Yahoo! It’s May!
I love May in Northern Michigan because it’s the month of promise and renewal. Soon we’ll revel in long sunny days and nothing pairs better with Michigan summers than the bounty of foods from local farmers and makers.
Here at Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate, our own renewal unfolds each May as we open the shop for a new season.
Our latest harvest of direct trade chocolate – from farmers in the Fortaleza Del Valle cooperative in Manabi, Ecuador – has arrived and is ready to be transformed into a shop full of craft confections for you. It’s a great joy and privilege to work with such incredible chocolate and, to top it off, we have a pantry full of fantastic local ingredients to round out our recipes. If we can source an ingredient locally, we always do. If we can’t source locally, we source organic and/or we choose family farms who care about quality as much as we do.
Did you know that our top selling item – Smoked Sea Salt Honey Caramels – contains as much local raw honey as it does chocolate? The recipe is 1:1 chocolate and Sleeping Bear Farms Raw Honey plus 1/3 Shetler’s Heavy Cream. What’s not to love about that?
Here’s a few other recipes featuring some of our favorite local partners. Enjoy! And we hope to see you in the shop sometime soon.
We would like to say THANK YOU to our many local farmer partners, makers and distribution partners (and to Mother Nature) for making it possible to work with such incredible ingredients.
Here’s a quick list of our local partners: 2Lads Winery, Bonobo Winery, Chateau Chantal Winery, Cherry Capital Foods, Food For Thought, Graceland Fruit, Great Lakes Tea & Spice, Harwood Gold, Higher Grounds Trading Co, Light of Day Organics, L Mawby, Naturally Nutty, North Star Organics, Oryana, Shetler Family Dairy, Short’s Brewing, Sleeping Bear Farms, Stillpoint Farms, Stormcloud Brewing, Traverse City Whiskey Co.
LIGHT OF DAY ORGANICS HUMMINGBIRD TRUFFLES
Sleeping Bear Farms Raw Star Thistle Honey | 17 g | ||
Shelter’s Heavy cream | 157 g | ||
Dark chocolate discs | 284g | ||
Light of Day Hummingbird Tea | 2 Tbs | ||
Cocoa powder (enough for dusting) |
Combine the heavy cream and tea into the saucepan. Bring to a boil. Steep 3 min. then strain the cream to remove the tea.
Combine the heavy cream and honey in a saucepan. Bring to a boil.
Pour the hot cream mixture over the chopped chocolate and allow to stand for 60 seconds, to allow chocolate to melt.
Stir the mixture in small vigorous circles in the center of the bowl until it emulsifies.
Stir outward in larger circles to spread the emulsion throughout the bowl, checking to see that all the chocolate has melted. (If necessary warm the chocolate over a warm bath but do not exceed 34˚C / 93˚F).
Allow to rest at room temperature, until it reaches 25˚C / 77˚F or slightly lower (approx. 20 minutes). The cooled ganache should be of a thick but fluid consistency.
Place ganache into a plastic piping bag, snip corner and pipe ganache into preferred size of truffles.
Allow ganache to continue to harden if it’s not yet set enough to roll.
Hand roll. Gently cover in a dusting of cocoa powder.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT LAVENDER BLUEBERRY GANACHE
(DAIRY FREE)
Organic lemon extract | ½ tsp | ||
Blueberry Lavender preserves (Food for Thought) | 1 Jar | ||
Dark chocolate discs | 340 g | ||
Cocoa Powder (enough for dusting) |
Melt dark chocolate over double boiler or in microwave on 50% at short intervals (do not exceed 34˚C / 93˚F).
Blend preserves in food processor until smooth.
Add melted chocolate to mixture in food processor and blend until emulsion is complete.
Allow to rest at room temperature, until it reaches 25˚C / 77˚F or slightly lower (approx. 30 minutes). The cooled ganache should be a thick consistency.
Place ganache into a plastic piping bag or ziploc bag.
Once ganache is at consistency where it can be rolled, snip corner of bag and pipe ganache into preferred size of truffles.
Gently roll into balls and lightly dust with cocoa powder.
Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate, 12020 S. Leelanau HWY (M-22) Empire, MI 49630
Jody Hayden is the owner of Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate, a family run business in Empire, MI. Contact her at [email protected]