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A Chocolate Masterclass with Paul A Young

9th October 2012 By Urvashi Roe Leave a Comment

It’s Chocolate Week! A whole week dedicated to all things chocolate so I could not let this wonderful experience with master chocolatier Paul A Young slip by without sharing his words of wisdom and recipe for simple Chocolate Truffles.

First a quick bio..

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Paul, here’s a quick bio.  He was so matter of fact and modest talking us through this which makes him even more likeable!  He studied hotel catering and management at Durham and Leeds University, and then went off to work in restaurant kitchens.  He was Head Pastry Chef for Marco Pierre White for a while.  You’d think he’d stop there or go on and open his own restaurant but he wanted to go and explore the commercial world and worked at Marks and Spencer around the same time that sushi was becoming popular and funnily enough when my hubby was supplying their Japanese ingredients.  Am sure their paths must have crossed but anyway….. He left there and began to specialise in chocolate working at various food and chocolate festivals and building up connections with other chocolatiers.  He opened his first shop in 2006 and has been creating unusual, delicious and inspiring chocolates ever since.

paul a young

Paul getting his hands dirty

Perfectly tempered chocolate

Paul started with a huge bowl of melted chocolate which he then poured on to the lovely marble work surface.  It was really mesmerising to watch as he tempered the wonderfully smooth chocolate.  He spread it out and scooped it up to basically cool it down to a very precise temperature of 31C.

paul a young

Paul made tempering on marble look easy – I just wanted to lick the bowl!

I’m not going to go into the ins and outs of tempering – instead see very fabulous Guardian article you can read all about this below.

Perfect ganache

Once the chocolate was ready he scooped it back into the various bowls we would use to make our truffles and shared two key tips for a successful ganache filling.

  1. Buy great quality chocolate. Even supermarkets are now stocking ‘proper chocolate’.
  2. Ganache is usually made with hot cream poured over chocolate but you can use hot water to make the flavour of the chocolate more intense or even champagne, red wine, port etc or heated fruit juice. The basic measure is two parts chocolate to one part liquid.

Time to roll truffles

Paul showed us how to roll the chocolates into the familiar truffle ball shape.  He used his fingertips only for this rather than the palms of his hands.  They were left for a minute or two and then dunked into the tempered chocolate and completely covered.  It’s important that the whole surface is covered in the tempered chocolate so no air can get in and they last longer.  Then they were rolled in good quality cocoa powder.  Again buy the best cocoa powder you can afford.  The final stage was to plop them into a lovely Paul A. Young bag for a professional finish.

paul a young

My rather less-than-perfectly-spherical truffles

So simple and I can tell you that they tasted absolutely fabulous! The chocolate coating before the cocoa powder dusting gave a little needed crunch which broke through the rich ganache filling.

Paul’s Textbook Truffles Recipe

I’m going to be making these for Christmas presents this year and would gladly welcome a few boxes in return.  I have some homemade Blackberry Vodka which is just about ready.

Paul’s ganache recipe is simply 250g dark chocolate, 250g double cream and 100g light muscavado sugar.  Just heat the sugar and cream together and bring to the boil. Simmer for a minute and then turn the heat off.  Do not pour it over the chocolate at this stage or the cocoa butter in the chocolate will separate and your ganache will split.  Leave it to rest of a minute and then pour over mixing til smooth and glossy.  Cool it at room temperature and then pop it in the fridge for a couple of hours to set completely.  The mixture is enough for 50 truffles.  You can find this recipe in his book Adventures with Chocolate.

Meet Paul

Paul has a few shops in London (Soho, Islington and Bank) now so if you are popping to the capital, you should definitely stop in.  I was in Soho the other day and met the lovely @JamesDaisy who recommended this Tom Yum Truffle.

Paul also has a pop up shop until the 31st October at The Folly in Gracechurch Street.  He’ll be running tastings and masterclasses there so keep an eye on his Twitter feed @paul_a_young or events page.

Thank you to Paul and his lovely PR ladies for inviting me and for the wonderful truffles I got to take away 🙂

paul a young

Even my truffles looked glorious in Paul’s lovely branded bags

Related articles
  • Paul A Young website
  • All about cacao
  • How and why to temper chocolate (www.guardian.co.uk)
  • The Health Benefits of Chocolate (berries.com)
  • Raw Chocolate, Fig & Ginger Truffles (cucinaceri.com)
  • Through the Matcha Chocolat Window

Related

Filed Under: Events Tagged With: chocolate, Ganache, Paul A Young, recipes

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. trialsinfood says

    9th October 2012 at 5:11 pm

    those truffles look awesome!

    Reply
    • Urvashi Roe says

      9th October 2012 at 5:12 pm

      Thanks! They weren’t as fabulous as his perfect spheres but they tasted amaaaazing!

      Reply
  2. Sarah says

    9th October 2012 at 7:22 pm

    Your truffles look delicious, and very professional in their classy bag! And I love the idea of making chocolates and giving them as Christmas presents.

    Reply
    • Urvashi Roe says

      9th October 2012 at 9:09 pm

      I’ve made them before but they were stodgy. I loved this recipe as it was beautiful and light but intense in flavour too

      Reply
  3. laura_howtocook says

    9th October 2012 at 9:21 pm

    I love Paul’s work along with William Curley. Amazing talent. Hope your truffle receivers realise how lucky they are!

    Reply
    • Urvashi Roe says

      9th October 2012 at 9:43 pm

      well hubby will have to get loads so I can steal them back!

      Reply
  4. Glamorous Glutton says

    9th October 2012 at 9:32 pm

    What an amazing Masterclass, the techniques you learnt are fab. Love the idea of making ganache with fruit juice, not sure why the chocolate doesn’t freeze!? But opened my eyes. GG

    Reply
    • Urvashi Roe says

      9th October 2012 at 9:43 pm

      I know the fruit juice is a revelation. He said pineapple works particularly well

      Reply
  5. Deliciously Directionless says

    10th October 2012 at 8:07 am

    Lovely post! Now I’m craving those truffles 🙂 Also, those tips on ganache hare very helpful, thanks!

    Reply
    • Urvashi Roe says

      11th October 2012 at 7:26 am

      Pleasure x

      Reply
  6. Jules says

    10th October 2012 at 10:54 am

    Paul is a god in my eyes. I saw one of his demos at Cake & Bake Show. I just wish his chocolates & brownies were available mail order. I’ll have to try the ganache recipe above.

    Reply
    • Urvashi Roe says

      11th October 2012 at 7:27 am

      Not sure about his chocs but his brownies go on sale in Fortnums who may post them out? Worth asking!

      Reply
      • Jules says

        11th October 2012 at 8:11 am

        Fantastic, thank you. I’ll keep an eye out on the F&M site.

        Reply
  7. Choclette says

    11th October 2012 at 4:30 pm

    Very envious of that experience Urvashi. I’m a great admirer of Paul, but I have still never had any of his creations. I follow some of his exploits though and have his wonderful book. Useful to hear about how to stop ganache splitting – mine seems to do it with monotonous regularity 🙁

    Reply
    • Urvashi Roe says

      16th October 2012 at 8:52 am

      Great to be of help. Hope it helps your ganache exploits going forwards x

      Reply
  8. All That I'm Eating says

    12th October 2012 at 9:20 am

    This sounds like so much fun! I liked our little trip to his shop back in Feb. Your truffles look lovely.

    Reply
    • Urvashi Roe says

      16th October 2012 at 8:51 am

      Thanks lovely. We’ll have to sort another foodie trip soon x

      Reply
  9. Fabulicious Food! (@RenBehan) says

    13th October 2012 at 9:43 am

    They do indeed look wonderful, I could eat every single last one one them. A great write up – good length and you managed to get so much useful information in. I’ll definitely be making these for Xmas too 🙂

    Reply
    • Urvashi Roe says

      16th October 2012 at 8:51 am

      Thanks Ren, We should have a truffle making day!

      Reply
      • Fabulicious Food! (@RenBehan) says

        18th October 2012 at 12:29 pm

        Great plan! Tell me when 🙂

        Reply
  10. Jaime says

    16th October 2012 at 12:03 pm

    Brilliant post and tips Urvahis! I had no idea we could use heated fruit juice. Was at the store just last week and it’s hard to not want to gobble up everything there…oh my those sea salted caramel brownies!!

    Reply
  11. Anilkumar Bhimjiyani says

    13th November 2012 at 2:30 pm

    Sounds very interesting.Must try his chocolates.So far,Wiliam Curley is my man.

    Reply
    • Urvashi Roe says

      13th November 2012 at 8:39 pm

      I like William Curley but find Paul is more inventive of combinations

      Reply

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Hi I'm Urvashi!

I love food. This blog is a little glimpse into my foodie world which is an escape from two teenage girls, a busy job and my little cafe.

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