Gourmet Chocolate Orange

This Instructable will teach you to make a fancy-pants chocolate orange using REAL chocolate and REAL oranges. Chocolate oranges are a Christmas favorite in my half-British family, but sometimes they can be hard to find in the United States. However, you should be able to make these chocolate oranges with ingredients you may already have in your own home!

I also wanted to be able to make Fair Trade and/or vegan chocolate oranges for friends with refined tastes and/or ethics.In this Instructable, I will make Fair Trade milk chocolate orange truffles with candied orange skins on the outside. However, I will give guidelines for making vegan chocolate oranges.

As a special bonus, you will also learn about my quirky culinary improvisations, such as my iron skillet double boiler and unusual uses for a flat metal grater.

This recipe will make 12 chocolate orange slices. I found that 6 slices together make enough of a sphere to suggest an orange.

Although I think of chocolate oranges as a Christmas treat, they might also be a nice romantic gesture for a sweetheart or media naranja. Please, if you don't know about the phrase "media naranja" or "orange half," look it up! It's adorable!

In this Instructable you will learn to make Orange chocolate "ganache" (Steps 1-3) and Candied orange peels (Steps 4-7)
Then you will assemble everything into a chocolate orange with candied peel (Step 8).

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Step 1 Ingredients for Chocolate Orange "ganache" truffle

I say ganache inside quotation marks because this part of the recipe is actually the result of repeated failures. Originally I had planned to just melt chocolate, flavor it with orange, and then make it into the shape of orange slices. What I discovered after extensive experimentation is that orange will cause chocolate to seize. I'm sure someone has a suggestion for another way to deal with this, but here is the improvised ganache I made through experimentation. It actually results in something a bit more solid than a real ganache.

For a proper ganache, check out Anatomy of a Truffle's instructions. Following the basic recipe, add orange with the cream and butter. For my version and/or a vegan version, read on below!

Ingredients the chocolate orange "ganache"
--7.05 OZ or 200g of chocolate (about 2 bars), chopped into chunks no larger than 1cm squared. For the outer chocolate shell you will need another 100g-200g of chocolate.
The chocolate can be milk or dark according to taste, however try to pick something classy. I find that higher quality chocolate makes for better results. Fillers can make the chocolate unpredictable. If you can find high-quality chocolate chips you can skip the chopping stage, but often chips are inferior.

--A generous tablespoon of butter, vegan margarine, or really any kind of oil or fat that doesn't have offensive taste
For you vegans, I've had a lot of success making chocolate truffles with full-fat coconut milk--just scoop off the creamy solids that rise to the top and reserve most of the coconut milk for some other cooking project.

--The zest of half an orange
Feel free to use more zest. You can also use orange extract.

--Warm water

You will also need:
--Some form of double boiler
As you will see, I like to use a cast iron skillet with some water in it, with a saucepan over top.

--A silicone mold in the shape of citrus segments.
You may need to google to find this, try looking for novelty ice trays as well as candy making supplies.
I got mine from Lakeland while visiting my gran.
Alternatively you could make your own with food-grade silicone inspired by great Instructables like LeGummies.
You can also just make wedges by making round truffles and molding them into a crescent shape.

--A zesting grater

--A spatula, knife, cutting board, you know...

--A fridge!

NOTE: If you are gathering ingredients for the whole Instructable, don't forget to look at Step 4: Ingredients for Candying Orange Peels.

Comments

[azurelunatic]

You can use the syrup to flavor hot chocolate, coffee, or soda water. You can also cook it down further and use it to make hard candies.

[moseph]

Thanks for the suggestions! I have added them in (crediting you, of course) in step 7.