The best of what Ireland has to offer in a bonbon

Ireland is home to some great products, Irish whiskey is an obvious one, perhaps lesser known is the honey. In this bonbon, I’m combining three of Ireland’s foodie treasures! I chose “Yellow spot whiskey” from Mitchell & Son, which spicy, peachy and honey aromas. For the honey, I’m using Michael Dickson’s raw honey from his hives on Ballagh Honey Farm in Co. Tipperary Which I genuinely find one of the best honey I’ve tried, on a par with the Yemeni ones I tasted while living in Saudi Arabie.  (Yes, Yemeni honey is also excellent.) Finally, of course, we all know about the Irish dairy from grass-fed cows, I prefer Glenilen farm butter for my ganaches, but in general, you can’t go wrong with Irish butter.

Ganache

Cream 35% 118g

Glucose     50g

Ballaghhoney farm honey   56g

Papouasi 186g

Fleur de Cao   68g

Irish Butter   50g

Yellow spot whiskey   74g

Method:

  1. Heat cream with the sugars to 40 degrees C.
  2. Melt the chocolates to 35 degrees C. and emulsify with the cream.
  3. Add butter and finally the whiskey and emulsify again.

To help the crystallisation, if at all possible add 1% tempered cocoa butter. (I use an EZ-temper for this) I temper all my ganaches nowadays using this method as it shortens the time of crystallisation, meaning it improves efficiency. A shortened crystallisation time also means the risk of contamination is reduced, which results in a longer shelf life.

Assembly of the bonbon:

  1. Spray half of the mould in an angle with black cocoa butter.
  2. Spray the other half with brown cocoa butter. (see: Super shiny chocolates for a detailed how-to)
  3. Line the sprayed moulds with tempered Cacao Barry “Fleur de Cao 70%.”
  4. Using a paper piping bag, pipe a small drop of Ballaghhoney farm honey.
  5. Fill the cavities with the ganache leaving 1 – 1.5mm room to the edge.
  6. Leave to crystallise and close using tempered Fleur de Cao.

For the formulation of this ganache I used ganachesolution.com from Alexandre Bourdeaux, a software I recently started using and makes following the guidelines of my previous post “Introduction to the use of technological sugars in ganaches.” a lot easier and faster compared to making the calculations manually or even using a spreadsheet, I highly recommend it for professional chocolatiers. I hope you enjoy the recipe! If you have any comments or feedback, don’t hesitate to get in touch! If you like this recipe, please hit the subscribe button!  

 

 

 

 

© Arcane Chocolates – Luxury Irish Chocolates