Bonbons and Meringues

… or “that time when I jumped around the kitchen with glee”. But that’s a bit too long for a title, isn’t it?

Basically, this post is me bragging about making pretty things, because man, did I feel on top of the world when these didn’t fail but were in fact a pretty big success!

I mean, I tempered chocolate for the first time and didn’t screw it up. That’s big, you guys. That’s really something. Which is not to say that the whole process went completely smoothly… My mother can attest to the fact that it was a hectic mess. But it worked! The only thing I’m a little bummed about is that the pictures didn’t turn out great – it was a cloudy day and it was already starting to get a little dark… And I’m not great with the photo-editing. But oh well, you win some, you lose some, eh?

So, let’s start from the beginning. Why the bonbons and meringues? Well! Back in February, my boyfriend and I decided to celebrate Valentine’s day, but then had to postpone it because I got ill with the flu. So then we celebrated it on March 14th instead, which gave me plenty of time to execute my evil plan!

Okay, the plan wasn’t evil, it was actually pretty sweet. Quite literally. I decided to make him some sweets as a gift, but I couldn’t decide between chocolates and meringues so then I was like:

After buying all the ingredients and ordering a food thermometer very last minute when I realised a sugar thermometer actually can’t be used for tempering chocolate, I could get to work!

Back in March I already did a post on the meringues I baked for Christmas, which turned out pretty darn cute. This time I also had food colouring at my disposal, though, which made them look even better!

I’m still in love with how beautiful these turned out! Since it proved successful last time, I used this recipe by CupcakeJemma once again, minus the marshmallows in the middle. Since this was the third time I made them, I’m feeling pretty confident about my meringue-making abilities by now. Not going to lie, though; I wouldn’t be able to do it without my stand mixer.

The bonbons were the bigger challenge. Like I said, I’d never tempered chocolate before, and that’s quite a crucial step in the process of making bonbons. I was pretty nervous about it, actually, and I can’t say it went entirely according to plan. In fact, I was sure I’d messed it up because the temperatures rose and fell much more quickly than I expected them too.

But when I popped them out of the silicone mold, they came out beautiful and shiny and amazing. This is the point at which the jumping around with glee happened. There was also yelling involved.

For the bonbons, I used this recipe by SortedFood. They use a gazillion fillings, but I decided to use only two: mint and raspberry. The mint ones were green on the inside, and the raspberry ones were pink – makes sense, right?

Here’s what the raspberry one looked like on the inside. The filling was a lot less runny than I expected it to be based on SortedFood’s video, but I think I actually preferred it my way.

And no, I don’t have two left hands, the top one with the wedding band is my mother’s, who helped me out during the stressful bits. Thanks, Mum!

So, that’s the story of how I spent an entire day running around like a maniac making delicious things. It felt GREAT. Too bad I was kind of ill again the day after (I’ve had this stupid flu bug thing three times now in the past three months), but I still had a great Valentine’s Day. And these were a huge success!