If making homemade chocolate is something you’ve always wanted to do, but if you think it might be above your culinary skill level, why not try our mendiant recipe? You’ll love our recipe of a beautiful bite-sized chocolate disc that doesn’t require more skill than pouring and decorating, doesn’t require special equipment.

For these French-style chocolates, you can combine your own favorite combinations and choose from a wide range of nuts. In white chocolate, walnuts, peanuts, pine nuts, coconut raspberries or melon, papaya, orange or lemon, all kinds of sugar will look good. Also candied flowers are a good choice to beautify your mendiants. Candied rose petals or violets will give your mendiants a flamboyant touch. But be careful, 3-4 different materials per Mendiant are enough, otherwise it will be a bit overdone.

120 g white couverture
120 g whole milk couverture
120 g dark chocolate couverture

Dried fruits and nuts as desired, eg: freeze-dried raspberries, pistachios, cashews, sultanas, dates, ginger, dried cranberries or sour cherries, peanuts, etc.

Classic for Quatre mendiants: hazelnuts, almonds, figs and raisins

• Read the dried fruits and nuts, remove the peel, possibly roast and put everything ready. If necessary chop chocolate for tempering.
  Lay out the work surface or a sheet of siliconized baking paper. If necessary, make a template with 12 circles of 5 cm diameter and place under the baking paper.

  Temporarily temper the chocolates for each variety of Mendiants.
  Melt 90 g of chocolate over the water bath (maximum 60 ° C) and heat to the desired temperature. Add the remaining 30 g of chocolate to the melted chocolate and allow to cool to the desired temperature while stirring. Then heat the chocolate to working temperature, which only takes a few seconds over the water bath.

  Temperatures (or follow the table on the packaging of the chocolate):

  Dark chocolate couverture:
  melt and heat to 55/58 ° C. Then cool with the remaining chocolate to 28/29 ° C and bring just above the water bath to working temperature 31/32 ° C.

  Whole milk couverture:
  melt and heat to 45/50 ° C. Then cool with the remaining chocolate to 27/28 ° C and bring just above the water bath to working temperature 29/30 ° C.

  White couverture:
  melt and heat to 45/50 ° C. Then cool with the remaining chocolate to 26/27 ° C and bring just above the water to 28/29 ° C working temperature