White Chocolate Cardamom Apricot Rosemary Chocolates

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me to make a new confection for her upcoming birthday party.  She had previously sampled my white chocolate cardamom orange truffles, and requested something of a more seasonal nature - apricots.  So I got to work.  I contacted my muse, and bounced my ideas off of her, and came up with something I thought people would like.  I was going to try to do an apricot rosemary gel filling, but through experimentation, determined that I didn't have the right equipment, additives or the time to do these properly so I decided to simply swirl the two together which worked out quite nicely.


White chocolate mixture
6 bars of good quality white chocolate
15 cardamom pods
1 cup of water

Apricot/Rosemary/Lemon Gel
8 large apricots (not too ripe)
1/4-1/2 teaspoon of rosemary (lesser amount if fresh)
1-2 tablespoon of lemon juice (lesser amount if fresh)
1/2 cup raw sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt
water as needed (minimum 1 cup).

Optional
ground pecans - lightly salted
ground cashews - lightly salted

Implements
fine strainer
1 double boiler
1 medium saucepan
1 small pot
teaspoons
wax paper
chilled plate
storage containers
small sharp knife
1 small bowl

1. Place white chocolate in a double boiler at lowest heat and melt.
2. Using a small sharp knife and a plate, split the cardamom pods and collect the seeds in a small pot.
3. Add the water to the pot and simmer for at 15 minutes.  Then strain out the seeds and continue heating until volume is down to 1/2 cup or a bit less.
4. Mix this into the melted white chocolate.
5. Wash and split apricots, removing the pits.  Place is a blender and reduce to significant bits.
6. Put blended apricots in a medium saucepan, cover with water.
7. Add rosemary, salt, sugar and lemon juice.
8. Bring mixture to a simmer, stirring occasionally to prevent any burning.
9. Continue until the apricot bits fall apart and the mixture begins to take on a somewhat uniform consistency and texture (30-45 minutes).  Add water as necessary to prevent burning.
10.  Sift in 3 tablespoons of gelatin.  (One at a time and then stir slowly).
11. Let cook another 15 minutes.
12. Continue until mixture is quite thick.
13. Cool in refrigerator until mix starts to gel.
14. Remove chocolate mix from heat.
15. Slowly stir in the apricot mixture.  (While we want a uniform distribution, we don't want them fully blended - think small apricot swirls in the chocolate).
16. If you are going to do a nut covering, ground the selected nut and mix with 1/4 teaspoon of salt.  Raw nuts are recommended.  Place in small bowl.
17. Put a plastic glove on your off hand (I use the latex free medical gloves you can pick up at any drug store).
18. Take a teaspoon and spoon up a half teaspoon full of the mixture.  Form into 1/2-3/4 inch balls.
19. If you want to add a nut covering, drop in the ground nut bowl and roll until the confection is completely covered.
20. Place the confection on wax paper which is placed on top of a chilled plate.
21. Put plate in refrigerator to set.
22. Once set, place in storage container lined with wax paper, you can do multiple layers as long as you put wax paper between them.
23. Refrigerate until 30 minutes before serving.  Serve slightly chilled.

My favorite variation so far is the one wrapped in pecans, but am looking forward to trying the cashew variant which should be a bit more subtle.

Enjoy!