Dragon Rambles

I meant to write and schedule this blog post before I started my down time over xmas and new years, but I forgot. So here is the last truffle recipe I wanted to share from this year.

To make these you need:
125mL single/pouring cream
25g butter
400g white chocolate
1 cup (metric, so prob about 1 1/4 cups if you’re in the US) finely chopped dried apricots
125mL brandy

Soak the apricot pieces in the brandy for two hours.

Put cream and butter in a small saucepan and bring to a gentle boil over a low heat.

Mix in white chocolate. You will probably need a few 20s bursts in the microwave to help get the choc to melt, alternatively you can add the choc to the saucepan once you’ve turned off the heat and mix before transferring to the bowl. The heat in the pan will help melt the choc.

Drain apricots on some kitchen towel to get rid of any excess brandy (most will have been absorbed by the apricots though).

Add apricots to the chocolate mixture.

And mix well.

Refrigerate for at least 8 hours, until set. Then roll into balls and refrigerate again to firm the balls. Roll in coconut.

And enjoy.

For these you need:
250ml cream
400g dark choc
25g butter
1 cup raisins
125 ml dark rum (jamaican if you have it)

Finely chop the raisins and soak in the rum for 2-3 hours

(yes, only one bowl is the raisins, bowl two will be discussed in the next truffle recipe)

Put the cream and butter in a small saucepan and bring to the boil.
Mix in with your dark choc (you probably won’t need to zap the mixture to help melt the choc this time, but if you do, remember 20s bursts)

Strain out your raisins with a spoon and add to the chocolate mix

Mix the raisins through then add some of the remaining rum until you have your choc mixture with just the right amount. This is personal preference here

Put into the fridge to set for about 8 hours. Then roll teaspoonfuls into truffles. Put them back into the fridge (or freezer) to harden.

Then coat with dark choc.

And enjoy. Nom nom.

(for more hints visit truffle making 101)

For these you need:
125ml cream
400g milk choc
1 cup pistachios
1/4 cup baileys
25g butter

Finely chop pistachios

Put the cream and butter in a small saucepan and bring to a gentle boil over a low heat.

Remove from heat and mix in chocolate until smooth (may need a couple of 20s zaps in the microwave to help)

Add pistachios and baileys to choc mixture

Mix until well combined

Refrigerate for approx 8 hours until set, then roll teaspoons of mixture into balls. Refrigerate again to harden the truffle balls then coat with milk choc.

To make these you need:
125ml single cream
400g white chocolate (good quality, not eating choc)
a lemon
2 Tbsp limoncello

Grate lemon zest (just remember to pick up a zest grater or you’ll end up using a food processor attachment, which takes a while, and is somewhat painful).

Put cream and zest into a small saucepan and bring to a gentle boil.

Remove from heat and strain into a medium (microwaveable) mixing bowl to remove the zest.

Add white choc and mix well until completely melted and smooth. You will probably need 2 or 3 short bursts (20s) in the microwave to help melt the chocolate.

Once cream and choc mixture is smooth, and limoncello and mix well

Cover and refrigerate for approximately 8 hours until mixture is set. Roll teaspoonfuls of mixture into balls and store in fridge until ready to coat.

Coat with melted white choc and leave to set

As promised, here is the first post in a truffle making series. This first one is just a basic how-to. You’ll see how easy it is, and you still have time to make some yourself if you choose.

The basic recipe for the truffle filling is:
125ml single (pouring) cream
400-500g chocolate

I’ve tried lots of different recipes out there with lots of different choc:cream ratios. This works well. Don’t be tempted to use double cream or thickened (spoonable) cream if that’s all you have available. Yes, that is the voice of experience talking.

If you’re using dark choc you can increase the cream to 250ml. But don’t try it with the white and milk choc or you’ll have trouble getting it to set. The other tip for helping your mixture to set is that if you’re adding alcohol, add 25g butter to 125ml cream.

Ok, so to begin. Put the cream (and butter) in a small saucepan and bring to the boil over a low heat. You don’t want it to look like boiling water here, you want to seeing small rolling bubbles. Oh, and make sure you don’t stop stirring during this phase.

Remove from heat and pour into a bowl with the chocolate. Stir until choc melted into cream mixture, and it’s nice and smooth. You may need some quick bursts in the microwave (high for 20s) to help get all the choc melted (especially the white choc). If so just zap, then mix. You want to use the microwave as little as possible as you don’t want to risk burning the choc. Also, mix with a metal spoon. Wooden spoons retain moisture and will transfer it to your choc. Choc and moisture don’t mix, not when making chocs.

Once the choc is fully melted and mixed in with the cream, you can add your extras.

This is where you really get to have fun. The sky is the limit where flavours are concerned. If you’re adding chopped fruit or nuts, a cup is about right (metric cup that is). Maybe you want to chop up turkish delight to add. Or jelly beans. If you’re in Australia/NZ, how about chopping up two cherry ripes or two peppermint crisps and adding them to the mixture. How about some chopped vanilla fudge. Or a handful or two of popping candy. Anyway, you get the idea.

Once everything is mixed together, cover and put in the fridge for about 8 hours. The dark choc might only need 5 hours. Depends what you’ve added. And sometimes you might need to pop them in the freezer to help them set.

Then it’s time to roll. Get a teaspoon and dig out spoonfuls then roll between your hands. This will get messy. There isn’t really anyway to avoid it. When they are all rolled, pop them back in the fridge to harden again.

Now it’s time to coat them. Make a double boiler by putting a glass or metal bowl on a small saucepan. You want to put some water in the saucepan but not high enough that it touches the bottom of the bowl. And you want the sides of the bowl to come up a good distance from the top of the pan.

Turn on the stove, once your water come close to the boil, turn the heat down very low. Remember, moisture is not your friend. You want to try and avoid letting any of the steam from the pan get into your bowl of choc. Use a metal spoon to mix your chocolate – it’ll take a while to melt. Don’t put large amounts of choc on at a time as the moisture will come out of your rolled truffles and into your chic coating, so after a time it’ll get thick and gloopy, and you’ll want to change it out for fresh choc.

Chuck your truffles in the choc one at a time, coat, fish out, knock/shake off the excess choc and sit aside on some baking paper to set.

I use a bifty little choc coating tool for this. I highly recommend you track one down. Most choc making supply shops should have them.

There you have it. I have just one piece of advice left: use good quality choc. Now go forth and spread the truffle love

My kitchen is a mess – I’ll clean it up tomorrow. My fridge has been taken over by truffle weekend…

…but mission accomplished: I have them all ready to take to work in the morning.

I always have two colours of curling ribbon so that I can mark “special” bags. Ths year there is just the one – an all white choc bag for someone who unluckily has cocoa mass as a migraine trigger.

In the end there are five flavours: white choc limoncello, white choc apricot & brandy, milk choc pistachio & baileys, dark choc rum & raisin and dark choc cointreau. There was a sixth but I put too much cream in and had trouble getting it to set. It’s still in the freezer, in truffle size pieces but not really rollable. I might use it for a cake or dessert.

I know I’m usually bad at remembering to blog the recipes, but I took plenty of photos along the way and will post several posts this week on how to make your own truffles, and the recipes for those I made.

These..

And my aching back?

Answer: I just finished a mammoth session in the kitchen making six flavours of chocolate truffle filling.

They are now in the fridge setting and this evening I will have a truffle roll-a-thon. Tomorrow, will be all about coating them.

Every year I say never again will I leave it to the last minute. And every year I do. Again.

Between now and tonight I’m going to camp out on the couch and knit.

This weekend is truffle making weekend. Yes, despite my best intentions I have again ended up leaving this to the last minute. I still have to pick up some ingredients at the fine foods store on Sat, but the chocolate is all ready.

I hadn’t picked up any white chocolate originally as white choc truffles can be a pain in the butt to set, especially when alcohol has been added, so I had thought to not make any white ones this year. But turns out chocolate is a migraine trigger for one of our receptionists, so white chocolate was back on the menu.

Since I was putting in an order anyway, I decided to add in some extras. These new lindt flavours sound delish.

And aren’t these mushrooms just adorabubble.

They have a hazelnut truffle centre I think. I also picked up some gourmet hot choc. Both which are chocolate shavings that you mix into milk. One with vanilla pod.

And one with ground hazelnuts

(crappy non-flash photos so they were legible)

The added vanilla and hazelnuts apparently enriches the chocolate flavour. Well, I like the sound of chocolate tasting more chocolate.

There was some vague idea that these “extras” might end up being gifted. But we’ll see. I am, after all, a chocoholic. I really can’t be responsible for my behaviour

I’ve been meaning to bake a cake to use up left over ganache since Sunday. But a comedy of errors (aka series of missing ingredients) led to a slight delay. Worked out well, as baking was just the thing I needed last night to clear my head after a frustrating end to the day. Said frustrating end might have influenced the decision to turn this into an alcoholic cake. The choc itself might be just plain old choc… But the icing (and filling)… Well, that has your daily dose of rum.

And yes, the cake is a little lopsided, it’s not your imagination. I was impatient last night and didn’t allow the filling to sit and thicken, so it moved the cake top with it. I knew better, but I did it anyway. But somehow I don’t think the assymetry will bother the cake swarm at work all that much

Edited to add in recipe deets:

Well the cake was yum, and happily devoured by everyone at work with a big thumbs up. So the new recipe I tried was a success. I got it from here. I didn’t change much about the recipe. Just substituted the cup of boiling water for a cup of weak black coffee. I don’t know why but a little coffee helps with the flavour of rich choc cakes. But don’t add too much or you’ll ruin your cake with the flavour of coffee.

I made two rounds and filled between the two layers with the same icing I used to cover the cake with. Don’t ask me for a recipe for that though as I can’t give you amounts. I’d had an oops moment when making some ganache the other week. I’d accidently picked up extra thick cream (instead of single cream), and the choc was a bit too high in cocoa solids, so the choc and cream just didn’t mix in smoothly and it tasted bitter. I put it in a container in the fridge thinking I’d make a fudge icing with it. So i warmed it up enough to scoop out half. Mixed in sifted icing sugar until I got the taste and texture I wanted. Then stirred in a tablespoon of Jamaican rum. Very nice.

I haven’t forgotten I was going to share my xmas feast and recipes with you all, but I’ve been out all day and just come home. I’ll share the cupcakes with you today and come back tomorrow for the rest.

I’ve made these cupcakes twice: once with blueberries and once with boysenberries and strawberries. You can use whatever you want. The first time I made a cream cheese frosting, but the second time I had no cream cheese in the house so made a buttercream one instead. I’ll give you info to make both so you can choose which you want to prepare. If you use metric cup measurements, this’ll make about 18 cupcakes, otherwise (if you’re using american cups) it’ll make 12. Either way, the quantities as read, but if you’re using the metric cups, make the teaspoon of baking powder a rounded one instead of a flat one.

Berry puree

First step is to make a berry puree. For the blueberry cupcakes I used two punnets (400g in total), for the boysenberry-strawberry cupcakes I used one cup of boysenberries and three of strawberries.

Put your berries (fresh or frozen) into a pot and cook over a low heat (stirring occasionally) until berries have become mush and then reduced down so that most of the liquid has been removed. This should end up a nice thick consistency, but still easily pourable. Cool slightly then put through a blender. You’ll still end up with berry bits, go with it, these are nice to have in your cupcake. You will want to have 1.25 – 1.5 cups of puree for each batch of cupcakes.

Oh and if you’re using blueberries, your wooden spoon will be stained purple, the other mix I made turned it wine red. I’m thinking I should dye all my wooden spoons this way

Cupcakes

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup of baking margerine (or butter, but the veg fat makes for lighter cupcakes, use the sort from a tub rather than from a brick)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup berry puree
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add one egg at a time, beating just until incorporated.

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl, mix the milk, berry puree and vanilla.

Add half the dry ingredients, then all the wet, then the other half of the dry to the butter mixture. Mix just until incorporated after each addition. Do not overbeat!

Spoon into lined muffin trays. Put a dollop of puree on the top of each cupcake and swirl. Bake at 175C (350F) for 20-25min, until cooked through. Cool for 10min in tin before moving to wire racks. Cool completely before icing.

Cream cheese frosting

225g cream cheese, room temperature
90g butter, room temperature
1/2 cup berry puree
3 cups icing sugar, sifted

Beat the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy. Mix in the berry puree until just combined. Add the icing sugar gradually and beat until smooth and spreadable.

Buttercrean frosting

140g butter
300g icing sugar, sifted
1/2 cup berry puree

Beat the butter until light and fluffy. Add the icing sugar gradually and beat until smooth. Add puree and beat until smooth and spreadable, but don’t overbeat.

And voila, enjoy! These can be refridgerated or frozen, just serve them at room temp.

But a word of warning. Be prepared to serve them in pairs like shown above, because you’re going to want more than one.