MERINGUE GIRLS RECIPE – CHOCOLATE PYRAMID FAVORS

Those marvellous Meringue Girls are spoiling us with a second extract from their new must-have book Everything Sweet.  And this one is PERFECT for scrumptious wedding treats, guaranteed to impress your guests.

So let’s get to it with the Meringue Girls recipe for creating White Chocolate and Oreo Pyramids.

YOU’LL NEED:

Ingredients (Makes 15 Pyramids)
· 275g high-quality white chocolate, chopped into very small pieces, or use tempered white chocolate drops
· Wilton oil-based food colouring
· a handful of Oreo biscuits, whizzed whole to a fine powder, cream centre and all
· edible gold or silver leaf (optional)
· flavours (optional), e.g. oil-based extracts like watermelon, orange or peppermint
· freeze-dried fruits (optional), e.g. raspberry or strawberry pieces

Equipment:
· a 15-hole silicone pyramid chocolate mould (you can use any type of chocolate mould, and silicone ice cube trays work really well; just make sure whatever mould you choose is very clean and dry)

We first discovered colouring white chocolate from a beautiful Instagram page – Nectar & Stone in Melbourne – and we have enjoyed experimenting with heaps of different mould shapes: disks, pyramids, chocolate bars, chocolate letters and 3D gem stones. Colouring chocolate is a real trend at the moment and we predict it will be the next craze. Adding a colourful twist to white chocolate is super easy – from subtle ombrés, to a full-on rainbow. For this recipe you should use only oil-based food colouring. Water-based food colours have a habit of seizing within the mixture, making the chocolate grainy and unusable. We’ve used Wilton Primary oil colours to achieve the most vivid of shades.

Tempering your white chocolate is essential to get a really shiny finished product. If you don’t temper, your chocolate will be soft and sticky when set. You can use our easy-peasy method as featured in Everything Sweet.

RECIPE:
First you need to temper your white chocolate. Working very quickly, add a couple of colour drops to the melted chocolate and stir to achieve your desired colour. To fill the moulds with the layered Oreo effect, pour some chocolate into the base of the mould, crumble over a thin layer of finely crushed Oreos, then fill to the top of the mould with more melted chocolate. You can experiment with different coloured bases and tops, and with ombré fades within the chocolates, by layering in the mould.

When you have finished, smooth off the top of each chocolate with a palette knife, and gently tap the silicone mould on the table to release any air bubbles. Leave to set in a cool place, not in the fridge, for at least 1 hour. (You should leave real tempered chocolate to set at room temperature, as it may lose the wonderful tempered shine you have created if you put it in the fridge.) Once set, pop the pyramids out of the moulds and keep in a cool place.

You can stir flavours into these chocolates too – just make sure you use oil-based extracts without alcohol, to ensure the chocolate doesn’t seize. You can also add freeze-dried fruits if you like, such as raspberry and strawberry.

To finish, you can add a touch of edible gold or silver leaf on the top of each pyramid once they are set. Gold leaf is very fragile, so carefully dab the chocolate with a wet finger and apply a small piece of gold leaf with tweezers or a dry paintbrush. Package in chocolate boxes for a simply stunning gift.

Delicious.
Meringue Girls Everything Sweet is out now – www.amazon.co.uk/Meringue-Girls-Everything  And you can find more sweet goodness on their website – www.meringuegirls.co.uk