Doctor Who Chocolate Candies

I recently made over 100 of these for gifts using the Doctor Who Ice Cube Tray from ThinkGeek

I made them with 8 different fillings from recipes I found online:

• Brazilian Coconut (Beijinho de Côco)
• Raspberry Chocolate Truffles
• Milk Chocolate (And Dark Chocolate - used same recipe)
• German Christmas Nougatkugeln (Nougat Balls) - Hazelnut with Coffee!
• White Chocolate Truffles
• Peanut Butter Buckeyes
• and Orange with Chocolate - see pictures!

I used a tub for each of the different fillings I wanted to make, and gathered supplies for each filling in a tub.
Your supplies will greatly depend on your filling recipes.

Basically, you will need:

• Doctor Who Ice Cube Tray from ThinkGeek
• Chocolate, Candy Melts, Almond Bark - whichever you choose for making the chocolate/confection coating (think of what will pair well with your fillings - I wanted specifically chocolate for the peanut butter filling, and white chocolate for the Brazilian filling, but some would work with either.)
• Cookie Sheets lined with Parchment Paper or Wax Paper (catches drips, good for spray-color, etc)
• Microwavable bowl for melting chocolate (these are great: Cambro RFS2PPSW3190 2-Quart Round Food-Storage Container with Lid, Set of 3)
• A freezer/fridge to help chocolates set
• Pastry/Baking Scraper
  
• Assorted Fillings (or mix chocolate with pretzels, rice cereal, etc...)

Possibly for decorating:

• Wilton Gold Color Mist
• Wilton Pearl Dust & a little vodka

For boxing up:

• Wilton Petite Loaf Baking Cups or some similar larger candy cup
• Boxes & Crinkle Paper (I got at our dollar store.)

Doctor Who fans who will enjoy the candy!

I made all of the 8 fillings first and put them back in the tubs, then in the refrigerator to let them cool. This way I could make the fillings one day and start on the chocolates another day.

Orange Chocolate filling

Ingredients

• Zest of one orange
• Juice of that orange (I used a little extra orange juice, too)
• 16 oz. semi-sweet or milk chocolate

Steps

• Zest the orange & put zest in a pot.
• Squeeze the juice of the orange into the pot.
• Add a little more orange juice if needed.
• Heat on stove over medium heat until simmering (will smoke some - use the vent!) and let simmer for about 5 or 6 minutes to reduce & concentrate the juice, stirring frequently.
• Remove from heat and strain out the pulp.
• Stir 2 Tablespoons of the hot juice into the chocolate, adding more if necessary to help melt the chocolate.

This filling will be solid at room temperature when cooled, I had to microwave it for 10 seconds & mix back up to use.

I'm not going to lie, this gets messy!

I tried with the first set to add gold hard candy sugar pearls - but they didn't stay put and got lost in the Daleks. Someone is in for a surprise! Maybe you can find a better way for this.

Melt Chocolate:

You melt the chocolate in 30 second intervals in the microwave, then stir, then melt, then stir - until it is all JUST ABOUT melted. If you want to temper the chocolate, there are lots of videos and instructions on how to do this online.

https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Temper-Chocolate/

I can't explain it better!

Fill Mold with Chocolate:

• I filled the mold all the way full, then sort of pinched and pulled and tugged at it to make sure all the crevices were filled with chocolate.
• Then I dumped the chocolate back into the tub, and used a scraper to scrape off the excess chocolate.
  • I made sure there was plenty of chocolate left on the walls of mold by tilting the mold at different angles to get more chocolate in the Dalek head and at the bottom and sides of the Tardis. (These were problem areas - where my "fails" happened most after trying to pop the candies out of the mold.)
• After the mold is filled, I put it in the freezer for about 15 minutes to firm up. (This was a good time to decorate finished candies, clean up, etc... though I wish I had had two molds!)

If several of your chocolates are breaking when you pop them out of the mold (in the next step) then you may want to put the molds, when all the way full of chocolate, in the freezer for about 2 minutes, then dump the excess back into the bowl.

Fill Mold with Fillings:

• Remove mold with hardened chocolate from freezer and fill with your fillings
  • Fillings that are not very dense will not work well in this mold. I tried using a raspberry filling without chocolate, and the chocolates crushed when I tried to remove them from the mold.
  • Be SURE to leave enough room at the top to make a nice solid layer of chocolate to seal!
  • You may get some on the sides close to the top - just wipe with a paper towel as best as you can
• Top the mold with more melted chocolate - tap a couple of times to let the chocolate settle around the filling
• Scrape excess chocolate off with scraper (back into bowl of melted chocolate)
• Add any "topping" like crushed cookies, nuts, coconut, etc you want (will be on bottom, but still nice touch)
• Return mold to freezer for 15-20 minutes - touch to see if it is hard

This is the breaking point. I killed a lot of Daleks and Tardises this way - but you can salvage the chocolate and filling as best you can, or give the broken ones to the family (like I did!)

There isn't an easy way about it. Some just have to die.

• Bring the mold out of the freezer and sort of "massage" the outside of the mold a little to sort of warm the chocolate back up a little (while this sounds counter-productive since you just took it out of the freezer - it is just a TINY bit) - loosen up the chocolate a little in the mold. Some people dip the bottom of the mold in warm or hot water.
• Pull on the sides to pull the mold away from the candies inside.
• Hold the mold over a cookie sheet and push the bottom of the Dalek or Tardis and tried to be careful, but you will see if you did a good job of building up the walls!

If you break a lot, then re-evaluate how long you cooled the chocolates, if you over filled them, or if you needed make sure the first chocolate layer needed to be thicker (like freezing for 2 minutes when full of chocolate as mentioned in previous step.)

I tried the blue Wilton Color Mist, and it didn't cover the chocolates very well (not even the white.)

But the gold Color Mist worked great!

On several I used the Wilton Pearl Dust dry, and some I used it mixed with a little bit of vodka. The alcohol evaporates in a short while after applied, and it makes it to where you can use the Pearl Dust as a sort of paint.

Mixed with the vodka it worked pretty well.

I weighed the candies and each Tardis weighed about 2 ounces! These are big chocolates!

The Wilton mini loaf cups were a good size for serving.

Hope your Doctor Who fans enjoy the hard work you used to make these!

NOM!