The Coconut Bar, Again
You can now purchase my handmade candy bars and marshmallows at http://www.bonbonbar.com/
The thinner white chocolate bottom made all the difference. The passion fruit in the marshmallow and the coconut in the ganache balanced, and so did the dark and white chocolate.
What a relief.
October 18th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
mmmmmmmmmmmmmm it was so tasty! thanks for the tastings nina!!
October 18th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
Thanks, Jamie! Happy tasters are my favorite tasters.
October 19th, 2007 at 6:28 am
Yay…It’s so much cuter!!! Not that it wasn’t before, but now it’s adorable. Did you ditch the shredded coconut, or can I just not see it?
October 19th, 2007 at 7:03 am
Long time lurker, first time (I think) poster: just wanted to say how fascinated I am by your ability to develop such interesting (and presumably well-paired) chocolate bar flavours. I don’t know if you’ve posted this or not, but what inspires you? What culinary background do you draw on?
The latest effort looks divine!
October 19th, 2007 at 10:41 am
Aaron — Hehe Thanks
Yes, I ditched the shredded coconut. I just couldn’t think of a way for the texture to work in it, and the ganache seems to carry the coconut flavor well for the bar. There isn’t much crunch now, but the outside chocolate layer gives a nice snap…. and eating it kind of reminds me of drinking a (um, room-temp) frozen drink… which is pretty enjoyable. 
October 22nd, 2007 at 11:12 am
Hello Leah,
Thank you, and what a great question! When I began working on the candy bars, I had an idea of what individual flavors would be interesting to offer (and what isn’t currently being sold), and then for each one, I thought about what other flavors go well with that one… the circumstances under which I usually have that flavor… and what people were doing with those flavors in cookbooks and on the web. And then from that brainstorming, I narrowed it down to what would make the most sense for the taste and the texture, and thought about practical considerations like sources and ease of using the ingredient. Then I would test out what I thought sounded good. Then I would either refine that combination or change what I didn’t like about it into something that could be better.
And I think that keeping the blog has helped a lot, too, b/c I would look back at dishes that I had and what I learned at school from the chefs. I didn’t spend much time working or thinking about food as I was growing, so a lot of my perspective about it is more from recent experience and analyzing that… in as fun a way as possible.
October 25th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Can I ask how you get such immaculate cross sections? It’s just beautiful! And possibly more interesting.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Thank you
Now that I think about it, I’ve used the same knife to cut all of my bars — it’s a Global paring knife with a relatively thin blade that’s very sharp. It’s also somewhat wedge-shaped and rigid, unlike some other paring knives, so it cuts evenly and smoothly through the chocolate and filling. I try to cut slowly through the chocolate and then quickly through the fillings. It also has a very pointy tip, so when I’m being particular, I can remove a little of the debris (like what I left at the top of the marshmallow this time).
November 8th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Count me in for anything Coconut! Looks great Nina!