The chocolates are piling up!

Two friends came by yesterday and helped out for about four hours, vastly increasing the output of chocolates.  The result was significant:

That’s only about 2/3 of the containers.  And more will be coming soon!

And here are some closeups:

If you are wondering about the lack of molded chocolates (as opposed to dipped ones), fear not: there are four molded flavors this year, and they will be done today.  Fig and cognac, currant-Cointreau, prune-honey-port, and pistachio-passionfruit-marzipan-honey.  I’m particularly curious about the last one – it’s a recipe out of one of Jean-Pierre Wybauw’s book, and it sounds really good!

At any rate, two other friends are coming by to help today, so I may finish (gasp!) early!  No frantic 20-hour days trying to finish the chocolates in time, just a very civilized, fun time that wraps up early.  See how wonderful it is when friends team up?

Anyway, it looks like I may get all 20 flavors of bonbons completed in time, and possibly even one or two extras.  I wouldn’t mind having an extra or two; it means I could drop the less successful flavors from the lineup.  Boysenberry was a bit of a disappointment; the flavor mostly vanished under the chocolate, leaving a vague berry undertone that was nearly overpowered by the small quantity of orange marmalade I added as an experiment.  And I’m not enchanted with the white tea, and I don’t think I have enough of the saffron to make up all boxes.  So I wouldn’t mind being able to drop those.  But we’ll see how it goes!