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Cooking Up A Storm, Day 3

Day thee started off with a blanket of snow covering the ice. But by early afternoon much of it had melted. I made a quick trip to the store. While they had clearly received at least some items---the supply of bananas was refreshed---many other items were still completely out of stock. The egg cooler, for example, was completely barren. Once again, I spent less time cooking and more time enjoying what I had cooked on Day 1. My big project for the day was a batch of chocolate mint lozenges. Here they are in the mold.

And here are the finished mints.

The key to chocolate is tempering, which is the process of forming crystals in the chocolate that make it firm and shiny. This process takes time and patience as you run the chocolate through an annealing cycle: hot, then cool down with stirring, then warm back up. This batch came out fairly well. The mints didn't all release cleanly from the molds, leaving some spots, but they are nice and bright as a chocolate should be.
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