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Making
Chocolate Easter Eggs with Jean François Houdré
Compliments of FabulousFoods.com
 Step
1. Prepare materials and chocolate
Jean François insists that the most important step
in making great chocolates is tempering. Unfortunately, it's
also one of the trickest techniques to master. We have tempring
instructions here at Fabulous Foods from pastry chef Jacques
Torres, so if you're going to attempt to make Chocolate Easter
Eggs at home, be sure to follow this link for tempering instructions
first.
Professionals
like Jean François have some nifty gadgets for helping
them, like a digital candy thermometer that measures the heat
of the chocolate, or the warming lamp that keeps it at the
proper temperature once it's been tempered. At home, chef
Houdré suggest that you turn on your oven to the lowest
temperature possible, keep the door fully open, and keep your
tempered chocolate on the warm open oven door. This should
hold it at about the proper consistency.
 For
the colors, Jean François uses either a good quality
white chocolate or pure cocoa butter that has been colored
with powdered food color. He says you could use pastes, but
you have to be sure to avoid any coloring with alcohol because
it will cause the chocolate to "seize" or crystallize.
Step
2. Prepare Base and Chocolate Bunnies for Filling
The next step is to prepare a base for the finished egg to
stand on, and the tiny chocolate bunnies that will make up
the surprise package to be stuffed into the egg later. Jean
François uses an ordinary sheet of white acetate to
pour the base, because the hardeed chocolate will easily slide
off it. A metal pastry ring is used to mold the base, as in
the first photo below (you'll see the finished chocolate disk,
that is the base, later in this tutorial).
A plastic
chocolate mold is used to make the bunnies. The chocolate
is simply ladeled into the mold and the excess is then scraped
back into the bowl. Now comes the most important technique
in making the small molded candies: removing all the air bubbles.
Gently tap the bottom of the mold and hold it up to the light
and look underneath to insure that you have removed all the
air.
The chocolate
is then allowed to harden at room temperature until it is
ready to be popped out of the mold. If you're in a hurry,
you can chill the chocolate to hasten its setting, but letting
it harden at room temperature is preferable and insures a
better looking final product, says chef Houdré.
    
Once this
step is complete, it's time
to mold the eggs.
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