chocolate covered pecans

With gray Brittany sea salt. Gros, crunched down to be less gros with a mortar and pestle although I have no idea which part is the mortar and which part is the pestle. I do know the thing is amazingly heavy.

The chocolate is tempered this time because the coating bloomed on those flat lemon cookies down there ↓. And that is ruinous! Not really, but it's not that nice. Tempering stabilizes the cocoa fat, that is raising the temperature beyond melting, then lowering the temperature until it thickens, raising it again to a working temperature just barely beyond the melting point, or less specifically the melting range of temperatures. That makes the finished product more stable, less susceptible to slight changes in ambient temperature and therefore less likely to blooming, makes it possible to produce an attractive sheen, and to break with a distinctive and desirable snap. The self-proclaimed Chocolate Bible, Christian Teubner, recognizes three acceptable methods for tempering chocolate, I declare a fourth for which I shall become famed, the double bath method, hot water bath, cool water bath, back to hot water bath. I've had a little trouble with this method so I cannot yet recommend it, but I'm working on that. I also have a chocolate tempering machine, but it's much messier than my own simple method. I might give up on my method and revert to the machine if I don't start getting more consistent and reliable results.

See, I have all this couverture chocolate laying around that must be used before it starts picking up undesirable flavors like an odor magnet, and I just discovered the most difficult of all to mess with is the best tasting even much better than the most exclusive and expensive by 100%. So I have learned by having it. Now I'm sort of eager to use it all up and make it go away so I can get some more. And it does make wonderful gifts. And kids do love it equally as well as adults, And it is health food, after all. What's not to like?

Doubt that last thing? Chocolate is comprised of up to 55% fat, 14% protein, 9% starch, 2.6% minerals, 5% water, 14% salt-free essences concentrates high nutritional value into the smallest volume. I read that in a book! So therefore it must be true. What?

I heated the pecans in the microwave. Then heated more when I saw there wasn't enough to use up this batch of chocolate. Heating the nuts excites and activates the oil within them and tends to bring it to the surface. A taste-test before and after confirms the point. The sea salt was just a decadent extravagance and to insist I'm not listening to anybody when it comes to cutting back on salt. I make all my own food here so I'm not subjected to overly salted prepared commercial food that is ruining everybody else's health so disastrously in America. Salt is necessary to body functioning, the nervous system particularly, and I can't get salt unless I add it myself. So there you have it. Those are my opinions and for now I'm sticking with them. *crosses arms.*

Oh wait! Maybe they're ready.

Nom nom nyom nom, nope, nom nom nom, they're not, nyom nom nom, lick, nom nom, crunch, nom nyom nom nom, smack, nyom nom nom ready yet, nom nom nom, Oh my God, nom nom nyom nom, this is, nom nom nom, good. Lick lips. Lick fingers. Suck lips.