Thierry Muret is a man who enjoys job satisfaction. The 48-year-old Belgian is executive chef chocolatier at Godiva and is charged with coming up with new and tempting creations for the luxury brand.
Forget those tales of people in chocolate factories not being able to stand the sight of the stuff, Muret’s job sometimes requires him to taste maybe a dozen of his tempting creations every day – and not only has he retained his love of chocolate, he looks rather well on it.
I meet up with him at Godiva’s understated HQ in Brussels. It is far removed from any visions I might have of a real life version of Willy Wonka’s fictitious factory.
Muret’s centre of operations has an air of the laboratory about it, though admittedly one whose dominant feature is a large marble slab.
This is the place where the chocolatier’s ideas begin to become reality, a 14°C stage where liquid chocolate is manipulated and transformed into truffles, ganaches (more on that later) and a host of other alluring incarnations.
That temperature reading is important because it’s the ideal level for working with liquid chocolate – it will stay malleable, at least for a time – dawdle and your raw material begins to set.
Muret has agreed to show me how to make one of his latest creations – its ingredients devised by my host this very day.
We begin by tempering. ‘This is one of the first lessons an apprentice chocolatier learns,’ says Muret, pouring a stream of unctuous dark brown liquid onto the marble table. ‘It takes around six months to perfect the skill.’
The process essentially breaks up the molecular structure of the chocolate meaning that when it’s set it will be smooth and firm, without being brittle. Muret demonstrates. With assured strokes, he spreads chocolate onto the slab, turning it, folding it, controlling it.
‘You see? I’m pushing, I’m chasing. You can see, just here, that crystals are forming,’ (he indicates an area that’s slightly paler), ‘and here, it’s beginning to become a bit more solid. It’s a bit like tempering steel or glass, we’re getting rid of the molecules with a low melting point and keeping those with a high melting point.’
He makes the task look easy, but then it’s my turn and I find myself pursuing a brown pool across the slab. I push and I chase, but I’m acutely conscious of the potential to create a chocolate waterfall off the side of the marble.
However, with my mentor’s assistance, disaster is prevented and we soon have a rather lovely bowl of suitably tempered chocolate.
This will form the shell of our finished product. The centre is based on a mixture of butter and cream.
‘The term “ganache” was originally an insult,’ says Muret. ‘The story is that an apprentice spilled some milk in a bowl of chocolate. The chef was angry and called him a “ganache”, then turned back to see if he could save the chocolate and realised they might have come up with something.’
This particular ganache also uses cinnamon, ginger, vanilla and cardamom for a flavour that’s spicy and slightly redolent of a Christmas pudding. Once outer and filling are combined in a mould, and following some delicate spatula work, the whole looks like a tall, smooth bullet – it positively gleams with successful tempering.
As I’m admiring our (mostly his) work, Muret offers some insights into the sources of his inspiration: ‘I look a lot at the fashion industry; the texture, the cuts. I also think about who the chocolate is for.
‘Males and females have different tastes. Women tend to like more floral, nuanced flavours, males are a bit bolder in their tastes. It’s not that they don’t like sublety, just that they’re keen on flavour.’
Very diplomatically put, M Muret.
For more of Thierry Muret’s creations go to www.godiva.com
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