The best chocolate doesn’t come from Belgium or Switzerland. It comes from Connecticut. The best truffles don’t come from Alba or Perigord. They come from Norwalk.
Denmark-born Fritz Knipschildt, Maitre Chocolatier of Knipschildt Chocolatier, created a 42 gram (1.5 ounce) confection using a dark chocolate, classic ganache and a French Perigord truffle. It is the world’s most extravagant chocolate truffle and costs $250.
Here, The Knife talks exclusively to Fritz about his incredible creation.
Methodology
"The ganache is made using 71% single Ecuadorian dark chocolate mixed with fresh cream that has been infused for 24 hours with the flavour of vanilla pods and pure Italian truffle oil," Fritz tells us. "The ganache is then shaped around the French Perigord truffle [the truffle alone costs up to $1,000 per pound/454 grams], then dipped in 71% single bean Ecuadorian chocolate and rolled in cocoa powder.
"What really makes Le Madeline truffle so exquisite is the time and energy that goes into it. The ganache, for example, must be whipped repeatedly to make it as soft and silky as possible, then it must be chilled so that it is easier to work with. It’s a long and painstaking process, and when you realise how much work has gone into it, you realise that it is worth every penny. These special truffles are at least two inches in diameter, and each is individually wrapped in a gold bag."
Artisanal
The first chocolate truffle was created in Chambery in Savoie by the pastry chef Louis Dufour in 1895. Missing all the ingredients for his standard chocolates, he had the idea of combining crème fraiche, vanilla and cocoa to create little round balls, dipping them in melted chocolate and then rolling them in cocoa. They looked like truffles, so that’s what he called them.
For over 20 years House of Knipschildt has been renowned for creating exquisite quality artisan chocolate. Fritz Knipschildt combines exquisite old European craftsmanship, intriguing avant-garde flavour combinations and handpicked natural ingredients to create artistic customised chocolate pieces.
Specialities include a giant speckled chocolate dinosaur egg, flourless chocolate truffle cake, pumpkin pieces, bacon and bourbon truffles, mocha truffles, chaga truffles, truffle oil truffles, Grand Marnier and marzipan truffles, Aperol Spritz caramels, acai and puffed quinoa chocolate, Yuzu Dragon passion fruit cake and Green Lady matcha tea cake.
“My father’s side of the family are all artists, and on my mother’s side all entrepreneurs,” says the former chef and now master East Coast chocolatier who grew up in Odense. He attended hotel and restaurant school and worked in France and Spain before arriving in the US in 1996, at the age of 20, and working as a private chef at Le Chateau in South Salem, N.Y. to get his green card. “But my dream had always been to one day be cooking with chocolate,” he says.
He began experimenting with sweet-and-savoury combinations in his Norwalk apartment kitchen, introducing exotic flavours like chipotle, cayenne and balsamic vinegar. In 2005, he opened Chocopologie in SoNo, a café/chocolate shop/manufacturing facility where all of his House of Knipschildt chocolates are still made.
Today, House of Knipschildt’s exquisite, handcrafted truffles – made with the finest quality chocolates from Ecuador, Costa Rica, Thailand and Papua New Guinea (he imported six tons in 2013) –are carried at top national retailers like Whole Foods, Balducci’s and Dean & DeLuca. Each signature collection comes in a handmade paper box, marked with a six-month shelf life; there’s also a secondary, less expensive "Chocopologie" line. Knipschildt has appeared on The Martha Stewart Show and Food Network Challenge.
In 2005, Knipschildt opened Café Chocopologie, a South Norwalk café. He now makes over 40 different types of truffles, but it is his Madeline for which the company has become famous.
Madeline History
France’s national cookie – basically a miniature pound cake – is not a special occasion cake. It’s an everyday occasion cake and essential to the French “faire goûter”. The first madeleines were probably made to feed pilgrims passing through Commercy on the Camino de Santiago, one of the most important pilgrimage routes of the Middle Ages.
The scallop shell is an ancient Christian symbol. It is seen in medieval representations of St. James the Greater as well as basic depictions of pilgrims. After James was martyred in Jerusalem in the year 44, his body was taken to Spain and when the ship reached the shore a horse shied and fell into the sea. For pilgrims in the Middle Ages the journey was typically done to fulfil a penance given by a priest. To prove the final destination had been reached, a local souvenir was required. Plenty of shells were available on the Spanish coast.
In the 1750s, Stanislaus I, the deposed king of Poland and the father-in-law of King Louis XV, invited the king to dinner at his chateau. The chef walked out leaving everyone in the lurch. There was no dessert for the royal party and no time for any elegant patisserie or time-consuming giant jellies. As others panicked around her, kitchen maid Madeleine Paulmier rolled up her sleeves and whipped up some of her grandmother’s sweet little seashell sponge cakes. Louis XV and Queen Marie were impressed and took the cakes back to the court of Versailles for their own chefs to recreate.
A recipe was included in the La Cuisiniere de la campagne et de la ville by Louis-Eustache Audot cookbook. But the warm scalloped cake was immortalised in Marcel Proust’s In Remembrance Of Time, published 1913. The narrator finds himself transported through time by the unexpected memory of short, plump little cakes, called “petites madeleines”, which looked as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim’s shell.
Tableware
We use a lot of different brands of tableware. Although I prefer white supports, in my kitchen we have probably more than 30 different dishes of all shapes and colours to choose from when we create a recipe. And we are always looking for something new and inspiring! That’s a nice part of my job. My favourite is our Vesuvio plate that was made exclusively for us from Broggi and Studio Raw. This is where we serve our amuse-bouche that simulates a volcanic stone in the mouth of the active volcano!
Fritz's Creation
“What is so beautiful about the Madeleine is its simplicity," says Fritz. “It is a dark, classic truffle confection; extravagant certainly, but at the same time elegant and clean and unfussy. It contains only the very finest ingredients. The basic ganache, or chocolate paste, is made using French Valrhona chocolate – probably the best in the world – mixed with fresh cream that has stood for 24 hours infusing the flavour of vanilla pods, and a few drops of pure Italian truffle oil. The ganache is then shaped around a French Perigord truffle and dusted with cocoa powder.
"Because of the constant whipping and folding by hand, it has to be carefully moved to a specially refrigerated room to mould it around the truffle, the cold air hardening it slightly and thus making it more workable.
"Chocolate is such a magical lady, but so temperamental as well. It takes a long time to get to know and understand her, to realise her real potential. But my goal has never changed. It’s to impress, surprise and provide customers with the ultimate chocolate and confection experiences. Be that black pepper red chili, lavender or eggnog! My travels have inspired me. Because of my background, I incorporate a lot of Scandinavian flavours like elderflower, pine needle, or gooseberry in my chocolates.
“Eating my Madeleine is no ordinary chocolate experience. It’s an event. It is not made just to be stuck in your mouth and swallowed. I would suggest you serve it on a silver platter, cut it with the best knife you have in the house and eat it with a wonderful bottle of red wine. The flavours are just so amazing, the ingredients so special that it deserves to have a ceremony made of it.
“I’m not old-fashioned. I like to infuse my chocolates with crazy flavours, but I really care about how chocolate is made.”
