the day this should be fun," she says. "There's always something that can be fixed."

I check my eggs again. Only one wet spot left, so the mould stays a bit longer in the fridge - but Vamvoukakis reckons three of my eggs will split. Stavropoulos, however, is confident all will be well.

Crunch time. I bang the mould on the bench, gingerly remove the top and ... all my eggs stay together. Two don't have a complete seam but, miraculously, they haven't collapsed. One egg has a crack - I probably banged the mould too hard - but I'm so grateful they're whole I don't care.

The rest of the class is now busily piping on final decorations: names, stars, flowers, chickens and spots. There isn't really the space for this on mine, so Vamvoukakis gives me a couple of milk chocolate spares for practice. I write "Happy Easter" on one and although it's a bit scrawly, it doesn't look half bad. Then I try a flower ... an oozing disaster that is quickly morphed into a series of abstract swirls.

Best concentrate on my other eggs. Placed gently into paper-filled boxes, they look surprisingly flash, and I expect I look as pleased as the other members of the class at our results. Someone asks Vamvoukakis how many eggs this size (10cm high) Adora will make for Easter. "Close to 6000" is her cheerful estimate.

I'm thankful this isn't my job. Four eggs is plenty for me. And I'm definitely going to be popular when I get home.

Melting moments

The essentials for using couverture at home, Tina Vamvoukakis says, are ice cubes, bowls and a microwave or a double boiler. The power level on the microwave should be about 60 per cent for white chocolate (which burns easily), 80 per cent for dark chocolate and between the two for milk. She stirs the milk chocolate beads every minute or so and after little more than five minutes they have melted to perfection.

Heat requirements when tempering are very specific - up to about 38C, says Vamvoukakis, then down to about 28 degrees, then up a few more degrees again - but such precision is unsustainable for the home cook. She prefers the "sight and finger testing" method. The bowl of melted chocolate is placed in iced water, cooled until a crust forms on the outer edges, then mixed well.

Defining

Couverture is professional-quality coating chocolate. It is extremely glossy and usually contains at least 32 per cent cocoa butter, enabling it to form a much thinner shell than ordinary chocolate.

Working

Tempering is a technique by which chocolate is stabilised through a melting-and-cooling process, making it more malleable and glossy.

Doing

Adora Handmade Chocolates runs monthly chocolate-making classes

plus several classes during Good Food Month, October. Phone 9559 5948.

Sobering

Cadbury's creme egg is the world's best-selling Easter egg.

Sources: Confectionery Manufacturers of Australasia, epicurious.com.

© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home