You could say that these chocolate bars are my interpretation of the classic Snickers. Crunchy roasted peanuts, smooth salted caramel and a peanut praline ganache enclosed in dark chocolate and decorated with a milk chocolate velvet spray. And don't forget the gold glitter for the little extra sparkle in your life.
Special material requirements
2 Polycarbonate chocolate moulds (MLD-090528-M00)
Alphabet silicone mould (max. length of one letter should be 1.8cm)
Scraper
Piping bags
Pure alcohol (at least 94%)
Cotton pads
Thermometer (preferably laser and normal)
Spray gun & compressor (optional) or a ready to use velvet spray
Thick brush
Recipe
Yield: 20 bars | Difficulty: hard
Ingredients
Roasted peanuts
55g peanuts (approx.)
Salted caramel
100g heavy cream
63g sugar
63g glucose syrup
34g butter
1 vanilla bean
5/8 tsp fleur de sel
Peanut praline paste
60g roasted peanuts
60g sugar
1 tbsp water
1/4 tsp vanilla powder
1/4 tsp salt
Peanut praline ganache
108g peanut praline paste
108g dark chocolate (preferably 65%)
Decoration
70g milk chocolate
70g cocoa butter
edible gold glitter
red fat soluble food colouring (optional)
800g dark chocolate (tempered)
Directions
Mould preparation
Polish your moulds with the alcohol using cotton pads.
Roasted peanuts
If you have raw peanuts, roast all peanuts in this recipe in a preheated oven at 175°C for approx. 15-20 minutes, until they are evenly golden brown.
Salted caramel
Place the sugar, glucose and water in a saucepan and bring it to a boil on medium heat.
Simultaneously, heat up the heavy cream, butter and vanilla bean in a different saucepan. Shortly before it boils reduce the heat and keep it hot until further use.
As soon as the sugar has turned into a nice caramel colour, slowly pour the hot heavy cream-butter mix to the caramel while constantly whisking.
Keep cooking the caramel until it reaches approx. 110°C.
Pour the caramel into a narrow container, add the fleur de sel and blend with a stick blender until emulsified.
Cover the caramel with cling film to touch and let it cool down.
Use the caramel at 36°C.
Peanut praline paste
Place sugar and water in a saucepan and bring it to a boil on medium heat.
As soon as the sugar reaches a nice caramel colour, pour it onto a silicone mat or baking paper and let it cool down.
Place the caramel, roasted peanuts, vanilla powder and salt in a blender and blend in impulses until you get a smooth, liquid paste.
Peanut praline ganache
Weigh your praline paste and measure the same amount of chocolate (in my case I had approx. 108g of praline paste).
Melt your dark chocolate and as soon as it reaches 45°C, add the peanut praline paste and briefly blend with the stick blender.
Transfer the ganache into a piping bag and use at 35-36°C.
Chocolate shells & assembly
Mould your moulds with dark chocolate and let the chocolate crystallise.
Place one row of roasted peanut halves on the bottom of your mould.
Pipe the caramel on top of the peanuts and let it spread between the cavities and let it set.
Pipe the ganache, leaving a small gap from the top for the closure.
Let the moulds sit at room temperature until the ganache firms up.
Close the bonbons with the remaining tempered dark chocolate and place them in the fridge (minimum 20 minutes). After the chocolate has crystallised, pop the bars out of the moulds.
Decoration
Use your tempered chocolate to pipe your alphabet mould spelling P-E-A-N-U-T. You should have 20 chocolate letters for each letter in the word peanut.
Glue the chocolate letters to the top of the chocolate bars using melted chocolate spelling the word PEANUT.
Place the chocolate bars for half an hour in the freezer.
Combine your milk chocolate and cocoa butter and heat it up to 50°C. You can either do this in a chocolate melting machine or in the microwave in impulses.
Optionally you can add 2-3 drops of red fat soluble food colouring to give the milk chocolate more depth in colour.
Use a stick blender to emulsify the velvet mix.
Add the chocolate-cocoa butter mixture to your spray gun, take the bars out of the freezer and spray them.
Make sure to spray a thin coat, then rotate the tray on which the bars are placed. Repeat this until all bars are covered in velvet spray.
After you have covered the bars completely with velvet spray, place them back in the freezer for at least 10 minutes. Take them out and spray a second layer , covering some uneven spots.
Take your thick brush, dip it into the gold edible glitter and tap off the excess. Hold the brush approximately 20cm above the chocolates and gently tap the brush, covering your bonbons with some glitter.
Notes
Peanut praline ganache: for dark chocolate I use in general a 56% chocolate. I used this chocolate to mould the shells in this recipe. However, for the peanut praline ganache I used a 65% dark chocolate, which is a little less sweet to balance out the caramel and praline paste. I highly recommend doing that as well, but it will also work with the normal dark chocolate.
Decoration: while you prepare the velvet spray mixture, place the spray gun in the oven at 40°C. This will prevent the velvet mixture to crystallise in the spray gun too soon.
Decoration: I would recommend dividing the bars onto 3-4 plates covered in cling film and spray one plate at the time.