Is this something straight out of Willy Wonka? I often feel like the magic of decoration and pastry is what drew me into this whole profession. I feel like baking and pastry puts you in a position where you never stop learning, and when I get to try out new techniques, I feel like a kid in a candy store (although if you put me in a candy store at this age I’ll still be super excited). So I recently saw a video where this chocolate shop was dipping bonbons in a cocoa powder mixture, and when the bonbons emerge, they’re golden. Beautiful. Mesmerizing. Magic?!?!
I did a little research and figured out that it was a mixture of cocoa powder and luster dust that the chocolatier was dipping the bonbons into. I believe the cocoa powder acts as a carrier for the lustre dust, suspending the gold particles so that when you dip the bonbon, it only pics up the lustre dust, and it picks it up in an even layer. The reason it only picks up the gold is because it’s a lot more finer than the cocoa particles.
I did a mixture of about 15g (2 tbsp) of cocoa powder, and 2g of gold lustre dust. My takeaway from this whole experiment was that this design technique does work a little better in larger batches because theres more space and an even distribution of gold in a large batch of cocoa mixture.
I did a whole video on how I made my golden lavender caramel milk chocolate bonbons, feel free to watch it below. In the meantime, here is the recipe for the caramel.
This caramel recipe is adapted from Cupcake Jemma’s Lavender Caramels recipe.
Lavender Caramels
You will need a mini loaf tin pan (5 3/4 x 3 in), and a candy thermometer.
Ingredients
165g (3/4 cup) heavy cream + a little more to top up the cream after steeping.
115g (1/2 cup) corn syrup or glucose
2g (1.5 tbsp) culinary grade lavender buds
1g (1/4 tsp) smoked or regular sea salt
200g (1 cup) granulated sugar
22g (1-1/2 tbsp) cocoa butter or regular butter
Method
- Prepare mini loaf tin pan by lightly brushing the bottom and sides with oil, then lining the bottom and sides with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Combine corn syrup, cream, salt, and lavender in a medium saucepan. Make sure you have all other ingredients scaled and set aside, ready to use.
- Heat up the cream mixture just to a boil. Set aside to steep the lavender for 10 min.
- After the cream has steeped, strain out the lavender buds, and top up the cream back to it’s original weight so you don’t lose any yield (280g, the weight of the cream and corn syrup combined).
- Warm up the cream again slightly so it’s warm when combined with the caramel. Set aside,
- In a large saucepan on medium heat, sprinkle a thin layer of sugar on the bottom of the pan, allowing it to melt, before adding another thin layer of sugar, and stirring with a wooden spoon to encourage the sugar to melt. Repeat until all the sugar has been combined, and continue stirring over heat until the caramel reaches an amber colour.
- Switch from a spoon to a whisk and carefully pour the cream into the hot caramel while whisking simultaneously.
- Once all the cream is in, whisk the caramel mixture over medium high heat until the mixture reaches 120C/248F. Take off heat and whisk in the cocoa butter until it’s melted and fully combined.
- Pour into the prepared loaf tin and set aside to cool for 8hrs or overnight.
- Cut into squares about 3/4 inch or 2cm wide, and dip into tempered chocolate or enjoy on their on.
ally bakes 