The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, or so goes the old saying. And that should be even more true for the upcoming Valentine‘s Day. This time try out irresistible homemade chocolate pralines with a fruit filling.
Preparing pralines takes some skill, and also patience. Patience for two reasons: Just admit that the chocolate will be just about everywhere. And there is the constant layering of the chocholate shell which will take more than one round into and out of the freezer. But! When you take the pralines out of the silicon form, I believe you will be very proud of yourself.
Ingredients for 15 pralines:
120 g of baking chocolate (I use the one in the shape of a bar)
60 g of white chocolate (for the filling)
140 g of soft fruit (I use red current)
1 tbsp of crystallized sugar
Solidified vegetable fat (if needed to thin the chocolate)
Silicon forms with heart shapes.
- The first step is to prepare the dark chocolate in a water bath. Chocolate kept in the pot directly over the heat could burn. The consistency should be liquid, but not so thin that it becomes transparent and lacks the desired brown colour.
- Fill the form with the chocolate and work it so that the chocolate sticks to the walls. Remove the spare chocolate by pouring it out and also clean the top of the form with a spatula.
- Now comes the repetitive step of allowing it to solidify (a few minutes in the freezer or a bit longer in the fridge) and then repeating step number two. Do this as many times as you think are required to guarantee that, especially, the walls are thick enough. Ideally, the shell should uniformly have the same thickness after a sectional view (and this is difficult to achieve because the chocolate will have a tendency to flow down to the bottom of the form).
- After you finish the last round, prepare the filling. Put the current and sugar in a pot and boil a little bit. After that, pour the mixture through the strainer back into the pot and mash it through as much as possible. By heating the mixture, reduce the liquid to a slightly thicker consistency and add the white chocolate. Remove from the heat source and blend the mixture well. Now you are ready to fill the praline shells. Remember to leave a space for the brown chocolate to seal the pralines.
- After filling the pralines, place them in the freezer again so that the pieces don´t mix or melt.
- After the filling gets solid, place the last layer of dark chocolate over the top to seal the praline. Keep in the freezer for a few minutes. Then you can start taking out the pralines, ready to eat.
Photos: Martina Advaney
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