the easiest chocolates you will ever make

Hardly a soul on earth has been offered chocolate and said meh. You might like it thick and runny as in chocolate lava cakes and rich brownies, flavouring fluffy sponges paired with cream and fruit or the plain old chocolate bar to give you that energy boost. Now how about crunchy chocolate rocks? Nuts and chocolate, a combination to fall in love with. It is the easiest chocolate you will ever make.

Chocolate rocks have been featuring in patisserie displays for as long as I can remember. With all the fancy cakes, covered in icing or mouthwatering jams, fruit and chocolate flakes as topping, you will hardly notice them. They normally hide in a corner, elegant, tiny with all sorts of fillings and patiently await for the one’s in the know to pick them up.

These little treats have been a fixed feature in my grandma’s crystal candy box, it all seems so very ’50s: a tiny chocolate to accompany the home-made liqueur. Omnipresent, chocolate rocks were there for holidays, celebrations and of course an emergency treat for unexpected guests. A discreet sweet bite that will bring instant bliss to the muncher and allow the conversation going, with a faintest moan of pleasure.

And did I mention there are dead easy to make? You certainly do not need to have been in that chocolate making workshop. It’s as simple and quick to make as it is to enjoy them. 

Ingredients

• 170 gr hazelnuts or almonds or any nut of your choice
• 200 gr of chocolate, the higher cocoa content the better
• a knob of butter

What to do:

Nuts, they taste better toasted

1. Preheat the oven at 180 ^oC.
2. Spread the nuts evenly in a baking sheet.
3. Leave in for 5 minutes, then take them out to shake or stir.
4. Place them back in for a couple of minutes. Be careful as they tend to brown very quickly.
5. Move to a different tray to cool.
6. Melt the chocolate, bain marie method – no special equipment needed – just fill a pot with water halfway, bring to the boil and then let it simmer.
7. Break the chocolate in small pieces, place in a bowl that is easy to hold on top of your pot
8. Be careful to not immerse it in the water and certainly avoid getting any water drops in the chocolate.
9. Stir the chocolate to fully melt and add a knob of butter, about a teaspoon. Stir some more to integrate.
10. Let the chocolate to sit for 3-4 minutes so that it cools down a bit.
11. Once your chocolate has cooled a bit, yet is runny add the nuts and fold them in gently.
12. use some baking parchment on a flat surface to place your chocolates rocks
13. Take a spoonful and gently place on the baking parchment.
14. Let them cool down and harden
15. Place in a fancy bowl and treat your friends or keep them for yourself and your other half to devour at your own time

Hope you enjoy them!

From Athens with love

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