Delicious Christmas chocolates

Name: Delicious Christmas chocolates
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 120 min
Yield: 22
Cuisine: Switzerland
Ingredients: 300 g Couverture | tempered white; 75 g Almond filling; 30 g milk couverture chocolate, tempered; 10 g Hüppen flakes

Angel chocolates with almond gianduja

Aren’t these little angels absolutely adorable? In this blog post, we’ll show you exactly how to make them yourself at home. The angel’s body is filled with a delicious, crunchy almond gianduja. The little angel makes an excellent small gift for guests or for relatives. It also looks great as a decoration on a festively laid table. Be sure to give it a go and feel free to share your results with us!

Key figures

Quantity:21 pieces

Chilling time: 30 minutes

Difficulty:Medium

Shelflife:1 month

Ingredients

Chocolat de couverture \| White, tempered		300 g
Various cocoa butter colours		A small amount
Hollow shells \| White, mini		21 pcs.
Almond filling		75 g
Milk chocolate coating \| tempered		30 g
Hüppen flakes		10 g

Manufacture

Start by airbrushing the shape. You can find detailed instructions on how to do thishere.

Instead of using anairbrush, you can also paint themouldwith a brush. If you’d prefer to use a different chocolate mould, we recommend usingthis one.

Once you’re happy with the colour application on your chocolate mould, you can leave it to stand briefly at room temperature (5 to 10 minutes) to allow the colour to set slightly, and then you can fill the mould with tempered couverture. To do this, simply place temperedwhite couvertureinto a piping bag and fill the mould’s cavities to the brim with the chocolate.

Gently tap the edge of the polycarbonate mould with a chocolate hammer. This will release any air bubbles and give you a nice, smooth layer of chocolate.

Now turn the mould upside down and pour all the chocolate back into the bowl of yourtempering machine. Once again, tap the edge of the mould with the chocolate hammer. Make sure you don’t just tap one spot, but several different points. Tapping ensures that as much chocolate as possible flows back out, giving you an even and thin praline shell.

Run a widemetal spatula alongthe base of the praline mould. This is absolutely essential, as if the mould isn’t scraped clean, you may have trouble removing the pralines later. Once the mould has been cleaned, you need to place it in the fridge for about 10 minutes to allow the chocolate shell to set. In the meantime, you can get on with making the filling.

Put thealmond fillingintoaplastic bowl. As the filling is always quite firm, we recommend heating it in the microwave for a short while to make it a little softer and more pliable. Then add the temperedmilk chocolateand stir it in well until you have a smooth mixture. Finally, add theHüppen flakesand stir them in as well. These give the filling that special something. Transfer the filling to apiping bagandthen start filling the praline shells.

Note: The filling cannot be prepared in advance!

Take the praline mould out of the fridge and fill it with the prepared almond gianduja. When filling the mould, make sure you leave 1–2 mm of space at the edge of each praline shell so that they can still be sealed.

Now pour tempered white couverture over each individual praline. Then, using awide metal spatula, smooth the chocolate from one side of the mould to the other. This ensures the pralines are sealed evenly, whilst at the same time scraping off any excess chocolate and cleaning the mould.

If there are still large bits of chocolate left on the sides of the mould, you can quickly scrape these off too.

Now place the mould in the fridge for about 20 minutes and, whilst it’s chilling, get started on decorating the little angels.

Spread a thin, even layer of tempered white couverture ontoPVC foilorplastic baking sheets. Leave it to set for approx. 2–3 minutes at room temperature. Heat the wings ofthe metal cutterwithahot-air gunand cut out a total of 42 wings. Then leave the couverture to harden completely.

In the meantime, you can remove thesmall hollow ballsfromthe mould and trim away the chocolate seam with a small, smooth knife. Finally, run your finger over the trimmed seam once more. The warmth of your hand will make it disappear almost completely. Place up to 7 hollow balls at a time into a small container with a lid, along with some gold dust. Gently shake the balls until they are completely covered ingold dust. Repeat the process until all the balls are a lovely golden colour.

Once you’ve finished with the angel heads, the wings will have set completely and you can move on to them. Carefully peel the wings off the foil and then place them on a kitchen towel. Nowbrushthe surface of the wings with the samegold powder until they have a lovely shine.

Once you’ve finished making all the decorations, you can take your chocolates out of the fridge and turn them out of the mould. To do this, simply bend the mould slightly at the opposite corners and give it a sharp tap onto the work surface.

Fill acornetwith some tempered white couverture and run it once round the edge of the hollow sphere’s opening. Then stick the spheres onto the tip of the praline mould and leave the couverture to set.

Now apply the same technique to the wings. Place a small ‘strip’ of couverture in the centre of the chocolate shell, wait for about 30 seconds (depending on the room temperature) and, at the same time, stick both wings on. Hold the wings in place briefly (also for about 30 seconds) until the couverture has set completely and the wings stay in place by themselves.