Chocolate Almond Rochers

For the holidays, I decided to bake some sweet treats that I recently learned during a Black Market Bakery's candies workshop. Earlier this week, I posted about the best homemade sticky buns, a recipe that I also learned during a workshop there. Today, it is a much more simple recipe: Chocolate Almond Rochers. They are delicious and can be stored for a couple of weeks in a airtight container. So it is a very good option to mail as a gift. {... and it is what I did}

I decided to do 2 different batches: one with semi-sweet chocolate, and an another one with milk chocolate. It is very important to choose a very high quality chocolate, or the rochers will not taste that good. If I was in France, I would be using Puyricard chocolate. Being here in California, I chose the brand Guittard.

Tempering the chocolate is another important factor for the final look of the rocher {but not its taste}. Indeed, to achieve the desired high gloss and hard brittle texture, tempering the chocolate is required. Being curious in nature, I decided to make the test by preparing an additional 2 batches without tempering the chocolate ... the different was stunning. Tempering is not difficult, but requires precision {a.k.a. a good candy thermometer} and patience.



Chocolate Almond Rochers
(Recipe for 30 rochers - courtesy of Black Market Bakery)

350g silvered almond
350g dark, semi-sweet or milk high quality chocolate
35g egg white
65g powdered sugar

Preparing the rochers

Toss almonds, egg whites and powdered sugar in a bowl, and then spread onto a parchment lined sheet pans. Toast in the oven at 150°C or 300°F. Turn the mixture several times during baking to ensure an even color. Let cool. Toss almonds in a sieve to get rid of the finest particles. Use the largest pieces only.

Temper the chocolate and have it ready. Combine 1/2 of the chocolate with 1/2 of the toasted almonds, and toss together. Working quickly spoon out little mounds onto parchment paper, the size of a truffle. Repeat the procedure until all the mixture is used. Make sure that the mounds are not flat but high.


Tempering chocolate - Melt, cool and rewarm
Melt 2/3 of the chocolate you are working with. The other 1/3 will stay in a large block {the seed}. Melt the chocolate over a barely simmering pot of water. Use smaller chunks which melt more evenly. Stir often to distribute the heat. The melted chocolate needs to reach 48°C or 118° F to melt all the fat crystals. Take the chocolate off the heat.

Now, put in the large block of unmelted chocolate that is the "seed". Slowly cool the chocolate mass to 27°C or 80°F by stirring gently. The block of chocolate will melt somewhat, but once you get the temperature down to 27°C or 80°F, fish the remainder of the block out.

Now very gently, rewarm the chocolate to approx. 31°C or 88°F over a simmering water bath. If the chocolate gets above 32°C or 90°F, you must start the tempering process again. To check if your chocolate is "in temper", dip a knife into the chocolate and let it sit at room temperature for 5 minutes. The chocolate on the knife should be firm and glossy. If it is not temper properly, it will not set up, look gummy and may have "bloom {gray splotches of cocoa butter}.