Weekly BonBonBar Photo: Pre-Coated Malt Bar Shortbreads
The shortbread cookie inside the Malt Bar has to be pre-coated with tempered milk chocolate before the ganache can go on top of it. It’s mainly to prevent moisture migration btw the cookie and the ganache, so that the cookie can stay as crunchy and firm as long as possible. The layer is also like the thin crumb coat that cake decorators put on the cake first to prevent crumbs from mixing into the frosting. In this case, I don’t want cookie crumbs and buttery residue to fall into my chocolate while I’m dipping the final bar. For the same reason, I only temper the amount of chocolate that I need for the pre-coat because I don’t want crumbs and butter to mix into my main chocolate supply. This layer doesn’t have to be pretty, just thorough.
March 6th, 2008 at 6:22 am
No fair. Now I really want one.
March 6th, 2008 at 7:50 am
March 6th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Wow, I didn’t know the shortbread cookies have to be tempered before being topped with the ganache. When we worked with chocolate a few weeks ago, I thought tempering was an annoying process with all the temperature-checking, but the process does really make a big difference. The chocolate that wasn’t tempered properly had a bloom-like appearance, which definitely didn’t look very appetizing though it tasted just fine. Thanks for sharing some cool advice!
March 6th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Dreamsicle - Sure! yeah, tempered chocolate makes a really big difference in appearance, and a bit in texture, too. It’s also a better seal btw two layers of different moisture levels.
March 6th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Dreamsicle - Sure! yeah, tempered chocolate makes a really big difference in appearance, and a bit in texture, too. It’s also a better seal btw two layers of different moisture layers.