Dragonfruit Nebulae chocolate bars: recipe development notes. It took a little while, but I ended up settling on a set of flavors I’m really happy with.
I tried various inclusions — pictured here are dried cherries, which worked better than dried pineapple, crystallized ginger, or dried cranberries — the pineapple and ginger were too sweet, not enough contrast with the white chocolate, and the cranberries were either also too sweet (if sweetened) or not flavor enough (if unsweetened).
The cherries gave a good punch of flavor and tang, but in the end, I decided they actually distracted from what I was doing with the chocolate itself, which was subtle and interesting.
I do love this mold — it is perfect for dragonfruit chocolate bars, giving the appearance of scales. Which of course, must be gilded, to keep the dragon happy. The gilding (first with powdered dragonfruit, followed with edible gold) also highlights the angles, sharpening the scale effect. Love.
