When a surprise shoot for Mum turned into what could be a PR shoot for a new rock band ... Jake and Will braved the cold and brought their collective cheekbones to Longsands Beach. I gave in with the middle shot and had a bit of a play to bring out the amazing colours. They were great fun to shoot - and even smiled as their teeth chattered. Thanks guys!

A double page spread from the PR shoot for Escape Boutique, Whitley Bay featured in Lifestyle Magazine this month

They change so quickly ...

Pregnancy seems to last for ever - when you're pregnant. A photoshoot to record just one afternoon of the nine months when your body changes beyond recognition is a stunning way to remember just how clever you are.

Interior shop shots

What fun! The Hipstamatic application for the iPhone launched a new lens in time for London Fashion Week that was free to download and that gives amazing tonal shades to anything and everything. These shots include Longsands Beach in Tynemouth, some spiky trees I spied at the Metro station today and Seaton Sluice in Northumberland.

The Stampede, Gosforth Racecourse 

The Art of the Chocolatier

 

“The key element of successful chocolate-making is matching the flavour of the chocolate used to the ingredients going inside the chocolate, be it a ganache or a truffle.”

Gareth Mellor, Chocolatier

Different grades of chocolate, like wines or spirits, have different properties, flavour profiles, textures and characteristics. Think of the difference between a Sauternes dessert wine and a flinty Sauvignon Blanc. Both are made from grapes, both are wines but they are distinctly different drinks. The same goes for chocolate.

Chocolatiers work with couverture chocolate, a form of chocolate high in cocoa butter and cocoa solids that means that it is highly workable and suitable for dipping, coating, molding and garnishing. The skill of the chocolatier is in understanding the different properties of the couverture they work with and choosing the right combinations of chocolate and filling.

Sweet and mellow couvertures, like Valrhona’s Grand Cru Manjari Madagascar, fill the mouth with flavours that seems to extend right up into the ear canals. Its citrus notes stem from acids produced during the fermentation process and its dark, earthy undertones and 64% cocoa content mean that it is the perfect accompaniment for sharp, bitter lemon flavours, raspberry truffles and sea salt and caramel creations.

The couverture made by Michel Cluizel of Normandy contains 72% cocoa from South American, African and Javanese beans. The tiniest drop of it on the tongue reveals long lasting dense layers of malt, smoke and tobacco. A great carrier of flavour, the Cluizel couverture is used in mint chocolates to give a clean yet full bodied taste.

Felchlin, a company of Swiss chocolatiers, produced a rustic couverture chocolate to celebrate its centenary in 2008. With a light, coarse structure that melts away to leave granules of cane sugar on the tongue, the chocolate looks like something that has been carefully hewn from the earth’s core. Fermented for 48 hours this is the Dom Perignon of chocolate and its rough and ready appearance disguises a potent and heady cocktail of sweetness and strength.

The process of creating new truffles or flavoured ganache depends greatly upon the chocolatier’s senses, from smell to sight to touch. “You eat with your eyes first.” Gareth Mellor, a chocolatier based in Tynemouth explained. “My olive oil and lemon truffle has two drops of colour on its shell, one yellow and one green, to tell you which tastes you will find inside. The dark brown sphere of my fresh mint chocolate is strewn with delicate strands of bright green, again, to tell your mouth what to expect”.

The mint chocolates do indeed look like minute and edible Jackson Pollock paintings, colour coded for the taste buds. Next to the mint creations sit three orderly lines of what could be a nut of some sort. “Cedarwood truffles,” explained Gareth. “I dusted them with cocoa to give them an earthy, autumnal feel. Some combinations come through a process of trial and error. Others are sheer flukes. I sat for half an hour with a friend the other day trying to match the rum I wanted to the right chocolate for making a rum truffle. Some clashed and opposed on a very base level but when we found the right one it melded. The taste and texture were right. It just worked.” 

"Many thanks for your time and efforts yesterday.  You made something uncomfortable enjoyable!"

Michelle Simpson
www.michellesimpsonhr.co.uk
February 2011