This Chocolate Is The Key To Making Seriously Next-Level Desserts
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Valrhona
Luxurious might be a bold word for dessert, but it’s the best word to describe Valrhona chocolate. When the milk chocolate alone is enough to send your taste buds to cloud nine, you know they’re not messing around.
Valrhona has been producing some of the best chocolate in the world in the tiny village of Tain L’Hermitage, France, since 1922. It’s become a master at its craft of enhancing the flavors of rare cocoa beans. The chocolate is complex and balanced, yet it has consistently bold flavors that pastry chefs and gourmet cooks around the world look to as the gold standard.
Valrhona
Valrhona’s expertise is on a level of its own, so much so that there’s a pastry school in France, L’École Valrhona, that teaches chocolate lovers everything they need to know about the industry and the bean-to-bar process.
In addition to L’Ecole Valrhona’s three counterparts at Tain L’Hermitage, Paris-Versailles and Tokyo, there’s a location in Brooklyn where you’ll become inspired by new immerging ideas, trends and techniques in the chocolate and pastry industry. The company built its very own cocoa plantations in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, and it has a team of sourcers who travel the world to find the best beans from planters.
Valrhona has made its way into dessert menus around the world. From cakes and tarts to mousses to cookies, truffles and drinks, you can easily make some of the highest restaurant-quality chocolate desserts right in your own kitchen.
Valrhona tasting bars come in different percentages based on the ratio of cacao. If you’re looking for simple and decadent, the Bahibé tasting bar is single-origin from the Dominican Republic with 46 percent cacao. You can buy all types of baking chocolate ranging from 35 percent to 72 percent cacao. The higher the percentage, the stronger the taste.
Here’s how you can use Valrhona in your own home when you deserve the finer chocolate in life.
Hot Chocolate
The simplest way to add Valrhona chocolate into your life is to mix a little cocoa powder and whichever kind of chocolate bar you like with some whole milk. You’ll be hooked.
Double Chocolate Banana Bread
This recipe for a dark chocolate banana bread has you combine full-fat Greek yogurt to the mix and one of the creamy milk chocolate bars.
Dark Chocolate Cupcakes
Make a batch of these dark chocolate cupcakes for your friend’s birthday and you’ll be the hero.
Chocolate Molten Lava Cake
If a chocolate molten lava cake doesn’t scream bliss, we don’t know what does. You can make your own with this simple recipe and one of Valrhona’s 70 percent cacao bars, along with some chocolate truffles.
Chocolate Truffles
For the perfect party treat, it’ll only take you about 45 minutes to make a batch of these chocolate truffles, and with only 5 ingredients.
Gourmet Level Chocolate Chip Cookies
You can take any chocolate chip cookie recipe and replace the chips with Valrhona for some gourmet-level cookies.
Chocolate Hazelnut Spread
All you need are some whole hazelnuts, condensed milk, honey and some dark Valrhona chocolate bars to create a creamy spread for your toast, muffins or bagels. You can add a little bit of this spread into your morning oatmeal or use it as a dip anytime a chocolate craving kicks in.
It’s not always about the skill level when it comes to creating restaurant-quality desserts, it’s more about the ingredients. If you have the right chocolate in hand, you’re golden.
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