Caramels, candied citrus, and nut confections

The last two days have been busy! With help from my friend Susan and her daughter Allegra, I’ve been chocolatiering up a storm. Here are just a few of the things we’ve made over the last few days:

But wait, there’s more!

We also finished the lime-ginger-chile-peanut caramels:

…and a few others:

• candied bergamot peel
• candied grapefruit peel with rose geranium syrup (yum!)
• candied citron peel

Here’s a quick pic from behind the scenes: cinnamon honey caramels, being cut on my confectionery guitar:

And the same caramels, cut, dipped, and decorated:

Plus we got started on a bunch of new flavors. Here’s a luscious video of the strawberry rose honey fruit gels, bubbling away:

And here it is, cooling in the frame:

I also got bold and made some pecan, walnut, and sesame giandujas. Giandujas are a mix of nut paste, chocolate, and sugar (the most famous one is Nutella) – I’ve attempted it a few times in the past, with mixed results. But we were running far enough ahead of schedule that I felt I could afford an experiment or two, so we made maple pecan gianduja, cinnamon-walnut gianduja with tiny bits of caramel mixed in, and sesame gianduja with tiny bits of caramel-covered sesame seeds mixed in, and a dusting of cardamom on top. Here are two of the giandujas, poured, hardened, and ready to cut and dip:

And, finally, here are coconut fudge and a thin layer of Concord grape fruit gel. The coconut fudge will get dipped in chocolate with an almond on top (making a very high-class Almond Joy), and the Concord grape fruit gel will get a second layer of peanut butter gianduja poured on top. Yes, that’s right – I’m making a chocolate peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich!

And, finally, another peek behind the scenes. Here is about 8 pounds of  leftover chocolate at the end of the day, poured into a giant sheet pan, scored, and ready to be remelted and used the next day. (I call it “chocolate slag”.)

The “score” so far is 28 pounds, 1 ounce of finished chocolates. Only ~100 pounds to go!