Robert Linxe is the founder of La Maison du Chocolat, one of the most highly-regarded (both the man and the shop) chocolatiers in the world. Many consider his obsession with ganache to be a major contributing factor in elevating it, and French chocolate, to the upper echelons of the world’s chocolate elite. On Friday, May 17th (2002) I spent a couple of hours in La Maison du Chocolat on Madison Avenue attending a “parcours pratique” or a guided tasting hosted by Robert Linxe himself.

The program started with a short personal history. Linxe apparently finished high school and then decided to apprentice into a food trade rather than go on to University. As he was born near Bayonne (which, if you’ve read “Crafting the Culture and History of French Chocolate” you’d know is the spiritual home of chocolate in France), Linxe was apprenticed to a chocolate house.

After many years, which included owning a running a successful patisserie, Linxe purchased a wine store on the rue Fauborg Ste. Honore, and after closer examination decided to make and sell chocolates as well, focusing on ganache.

His Recipe, His Technique

Linxe purchases his cream (28-30% butterfat) from dairies in the town of Gruyere, Switzerland. Unpasteurized, he boils the cream three times (taking care not to let the cream reach a rolling boil to minimize the incorporation of air) to destroy any bacteria. After the third boiling, he infuses the hot cream with whatever flavorings he is going to use, almost always fresh herbs. The infusion takes about 10-12 minutes, depending on the amount of herbs and their strength.

The basic recipe calls for 1 liter of this pasteurized cream to 1 kg of chocolate. Linxe uses an 82% chocolate (2% lecithin) for his ganache, using a blend of Trinidadian and Venezuelan beans grown on his own plantations that is manufactured to match a specific flavor profile by Valrhona.

Why is Robert Linxe cool with giving away his recipe? He knows you can’t duplicate it! It is very unlikely that any of us will ever be able to get the cream from Gruyere that he uses, nor duplicate his custom chocolate blend. Both of these elements (and others) mean that even if you know exactly how he makes it, you won’t be able to duplicate his flavors.

Once the chocolate is melted in the cream it is slowly and gently mixed in order to minimize the incorporation of air. For a small batch (1 liter of cream to 1 kilogram of chocolate) the ganache might be beaten for 10-15 minutes. In the industrial size batches LMDC makes, mixing might take as long as three hours.

When ready, it is poured out into forms that regulate the height of the filling and it is left to set, which might take 15-30 minutes. Once the ganache is set it is covered and left to “age” for three to five days before it is ready to eat. The couverture used depends on whether or not it is a milk or dark chocolate covering, but the basic bean blend is different from the ganache—a mixture of beans from Equador, Venezuela, and Madagascar; again manufactured to a specific taste profile by Valrhona.

That’s pretty much it. Simple, straightforward—like many great recipes and chefs. What sets LMDC chocolate apart is the subtlety and variety of the flavorings used. This is totally unlike the aethetic of a house like Christopher Norman where the flavors (essences or concentrated syrups/reductions) overwhelm the taste of the chocolate. Linxe’s fillings are subtle and complex, and are often difficult to identify. Here’s a sampling of some of my favorites from the tasting:

• Flamenco Lait. The ganache is flavored with rosemary and thyme.
• Flamenco Noir. The ganache is flavored with jasmine and basil.
• Arnegui. The ganache is flavored with the zest of orange, lemon, and grapefruit with a hint of cherry to mask the bitterness.
• Garrigue. The ganache is flavored with fennel (the fronds, not the bulb).
• Zagora. The ganache is flavored with fresh mint. The essence of fresh mint comes through without any hint of bitterness or overpowering the chocolate, which is the dominant initial taste and is the taste on the clean finish that is characteristic of all LMDC’s ganaches.

Linxe, who claims to eat about a dozen chocolates a day, says that the Bacchus, which was the first creation written up over 20 years ago, is still his favorite. The filling? Rum-raisin.