Filled Chocolates!

This was my first time making filled chocolates with molds! I was glad to see that the bittersweet chocolate had been melted at the right temperature because the shells came out shiny.

The half-dome and flat heart shapes came from plastic molds, while the other, deeper two used silicone molds.

The flat hearts are simply bittersweet chocolate with bits of freeze-dried strawberries. For the filled chocolates, I filled each mold with 2 coats of bittersweet chocolate. Once the shell was hardened, I made ganaches for the filling: both bases were white chocolate, butter, and heavy cream. The green tea ganache was flavored with matcha powder, while the strawberry ganache was flavored with ground-up, sieved freeze-dried strawberries. Once the shells were filled with ganache, I topped off the molds with more bittersweet chocolate.

Finally, I bought some foil wrappers to package them in!

Very, very time-consuming overall - I think I prefer making dipped truffles - but fun to try!