Gingerbread not only on the inside but also on the outside. These sparkly gingerbread chocolate bars will leave you wanting more. These milk chocolate bars are filled with a rich gingerbread chocolate ganache topped with a fresh mandarin confit.
Special material requirements
2 Polycarbonate chocolate moulds (CW1908)
Square baking tin (18x18cm) or a round baking tin (20cm)
Scraper
2 Piping bags
Additional material from the "How to: Cocoa Butter Hearts" tutorial (use a gingerbread man puncher instead of a heart puncher)
Spray gun & compressor (optional) or wide brush
Recipe
Yield: 14 bars | Difficulty: hard
Ingredients
Decoration
3 tsp gold cocoa butter (tempered)
3 tsp white cocoa butter (tempered)
20g bronze cocoa butter (tempered)
Gingerbread cake
135g whole milk
90g brown sugar
90g flour
30g milk chocolate
30g butter
30g neutral oil
15g gingerbread spice
1 medium egg
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
Mandarin confit
100g mandarin puree
30g sugar
25g honey
1 tsp lemon juice
2g pectin nh
Gingerbread ganache
50g gingerbread cake
50g heavy cream
35g milk chocolate
1/2 tbsp gingerbread spice
Chocolate shells
450g milk chocolate (tempered)
Directions
Decoration
Prepare the moulds according to the tutorial "How to: Cocoa Butter Hearts". In the tutorial, replace the heart puncher with a gingerbread man puncher. Otherwise the steps are the same.
After preparing the gingerbread man pattern, cover the rest of the mould with bronze cocoa butter. If you have a spray gun, use that to evenly apply the cocoa butter. Otherwise you can also do that with a brush.
After covering the moulds with bronze cocoa butter, clean the non-cavity area by turning the mould upside-down, pressing it onto some paper towel on a flat surface and sliding it back and forth.
Gingerbread cake
Preheat the oven to 160°C fan and line your cake tin with parchment paper.
Place the chocolate and butter in a bowl and microwave until melted, while stirring in between.
In a separate bowl, whisk the sugar and egg together. Then add the melted chocolate-butter mix.
In a separate bowl sift all dry ingredients. In another bowl or cup combine milk and oil.
Add the dry ingredients and the milk-oil mix alternately to the chocolate mix and whisk until everything is combined and homogenous.
Pour the dough into the cake tin and and place in the middle of the oven. Bake for approximately 18 minutes or until the toothpick comes out clean.
Let the cake cool down, remove the cake tin, wrap the cake in cling foil and place in the fridge overnight.
Mandarin confit
Place the sugar and pectin in a small bowl and whisk until the pectin is evenly spread in the sugar.
Add the mandarin puree and the honey to a saucepan and heat it up to approximately 40°C.
Sprinkle the sugar-pectin mix to the puree while constantly whisking.
Bring the puree to a boil and boil for about 2 minutes.
Then remove from the heat and add the lemon juice.
Transfer the confit to a bowl and cover with cling film to touch. When the confit is at room temperature, place it in the fridge overnight.
Remove the cling film and emulsify with a hand blender until the confit is smooth. Transfer to a piping bag.
Gingerbread ganache
Place chocolate and heavy cream in a bowl and melt in the microwave in impulses, while stirring in between.
Weigh out the amount of gingerbread cake you need and add in crumbs to the ganache, together with the gingerbread spice.
Emulsify with a hand blender and transfer to a piping bag.
Chocolate shells & assembly
Mould your moulds with milk chocolate and let the chocolate crystallise.
Pipe the confit in a line in the middle of the mould. Place the mould in the fridge for half an our.
Pipe the gingerbread ganache, leaving a small gap from the top. If it has thickened up too much, reheat it a little bit but not hotter hat 35°C, so it is easier to pipe. Place the moulds back in the fridge for approximately half an hour, until the ganache thickens and firms up. Then take the mould out and bring them back to room temperature, before closing the bars.
Close the bonbons with the remaining tempered milk chocolate and place back in the fridge. After the chocolate has crystallised, pop the bars out of the moulds.
Notes
Gingerbread cake: the gingerbread cake recipe is enough for 12 mould and thus 84 chocolate bars. Therefore, if you want to make more bars the gingerbread cake is the only recipe which you do not have to increase proportionally.
Gingerbread cake & ganache: you can use the gingerbread ganache recipe with the leftover gingerbread cake, fill them in silicone moulds and make cake pops.
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