Tasting Results (So far, all polling places have not reported)

The clear winner, for balance of flavors, complexity, and resemblance to the Mojito, is the rum infusion with added lime zest. While the lime oil flavoring is stronger, it has an artificial, candy type taste that just doesn't fit in with the natural taste of the zest alone. So, it's gone. I might try using it to make a harder candy type thing to bust up and use as a decoration later, but for now, that kid's benched.

Ganache can be funny stuff when it comes to textures. I tell people that in many ways it is like the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation. It contains very little liquid, 1/3 of a cup to 5 to 6 dozen truffles. What it does contain, in the white chocolate ganache, is fat. Three distinct fats. Butter, cocoa butter in the white chocolate itself, and the animal fats in the egg yolk. When another ingredient is introduced, like the dried lime zest, those fats go to work on assimilating it, and, just like in the show, resistance is futile.

With things like nuts, the work of the ganache is usually unpleasant. Instead of holding their structural and textural integrity the nuts get borgatized (see? I just invented my own word, blogging is great, and "borgatized" now has a chance of holding a place in the lexicon) into globby mush. Nut butters actually stand a better chance than nut chunks. Different spices take different paths. Some of them, like cinnamon, or dried ginger, lose their graininess, and take on a nice, plump texture while their flavors get spread throughout the ganache. Nutmeg is a different story, it needs a full twenty four hours in the ganache before it surrenders its consistency.

The dried lime zest was the same way. After a full twenty four, the flavor it held really began to jump, and the texture plumped and softened to where it's a fine compliment to the silken mouth feel of the ganache.

The complexity of the flavor is delightful. It starts off with a full court press of vanilla, the rum is an undertone, then top notes of lime, and a very nice mint finish happen.

My decorating convention has been to use a milk chocolate striping when there is an alcoholic flavoring present, but the light brown color of milk chocolate doesn't appeal to my eye on the white shell, or with the green that represents two of the ingredients. I'm going to break with convention and go with a white shell, fresh grated lime zest (a nicer texture than the dried for this and a slightly sharper flavor) and a green stripe.

Another thing I'm going to try at a later date is to dip the mojito white ganache in tempered dark chocolate, for a chocolate mojito flavor. I don't think there's a chocolate mojito drink out there and this idea has a chance to fulfill a gap in people's flavor experience that they didn't even know existed.

We'll wait until all precincts have reported, but our network is projecting a win for the rum infusion/dried lime zest party.