Chocolate "Nougat" (?) Chocolates

A first attempt - I halved all the ingredients because I didn't want to make 4 dozen chocolates, but this kind of makes the recipe really weird. Double all ingredients listed if you don't want to mess around with 1/2 an egg white.

Ingredients

• 1/2 an egg white (I know, weird)
  
• 1.5c powdered sugar
  
• .5c unsweetened cocoa powder
  
• 1/6c light corn syrup
  
• 12oz (about 2c) semisweet chocolate chips
  
• rock salt (we used penzy's "french gray sea salt")
  

In a medium metal bowl, beat the egg white until it's frothy but not stiff. Add the cocoa and corn syrup and beat together. Then slowly add powdered sugar until you have something that resembles a dough. Add powdered sugar until you can knead the dough. Turn it out onto a counter dusted with powdered sugar, and knead into a smooth texture, then roll it out to desired thickness. Cut the dough (you can use a cookie cutter or, if you want square chocolates, a pizza cutter or just a chef's knife works well). Arrange the pieces of dough on a cookie sheet and put in the freezer.

Now, melt all but 1/4c the chocolate chips, either in the microwave (30 seconds at a time, taking out to stir regularly until there's enough residual heat to melt the chips the rest of the way) or in a double boiler (same deal - take them off the heat when everything is melted ENOUGH that it will melt the rest of the way without the heat). Add the 1/4c extra chocolate chips and stir until everything is MOSTLY melted. This is to temper the chocolate (basically, the 1/4c chocolate chips are seed crystals to reestablish the lattices you destroyed by melting the chocolate).

Take the dough out of the freezer. Dip the pieces of dough into the chocolate and then (as best you can, anyway) put them on a piece of waxed paper. Sprinkle a small amount of salt on top. Let them cool for 15 minutes at room temperature, then put them in the fridge for a little while until the chocolate sets. Then you can take them out and leave them at room temperature all you want.

Thoughts: When I originally made this recipe, I didn't know about tempering the chocolate. Untempered chocolate has a much lower melting point than tempered chocolate, so as soon as you pick up these chocolates they start melting in your fingers. Later attempts at SIMILAR candies proved more successful.

The "dough" center of these chocolates is okay, but I find it a little overly sweet, overly chewy, and overly dense. This led me to feel I wanted more of a "mousse" texture on the inside. The salt on top was a definite plus, though, and really improves the taste. Overall, this was amazingly successful for such a generally finicky cooking process, but there's room for improvement.

Disaster Index: 3/10