Chocolate Christmas Tale

Every year UniCorn makes the same mistake. EVERY year. You might wonder if she’ll ever learn. Given UniCorn’s past that is highly unlikely.

December 25 2006:
UniCorn: *Staring at the empty make-your-own-soap kits on the floor* Fri! Remind me never to do that again, never!
FridayNext: I will remind you again and you will choose not to hear me…again.
UniCorn: No, next year will be different, I swear.
FridayNext: *Rolling her eyes* Okay, Uni, whatever you say.

September 2007:
UniCorn: *In the kitchen preparing dinner* Hon, I think I’m going to bake again this year.
ChessBoy: *Extremely preoccupied at his computer* Wha?
UniCorn: You know for Christmas
ChessBoy: *Still not taking his eyes off the screen* Right, Christmas, sounds fine
UniCorn: Because people really loved my cookies last year
ChessBoy: *Swearing at his on-line opponent’s smart move on the board*
UniCorn: *Sulking a bit because she thought he was swearing at her* But Hon, they really did. They said so.
ChessBoy: *Laughing out loud because he just found the move to answer his opponents attack*
UniCorn: *Sticking her head into the office* I get the feeling you’re not listening
ChessBoy: *Glancing sideways at UniCorn* What, sweetie, I love you too.
UniCorn: Nevermind.

November 2007:
UniCorn is at the local library trying to work on her thesis. It’s not really going so well, so she ventures into the aisles of books. She stops randomly, picking up a book here and there. And then all of a sudden, she picks up the book.

UniCorn: Aaw!
Librarian: Hussshhh
UniCorn: Sorry, it’s just, this book is perfect. Just what I was looking for. It was like it was calling for me.
Librarian: Huusssshhh

UniCorn mumbles a profanity under her breath, takes the book back to her table and begins leafing through it. It all looks so delicious, so beautiful, so perfect. In her mind, she is already giving lovely boxes away, wrapped with silk ribbon and full of perfection and people Oohs and Aahs and wonders at UniCorn’s seemingly infinite energy reserves.

She takes out a piece of paper and writes down all the names of those she wants to give a little box of perfection. It’s a long list ‘cause UniCorn has got a big family and friends who would just adore such a gift.

She picks up a new piece of paper and starts selecting pieces of perfection from the beautifully illustrated book. She picks seven different ones and makes a list of all the things she needs to buy. That list is even longer than the list of recipients, but it doesn’t matter ‘cause she’s on the road to perfection: Hand made chocolates.

November and early December 2007:
UniCorn is shopping. Big time. She hasn’t told anyone about her mission, it will be a complete surprise. She keeps all the stuff in a box in her kitchen, all ready for the day she decides to make the chocolates. She has gone over the lists of ingredients, crossing out as she gets along, and she has bought boxes that she will paint in beautiful colors and stencil snowflakes on. It will be perfect. She is certain of it.

When she has finally done all of her shopping her kitchen is full of:
1 kg of dark 70% chocolate
400g of light chocolate
400g of white chocolate
1 kg of marcipan
500g of nougat
And then of course all the “trimmings”: Coconut flour, almonds and hazelnuts, sugar, butter, cream, apricots, honey, chutney, raisins, 2 types of liquor, oranges and some purple and gold sprinkly things to go on top of the chocolates.

It has cost a fortune, but really if you think about it, so do handmade chocolates if you go to a real chocolate shop. Right?

December 12 2007:
Today is the day. Chocolate day. ChessBoy has gone to visit a friend of his, so UniCorn is all alone – except for the birdies, but they won’t interfere. It’s noon and she has all day. Not that she’ll need it; it looks really easy in the recipies.

UniCorn: Right, here we go. Crunch first. So I need hazelnuts and sugar. Let me just check the recipe…it says skinless hazelnuts. Ha, naked hazelnuts. Perverts. Shit, mine has that dark skin on, that’s probably what they mean.

UniCorn scratches a bit on one of the nuts to see if the skin will come off. It is glued on.

UniCorn: Right, don’t fret.

She checks in one of her books and finds a place in which the author says to just smack the nuts in the oven for fifteen minutes and the skin will come right off.

UniCorn: In the meantime, I’ll chop the almonds…Goddammit! I need to peel the skin of them too! At least I know how to do that.

She pours boiling water over the almonds and start peeling the skin off. After 10 minutes, her back and neck aches from bending over the almonds and her fingers have gone all prunie.

UniCorn: Right, hazelnuts done. Are they supposed to smell like that? Then I just place the hazelnuts in a piece of cloth – hot hot hot - and rub them and the skin will come off.

UniCorn does so and rubs the nuts against each other. She realizes that most food can be quite perverted and sniggers. She opens the cloth.

UniCorn: What the hell!

Only about half of the nuts are now without skin. And the rest seem really reluctant to let go of their brown bits. She starts peeling the skin off one nut at a time.

UniCorn: Almonds and hazelnuts done… And so is the first hour. But it should be smooth sailing from now on.

UniCorn begins making the stuff for the little balls that will be the centres of the chocolates. She makes orange centres, almond raisin centres, cream centres with Baileys, chocolate nougat centres and marzipan nougat centres. Now it is time to form those little balls. She begins with the orange centres.

UniCorn: Are they supposed to be this sticky?

She checks the recipe but it just says to form little balls and place them on greaseproof paper. UniCorn tries to make the balls round, but they keep sticking to her hands and she realizes that there is now more orange stuff on her hands than on the greaseproof paper. And the balls are not round, egg-shaped at best, bulky and weirdlooking at worst.

UniCorn: *Determined not to let the shape of her chocolate centres get her down* So they are rustic, no point in not being able to see that they are handmade.

She makes balls, lots of balls. She fills one baking tray after the other. Finally, they are all ready, in neat lines of wobbly looking balls. She looks at her watch. She has now spent four hours and she’s tired from standing and straining in her back and neck.

UniCorn: But I have to finish them today or they’ll dry out. So, on to melting chocolate. That can’t be so hard.

UniCorn checks the recipe.

UniCorn: Shit, a thermometer. *Goes through all her cabinets and finally finds a thermometer for chocolate and candy*. Good, now bring it on.

She puts the dark chocolate in the pot and begins heating it. It says that the chocolate should be heated until it reaches 45 degrees celcius. At 45, she takes the pot off the heat and melts the last chocolate in the hot chocolate – just as it says in the recipe.

UniCorn: So now I just need to stir it until it has cooled to 27 degrees and then reheat it to 31.

She stirs. And stirs. And stirs. 42 degrees. Stirs. Stirs. Stirs. 39 degrees. Stirs. Stirs. Stirs. Sits down on the floor with the pot and stirs. 32 degrees. Stirs stirs…. After what seems like an eternity, the needle finally points at 27 degrees. Off to the stove and reheat it to 31 degrees. No sweat.

It is now time to dip the centres in the chocolate. The first centre takes a plunge from the fork and into the chocolate. UniCorn swears and tries to get it onto the fork again, but this only causes the ball to split in three. She takes a spoon and gets the pieces out – and eats them. What else was she to do with that broken ball? After about 10 balls, she is getting the hang of it and she has no disasters with the rest. She dips in coconut and cocoa, sprinkles with purple and gold, melts white chocolate and makes stripes all over some of the dark chocolate balls.

Finally, six hours after she begun the whole ordeal, she’s done. And it looks good. Not perfection. But good. She places the trays with chocolates by an open window, as it says in the recipe, and lies down on the couch for a well-deserved rest.

Half an hour later she gets up. She wants to see if the chocolate has hardened. She goes into the kitchen and sees…disaster. She blinks and hopes it will go away, that it was just grease on her contacts, but it is still there. All the pretty, shiny, not-perfect-but-definitely-a-good-first-try chocolates have gone completely non-glossy and whitish.

UniCorn: Oh my God! They’re ruined.

She rushes to the book. And finds a page at the back of the book that says: What went wrong. And she finds her answer. She heated the chocolate too fast. She hurls the book through the kitchen and looks down at her 87 handmade chocolates that all have a dull, greyish taint to them. She wants to throw them out of the window, but hell if she’s going to throw away 6 hours and God only knows (‘cause she hasn’t dared tell ChessBoy) how much money.

She picks one of the greyish monstrosities and puts it in her mouth. And it is really good. Her mouth is filled with an orangy, chocolaty, coconutty flavour and she smiles. Near-perfection.

2 hours later she still hasn’t decided whether she’ll ever give any of them away, but she has tasted all flavours and she is satisfied. And then she knows what to do. She picks up one of the painted boxes that she made for the chocolates and finds a brush. On the lid, she writes:

Don’t judge a chocolate by its cover – and don’t laugh before you’ve tasted them.

She sits down and starts making a list of ingredients for her Christmas cookies...



Cristmas greetings and lots of love from
UniCorn