As a food blogger, I’m always looking for great ways to promote the site and connect with other like-minded people who love food as much as I do. Social media networks, like Facebook, are great in helping to accomplish this task. One of the people I met a few years ago is wonderfully talented food blogger whose name is Hanneke Eerden. Hanneke is based in the Netherlands and writes a popular blog called The Dutchess Cooks. Her delicious photographs will draw you in to the daily food experiences she shares with her large audience on Facebook. She is a creative and versatile chef, and regardless of whether she is out enjoying a meal at a lovely restaurant or home cooking in the kitchen or on the grill, she allows us to peek in and enjoy the magic along with her.
Recently, Hanneke shared something on Facebook that I had never heard of before. It was a photo of a bowl of vanilla ice cream that was topped with something she called chocolate rocks. They looked almost like a misshapen chocolate truffle, but instead of being rolled in cocoa powder, they were tossed in powdered sugar. I was intrigued by the name, so I asked Hanneke to explain to me what this delicious concoction was. Apparently, the Dutch name for this treat is Hemelse Stenen, and the direct translation to English is Heavenly Stones. The product is made by an artisan chocolate company in Holland called ArtiChoc, and as Hanneke described, is a soft, rich chocolate ‘almost like a mousse’ studded with finely ground nuts that does not require refrigeration. Originally, I believed this to be a firm version of ganache known as chocolate pate, but ganache is made with heavy cream and butter, and would require refrigeration. The addition of ghee was a possibility, but this would still need refrigeration in the long term.
I was stumped, but my wheels were turning. I began to think of the composition of good chocolate, where the amount of cocoa butter in the product determines the meltability and mouthfeel, and because cocoa butter is expensive, chocolate companies have learned to replace a portion of the cocoa butter with something that is less expensive…oil or shortening. Hmm…I think I may be on to something. Adding oil to chocolate is a technique Pastry Chefs use to make chocolate more pliable, and is used to create decorative chocolate elements that need to be molded around refrigerated desserts – as in a chocolate band created to encircle a serving of chocolate mousse. Both cocoa butter and oil are shelf stable, and don’t require refrigeration. So I decided to use a combination of both to create the delicate texture she described. Cocoa butter is available in many health food stores and you can buy small or large bags of it, and it looks like this…
It worked with delicious results, and instead of using just nuts, I chose to add toasted coconut, roasted macadamia nuts, dark chocolate nibs and freeze dried strawberry pieces to my cooled liquid chocolate. The result was truly heavenly. I served mine for dessert with a homemade strawberry liquer, because there is never a wrong way to serve chocolate.
Heavenly Chocolate Stones
2 ½ cups good quality dark chocolate, either chips or cut into pieces
2 oz food grade cocoa butter
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup toasted coconut
¼ cup roasted macadamia nuts
2 tablespoons cocoa nibs
¼ cup dehydrated strawberries, hand cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons powdered sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons cocoa powder, unsweetened, sifted
Cocoa powder for coating**
Powdered sugar for coating**
Finely ground nuts for coating**
NOTE: If you choose not to add the coconut, chocolate nibs or the dried strawberries, you can use a total of 1 ¾ cups of finely chopped, roasted nuts. Choose from either cocoa powder, powdered sugar or finely ground nuts for coating.
First prepare the pan that you will use for your chocolate mixture. I used an old biscotti pan that is 11” x 5”, sprayed it with some pan release and lined it with some strips of parchment paper. Once you have finished, set this aside and prepare the chocolate mixture.
By this time, you have already chosen which nuts (or combination of items) you would like to use. If you are using nuts, make sure to lightly roast them and then set them aside to cool. Place the cocoa butter into a microwave safe dish and melt this in the microwave. Once it has melted, add the dark chocolate pieces and stir well. Some of the chocolate may melt in the warm cocoa butter, but more than likely, you will have to place this back into the microwave for short bursts of heat (about 30 second to 1 minute intervals), until the chocolate has melted completely. Stir well to make sure there are no remaining pieces, and then add in the 2 tablespoons of oil. Set this aside to cool.
Place the cooled, roasted nuts in the food processor along with the sifted powdered sugar and cocoa powder. Process them until they are finely ground and toss this into the melted chocolate. Stir everything together and make sure it is well mixed. I next added the toasted coconut and dehydrated strawberries and stirred the mixture again, then added the chocolate nibs last.
Pour your mixture into your prepared pan and place it into the refrigerator or freezer. I did this to give the mixture a head start in setting up, but if you are not going to use this right away, cover it with plastic wrap and allow it to set up at room temperature in a cool place.
Once your mixture has set up into a chocolate slab, turn it out onto a piece of parchment paper that has been dusted with a light layer of your choice of coating, which is either powdered sugar, cocoa powder or finely ground nuts. Start cutting the slab into either random or uniform pieces, and then toss each piece well in the coating. Store these in an airtight container in a cool place, as you would any good bar of chocolate.
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