Schokoküsse

Colourful Carnival Version

You don’t speak German to understand, well, here’s the English word for word translation: chocolate kisses. No, not Hershey’s Kisses… The dictionary says: chocolate marshmallows or small chocolate-covered cream cake. But neither of those do the thing justice. So the only thing I can think of is giving you the German name…and a pictures of course. Those are the ones I made but they are not looking like the ones from the store, obviously. It’s a bit tricky but stay with me because it’s a fun and different treat.

Schokoküsse (plural) are addicting, that much I can tell you. They are sugary, chocolaty and very very yummy. If you ever go to Germany or Austria or around that region give them a try. So basically a Schokokuss (singular) is sugar cream on a wafer covered with chocolate. Most common is milk chocolate but white and dark chocolate are in there too. You even can get coconut sprinkles if you want. They generally come in two sizes, big and small.

These are the ones you get in Germany. Via

Now, I miss those and I was wondering if they can be recreated. When I came across Martha Stewards’ Hi-Hat Cupcakes I found what I was looking for. Forget the cupcake, give me the icing. Because that’s what you will need.

The next issue would be the wafer, but that problem was solved by the Bulk Barn. Thank you! I love that store, it’s a baker’s best friend.

Ingredients:

– 1 3/4 cup sugar
– 3 large egg whites
– 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
– 1/4 cup water
– 1 tsp. vanilla extract
– 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Mix the sugar, egg whites, cream of tartar and water in a heatproof bowl on high until foamy. Beat with a hand mixer over slightly simmering water for about 12 min. until stiff peaks are formed. Take it off, add vanilla and almond extract and beat for 2 additional minutes until well combined.

If it looks like this it’s good.

Tip 1 : I do not own a hand mixer, just yet. So I beat the mixtures in my stand mixer and transferred it into a bowl to be heated over the water. There I beat it with a whisk as long as I could, almost those 12 min. The heat is there to solidify the egg whites. After that I transferred it back into the stand mixer and let it run until it was stiff. Then I added the vanilla and almond extract and combined that well.

Tip 2: Personally, next time I make this I will leave out the almond extract. It is too much, too over powdering and doesn’t belong in there.

Fill your piping bag with the mixture and use a big ground tip. Take a wafer sheet and cut, with a round cookie cutter, as many pieces as you need. I used little ones to make sure I have enough, I ended up with just over 100. That’s a lot of piping but a lot of fun for the kids as well.

Cut to shape wafers.

Now, pipe circles as best as you can. The mix is sticky, so watch out for that. I would suggest you experiment a little. I ended up with sort of pyramid or tree shaped things.

Normally you would use milk chocolate but I used coloured chocolate because it was for a Carnival celebration and I wanted something fun and colour ful. There are some brown ones as well of course.

Piped “Kisses”.

Melt your chocolate and add some vegetable shortening to make sure it flows nice and thin. Carefully dip each one, making sure all the icing is covered. You can also spoon the chocolate over it on a wire rack but you might loose a lot of chocolate. Let them cool overnight or in the fridge.

Tip 3: Place a wax paper underneath the wire rack to catch excess chocolate so you can reuse it.

Add sprinkles if you like. Draw faces with chocolate, be creative!