Month: October 2020

Categories
Local Trips

Cows for Luke

October 23, 2020

Cows and Bikes

There has been a couple staying here the last couple of weeks. Anna and Samuel are from Slovakia and Switzerland. They’re been waiting for some parts before continuing the ride south into Guatemala. Meanwhile they’ve been helping out with odds and end.

I’ve been out a couple of times with Samuel on local rides. Yesterday a pretty big one. About 72 kilometers and 600 meters of climb. Though we didn’t take too many pictures there were a lot of cows along there.

To add a bit more I decided to add two other videos from earlier bike rides in the same region. They are at the bottom. When you click on the start arrow be patient. They take a minute to load.

Since my grandson Luke is interested in cows this post is dedicated to him.

Categories
Chocolate

Making Chocolate Turtles

Our most popular Chocolate pieces we call “Tortugas”. They are made from out 70% dark chocolate to which we add pecans “nogales” and dried cranberries “arandanos”. We take the blocks of chocolate and melt them in a big bowl that is set over a larger container filled with heated water. Basically a double boiler. Here it’s called a “baño maria”. The temperature goes to 50C (122F). Then we let it cool to about 33C (91F). That temperature creates chocolate that is brittle and maintains it’s hardness. Known as tempered or crystalline structure 5.

Once the chocolate is at the proper temperature we mix in the pecans and cranberries. Using a basic tablespoon and a spatula we then drop them onto a cookie sheet “charola”. We put them in a freezer for a few minutes so they harden fast and maintain their structure.

Of course we lick all the implements after the work is done. Any folks that happen to be visiting get to help. Especially with the last part.

Making chocolate turtles