Chocolate and Pretzels

This is actually attempt number two of chocolate and pretzels, but the first attempt didn't go so well. These were much more successful.

I did two kind of pretzels. The one closer in the above picture are pure dark chocolate. The farther away is actually ganache covered.

How I did it

Tools and ingredients

I bought some new glass bowls, but had noticed that bubbles would form under the bowl in the water bath and make it unstable until the air could be released. So I tried putting a "stand" under the bowl, which ended up being a cookie cutter. It worked quite well actually, but I think I will find a bigger cookie cutter next time (or something equivalent) to make it more stable.

To prevent air bubbles from getting caught under the bowl,
use a cookie cutter as a stand.

I melted the dark chocolate in a glass bowl in a warm water bath. The stove only needed to be on low.

Melt chocolate in a glass bowl with a warm water bath.

To cover the pretzels, I placed them in the chocolate and used a fork to make them completely covered and then fish them out.

I made ganache with a 4 to 1 ratio of chocolate and heavy cream. I didn't heat up the cream until it bubbled (what I usually do), which I think made the ganache seize up just a little bit. But it was still good enough to use.

Ganache

Here are the finished products not yet hardened. On the left are the pure chocolate covered pretzels and on the right ganache covered. I don't know why the ganache came out darker than the just dark chocolate.

I wanted to add something else, so used white chocolate. White chocolate, I'm finding, is very difficult to work with. These didn't come out as successfully as I would have liked. I used two different white chocolates that I've been trying to use up. I melted the chocolate in a plastic bag in the microwave, then cut a small hole in the corner to pipe it out.

Other notes
This was mainly an experiment in trying to find the right ratio of chocolate to cream for a different project (see next post). I think I found it in the 4 to 1, but I need to figure out the best way to make it now. Heating the cream until it almost bubbles before I put the chocolate in, must do something to it. What it is I don't know, think I need to do some more research.

The white chocolate decoration didn't come out as nicely as I would have liked either. But I think that will come with practice. Getting white chocolate to melt properly and not seize up on me, that is a different problem I'm not sure I even want to tackle.

More pictures