Marmite Chocolate Changed Paul a Young's Life Forever (Plus Some Never Before Seen Tips and Recipes)
Chocolate can mean many things. It can be a ‘Congratulations It’s a Boy’, ‘Well Done on Your New Job’, ‘Happy Birthday Mum’. From counting down the days with a little hidden surprise behind every door, to sharing your favourite box with someone special on the anniversary of your first kiss or the day you said ‘I Do’. Stealing a little bit of me time away from the kids; the job; the stress of life - to adding an extra sprinkle of chocolate chips into your pancake batter on Sunday morning. It can say ‘I’m sorry’. ‘I’m thinking about you’. ‘I’m here if you need me’. It’s the Happy Easter bunnies; the Merry Christmas Santas; the chocolate flake in your ice-cream and everything in between. It has meaning, it has emotion, it has love. And for some, it’s their entire life. We all have our own unspoken love story with chocolate from our very first taste as a child as it melted on our tongues (and probably our entire hands, face and clothes) - and one of our favourite chocolatiers, Paul a Young’s story really does make us melt. Known for his unique flavour combinations, techniques and style - Paul is a master of his craft - but it’s his love for the emotional attachment behind each bar, truffle or cookie he makes that truly enticed us in. Here, in an exclusive read, Paul a Young tells Consommé just exactly what chocolate means to him. And just like tempering chocolate - he dives in deep to the highs and lows and highs again of the chocolate world and explains how a Sea Salt Caramel and a Marmite Truffle changed his life forever.
“Every chocolate has a story to tell but only because it has someone, somewhere attached to it. It’s emotional, evocative and for me - it’s screaming at me to spin it around, muddle it up and create it into a new flavour with unique texture and colour. That’s my relationship with chocolate and how I started my business [Paul a Young Fine Chocolates] in 2006. I had a desire not just to melt, temper, mould and fill but to blend together my love for everything chocolate. I still remember those feelings of intense focus, concentration and passion when creating something new (that I knew would spark either controversy or conversation) - and that’s what I love. When you find a way to express your creativity it’s like a runaway train and nothing will stop it. It’s a drug. But when you overuse any drug it can also make creativity challenging and stressful as the pressure to keep innovating is a huge weight to carry. The journey however is pinpointed and savoured with moments of joy and wonder; finding that perfect balance of flavour and texture along with customers asking for more, returning to buy more and questioning ‘What’s next?, What’s new?’ That’s why we cook for others, and that’s why I create new chocolates for others. The reaction of joy I can bring to others (most of the time) is what makes my heart melt and allows me to think openly about developing new chocolates in the future.
Paul a Young Fine Chocolates
My decision to take my chocolates away from the expected wasn’t an immediate one, as I knew that I had to create and perfect new recipes of the classics that we all knew and loved first. I did this in my home kitchen in 2005 once I knew that chocolate was my calling. Back then Sea Salted Caramel was rarely known and it definitely was not available to buy in your local shop. Back then I wanted to create a caramel that when I closed my eyes catapulted me back to moments in my childhood when I first tasted homemade fudge, caramel and butterscotch; buttery, creamy and sweet are still some of my favourite flavour profiles, however it was missing something. Sea Salt. It was a moment in time, in 2005, when I first added sea salt into my soft caramel as I wanted an extra layer of flavour and complexity when paired with my Valrhona 64% Madagascan dark chocolate. Of course, I was not the only chocolatier adding sea salt to caramel at that time, but by doing so, I created my own little bubble. In this bubble I was only focussed on what I wanted to do and didn’t want to know what anyone else was doing. This way I wasn’t influenced by anyone else’s style. Im a self-taught chocolatier, I’ve had no formal chocolate training, which, in a way, has been a blessing as I didn’t have to re-learn or adapt already developed recipes. All of my recipes were my own and original to me at that time. And who knew sea salted caramel would be so HUGE?! It become a 15 year overnight success for so many chocolatiers and manufacturers across the world. I won my first award for this chocolate, A Gold Award and I was finally acknowledged by The Academy Of Chocolate - this is when my life started to change.
Opening my first shop in 2006 in Islington, London meant I could create anything I wanted, at any time, with such freedom and that freedom was enlightening but overpowering. Only a few weeks after opening a customer of mine, Lydia Slater, who at the time was Editor at Large of The Sunday Times Style Magazine asked if I had ever used Marmite in chocolate before. I had not. But, immediately started to develop with it. A firework went off inside my stomach, that feeling, which has never left, of someone giving me an opportunity to go crazy with flavours that could change the chocolate world permanently.
Fast forward a couple of months and countless hours later and I had spent all my time in my kitchen diluting Marmite with cream, milk and water to taste all of its deep layered complexities in different strengths before I started to pair it with a couverture [chocolate made with extra cocoa butter that is used to coat chocolates and make them extra glossy]. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to find one that could stand up to Marmite’s intoxicating and intense flavours. I must have made 20 different ganaches before I found one that reawakened my tastebuds in such a way that I knew this could work. Not only would it work for Lydia but it would work for my core collection.
I made a batch of 100 Marmite truffles with water, sugar, Marmite and chocolate - with no cream or butter at all (which at the time was unusual as ganache had to have cream in right?!) I knew that if I was to convince people that this would work, I had to go against the norm.
I packed a box for Lydia and she tried, tasted and fell in love with them, so much so that she included them in her next article. That Sunday morning I rushed out to buy the paper and there its was: a short but perfectly worded column about me and my Marmite truffles with the words “Paul is the Heston Blumenthal of chocolate’ and so it began. I’ve created so many unusual, challenging and provocative flavours in the past 14 years and in the process had to prove myself to the industry, every day, that this is not for a gimmick but because I love ingredients and want to juggle them together to create new experiences and start a conversation; it’s worked very well but has not been easy or accepted by some people. But as I’ve finally come to accept - you cannot please everyone.
Paul a Young Fine Chocolates
I have to say, though… not everything works as well as you want it too. And sometimes pushing the boundaries too far can be just as disastrous and, of course, there are always chocolates that don’t make it to the customer. The most memorable, for all the wrong reasons, has to be an Elderberry Ganache - sounds pretty tasty right? Wrong. I had brought dried elderberries, soaked them, cooked them, sweetened them with vanilla beans and created a dark chocolate ganache. And… it tasted like mud. I can still remember that taste to this day. It was so unexpected as I had a jammy fruity flavour in my mind’s eye. But there was no doubt about it. It was mud. And it was inedible.
But luckily for every bad experience you have, you have numerous good ones. Some of my most memorable chocolates that have stayed with me are a Beef Dripping Caramel which we launched at Salon Du Chocolat in London. On the first day we sold the entire weekend’s stock; people were queueing to buy it. It’s a nostalgic taste of my childhood all rolled up into a delicious bite. My Grandma kept a dripping pot in her kitchen which had the most deliciously solidified jelly and fat which we smothered onto white bread. So I made a caramel with dripping rather than with butter and when you bite into it I want you to relive that moment with me.
Ginger Pig Black Pudding and Cider Truffle has to be one of the most experimental (for its time back in 2012), product I’ve ever made. I ate a stunning starter at The Star Inn at Herome in Yorkshire of black pudding, apple and a deliciously sticky jus and I just knew that I had to have this in a chocolate form. So, I cooked the black pudding lightly before extracting all the moisture from it to form the liquid part of the ganache. It was sweet, oaty, spiced and laced with umami. I used cider to add a delicate acidity and natural preservative of the alcohol and there it was - a meaty savoury starter in a single… chocolate…. bite.
I am very lucky to have Hayley, my head chocolatier and kitchen manager, who develops with me and we have a similar way of tasting and developing. Last month Hayley developed a Korma and Poppadum truffle - which is utterly divine. It is sweet and aromatic with coconut and cumin notes which are perfectly balanced.”
Paul a Young Fine Chocolates
And it’s not just us professionals that can experiment. It’s super simple to be creative at home as long as you start simple and grow from there. The following recipe is a water-based ganache which you can use as your foundation. Experiment first by using different origins, percentages and blends of dark chocolate - this will immediately give you a large repertoire of chocolates, without doing anything. You can then take this one recipe and make a hundred and one different recipes, just by being you.
Hand Rolled Truffles.
To make 50 truffles - this ganache is quite firm, so you need to hand roll it.
Ingredients:
150mls water
100g unrefined golden caster sugar
300g dark chocolate, single origin or blended.
Method:
1. Chop the chocolate into very small even sized pieces.
2. Bring the water and sugar to the simmer, pour over the chocolate and mix well until glossy and smooth.
3. Allow to cool. Refrigerate for one hour until set then roll into even sized balls before rolling in cocoa powder (optional)
So, how do you make this dark chocolate ganache into something innovative, daring and different - Paul a Young style?
This is when I get really excited as with water ganache you can easily replace the liquid with any dairy-free liquid, e.g coffee, tea, wine, beer, a herb infusion, fruit juices or any other combination you can think of.
Top Tip: for alcohol spirits replace a quarter of the liquid with alcohol e.g Single Malt Whisky and add this into the ganache at the very end so the alcohol isn’t cooked off.
Paul a Young Fine Chocolates
Being Creative With Caramel
Wherever I go, I hunt out caramels - and most, in my experience, are unfortunately pretty average. This is usually due to plain white sugar being overcooked or glucose syrup being used in a very high percentage taking away the rich and depth of flavour the caramel promises.
My caramel uses unrefined light muscovado sugar so it’s packed with natural caramel from the outset and it’s a base recipe for making my infamous sea salted caramel, flavoured caramels, caramel with inclusions and used as a sauce when warmed for desserts. It’s deeply rich, buttery smooth, silky and packed with butterscotch flavours.
Ingredients:
200g unsalted butter
100g unrefined golden caster sugar
100g light muscovado sugar
200mls double cream
35g milk chocolate (no lower that 32% cacao solids)
Method:
1. In a heavy bottom pan, on a medium heat, simmer the butter and sugars until the butter is incorporated and not loose in the pan. When this begins to simmer time - 3 minutes - and do not allow it to catch on the bottom of the pan.
2. Take off the heat and add the cream mixing well.
3. Return to the heat and bring back to the simmer. As soon as it starts to simmer remove from the heat and allow to sit for 5 minutes.
4. Now add the milk chocolate broken into small pieces and whisk very well.
5. Allow to cool before using.
This base recipe can be flavoured by adding additional ingredients like sea salt and spices at the beginning of the cooking stage then strained out if using whole spices.
Top Tip: play with other sugars to add a darker molasses flavour to the caramel and dark chocolate instead of milk to add an intense rich dark finish to your caramel.
Paul a Young Fine Chocolates
Other Ways To Get Creative:
Another simple way to get chocolate-creative is to buy a chocolate product you know and love and add it to something you are cooking.
Add half a chocolate bar into your Sunday roast Gravy (dark for Beef, milk for Chicken) it makes your sauce super glossy and rich and adds a subtle sweetness to the salty liquid.
Pimp up a hot chocolate by melting in your favourite nostalgic chocolate bar, mine is either dark chocolate orange, finger of fudge or when I’m really needing soul food I create a mug of hot chocolate with two sea salted caramels melted in.
Mulled wine is awesome with a bar of dark chocolate whisked in to make a mulled wine hot chocolate, even adding chocolate orange or a spiced chocolate bar will add a new level of flavour and interest.
Or our editor Amanda Bootes’s favourite trick - adding a bounty bar or two into your curry. The chocolate works amazingly well with the spices and adds that creamy coconut finish.
Chocolate is universally joyous; it’s a happy food; its soul food. When used correctly it can make us smile so, be creative and celebrate the cacao bean by choosing different origins and varieties carefully and confidently and making them your own.