rocher plates with dried fruit by paul.a.young

This is a recipe I wanted to do from the first day I received as gift the book "Adventures with Chocolate" by paul.a.young; but as many recipes in the list of the things to do even this one always slipped to another day, until I saw it inthe blog of Stefania and finally decided to do it for a Sunday lunch.

 For about 12 large pieces

(in brackets the doses that I used to make 1/5 more)

• 250g dried fruit of your choice, coarsely chopped  (350)
• 100g raisins or other dehydrated fruit (140)
• 300g dark chocolate (420) Ecuador 57% (or at your choice) tempered*

Put the dried fruit on a baking tray in cold oven and bring the temperature to 180°. When the oven is hot, cook for 5 minutes, stirring from time to time to obtain an homogeneous roasting. Let cool completely. Mix 200g (250) of dried fruit with dehydrated fruit with the tempered chocolate stirring as quickly as the chocolate allows in this phase. Spread the mixture on a pan lined with a parchment paper and cover with another sheet of parchment paper. Flatten with a rolling pin until you obtain the desired thickness. Let cool the chocolate but before it completely hardens lift the top sheet and sprinkle the rest of dried fruit and cut into squares or in the shape and size you prefer. 

It keeps up  to 2 months...but it does not last even 2 days.

* In his book paul.a.young also explains the ways of manually tempering chocolate, here I report the one that for method and time is faster and easier (you should not pour the chocolate on the working plan). You have to stir solid chocolate into molten chocolate to "inoculate" in it crystals. Take 2/3 of the total chocolate, melt it in a double boiler or microwave until it reaches the temperature of 55° (this is the correct temperature to melt the fats, the sugars and the crystals crystals contained in the chocolate). If you melt chocolate on a double boiler, the bowl should not touch the water but must be suspended  and the water should never boil. If you melt the chocolate in a microwave put it at the highest temperature for 25-30 seconds, stir it gently and put it again in the microwave so as to control the temperature each time. When the chocolate is at 55° pour the remaining chocolate and stir vigorously until it will be completely melted and wait until the temperature  reaches. 27°-28°. The chocolate must be then gently warmed to working temperature, 31°-32°.