Part One — Chocolate (Theobroma Cacao)
I believe I became addicted to chocolate around the time I was old enough to spread my own piece of toast at the breakfast table. The culprit was a little glass jar filled with a sweet, gluey and sticky substance called Nutella, which my dad would find in European delicatessens or bring back from his business trips to Europe, along with Haribo licorice wheels, French comic books and Diddl paraphernalia. By the time I was a teenager, Nutella had earned its place beside the multitude jars of peanut butter and jam that studded the jars of our supermarkets, but when I first tasted it, many of peers were yet unfamiliar with the European spread. They ate chocolate-flavoured cereals and drank chocolate milk, but when it came to toast, peanut butter was king of the pantry.
As a child, I was the proverbial picky eater, and, as a result, probably perpetually starving. Whenever I encountered a food that passed my strict ingestion criteria, I therefore gorged on it with ravenous abandon (or wanted to — social norms, parental gazes and a minuscule stomach often placed encroaching limits on my emerging gourmandise). Chocolate, especially the gooey substance that glistened on my breakfast toast, joined the privileged ranks, along with peanut butter and banana sandwiches, pancakes with cheese and maple syrup, tomatoes, aged cheddar and brined Manzanilla olives.
Years have passed, my tastes have changed considerably, but one thing hasn’t changed: the aroma of chocolate still makes my neurons go crazy.
Part Two — Bergamot (Citrus bergamia) and Tea (Camellia sinensis)
My obsession with tea came much later. I cannot pinpoint a single life-changing moment, but between the genmaicha and sencha sipped at sushi restaurants, the jasmine tea served at Chinese restaurants, and the London Fogs and flavoured black teas that warmed me up in Victoria’s coffee shops, I developed a taste and a curiosity for tea, that eventually fueled the study sessions that got me though university.
One of the most ubiquitous flavoured tea is Earl Grey, a blend of black teas characterized by the addition of bergamot aroma. Bergamot is an orange-sized citrus fruit grown in the Mediterranean. Less sour than a lemon, but more bitter than a grapefruit, its pulp is small and is rarely eaten, although it is used to make marmalade in places like Italy. It is instead the thick rind that is valued commercially, for the aroma it can lend to confectionary, perfumes, and, of course, tea.
Lithograph of Begamot (Citrus bergamia), from Robert Bentley and Henry Trimen’s book of medicinal plants (1880)
The practice of adding extraneous aromas to tea originated in China, with a process we now call scenting. Unlike today’s flavoured teas, in which dried plant materials, plant oils, or, increasingly, artificial flavour oils are added to a finished tea, scented teas are made at the source of tea manufacture, by adding plant materials, often flowers, to a partially finished tea. The finished tea therefore carries on the aromas
As tea consumption spread outside of China, the various localities where tea became appreciated developed their own flavoured teas, taking imported teas and adding their owns preferred aromas. Morocco served green tea mixed with mint leaves, India incorporated spices into its black teas, and the English favoured the aroma of oil of bergamot to rise from their porcelain teacups. For unknown reasons (although many apocryphal tales exist), this combination became known as Earl Grey tea.
Part Three – Ganache
Simple to make, ganache refers to a mixture of chocolate and cream. At a ratio of one to one, chocolate ganache is used as a glaze, sauce of filling for pastries, but when you increase the proportion of chocolate, you end with a thicker, moldable chocolate cream best known, in its round, cacao powder-covered form, as a truffle, for its resemblance to its eponymous fungus. Ganache originated in the Parisian confectioner Maison Siraudin in the mid-nineteenth century.
For this recipe, I wanted to create a ganache square that was both decadent and low in sugar. I tried the recipe with both 70% cocoa and 85% cocoa chocolate. For the latter version, which I prefer, I added a bit of butter in addition to the cream to offset the grainy texture that tends to result from making ganache with higher cocoa chocolate. Quality matters! Try to source high quality chocolate bars, Earl Grey tea and dairy products for this recipe.
Once you have your ingredients, the rest of the process is quite easy, and the result is simply decadent. The aromas of the tea and chocolate, and the rich texture of the cream, butter and cacao create a dark, sensuous treat. The perfect companion to a good book. And the new object of my breakfast table gourmandise.
Joëlle
Yields 9 squares
A dark, sensuous blend of cacao, butter and Earl Grey-infused cream to enjoy with a good book. Candlelight optional, but recommended.
Save Recipe
Ingredients
- 200g dark chocolate (70%-85%)
- 100ml heavy cream
- 0-2 tbsp butter (see notes)
- 2 earl grey tea bags
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
- Cacao powder, for dusting
Instructions
- Line a baking dish with parchment paper (I used a 6-cup capacity Corningware dish, about 15x15cm/6x6 inch)
- Finely chop your chocolate bars, to facilitate melting.
- Heat the cream, butter and tea bags in a small saucepan over medium heat. Watch it carefully. When small bubbles start to appear at the surface, remove the saucepan from the heat.
- Place a lid on the saucepan and let the tea steep for a few minutes more.
- Remove the tea bags, squeezing them to extract the infused cream.
- Add the chocolate shavings to the saucepan and mix with a spatula or whisk until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is completely smooth. Add vanilla extract, if using.
- Pour chocolate ganache into your baking dish. Gently shake or tap the dish against your countertop to help spread the ganache evenly across the pan.
- Leave the dish at room temperature overnight for the mixture to cool and the cacao crystals to crystallize. You can also cool it in the fridge for a few hours if you are in a hurry, but this might impact the texture of the ganache.
- When the ganache is firm and cool, remove it from the baking dish and transfer it to a cutting board.
- Using a large, sharp knife, remove the uneven edges (save them for snacking!), and cut the remaining square into nine smaller squares (see notes)
- Store at room temperature for up to two weeks, or in the fridge for up to six months. Serve at room temperature.
Calories
Fat
Carbs
Protein
Notes
- Water: Make sure all of your equipment is dry before starting the recipe. When molten chocolate comes into contact with even a droplet of water, the chocolate can seize, forming a stiff paste. Chocolate is extremely dry, formed of tiny sugar and cacao particles whose surfaces attracts moisture. A bit of water added to warm chocolate will form a kind of syrup by attracting these particles, separating them from the cocoa butter.
- Butter: The amount of butter in this recipe depends on the type of chocolate you use. With 70% cacao chocolate, you can use the cream, at a ratio of 2:1. As you increase the cacao content, I found that extra butter helped make the final product smoother to pour and easier to cut. Besides, butter is delicious!
- Cutting: To make cutting easier, warm the blade of your knife under hot water and quickly wipe it dry on a dishtowel before pressing it into the ganache. Repeat this process between each cut.
- Storing: According to Harold McGee, in his book On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, “thanks to the initial scalding of the cream and the chocolate’s sugar content, moisture-absorbing cocoa particles, and abundant microbe-unfriendly phenolic compounds, ganache has a surprisingly long shelf life of a week or more at room temperature.” If you prefer to store it in the fridge, or need to for a longer shelf life, you may do so, but make sure to allow your ganache squares to warm up to room temperature before you eat them, to enjoy their full aromatic potential!
References
Bentley, R., Trimen, H., & Blair, D. (1880). Medicinal Plants: Being descriptions with original figures of the principal plants employed in medicine. London: J. & A. Churchill.
Heiss, M. L., & Heiss, R. J. (2007). The story of tea: A cultural history and drinking guide. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press.
McGee, H. (2004). On food and cooking: The science and lore of the kitchen. New York: Scribner.
Guidance and Inspiration
Baker by Nature — Earl Grey Truffles
Just One Cookbook — Nama Chocolate
❤ Thank you Ashley and Nami!
