Truffles, Mark 2

I claimed I would never make truffles as a present.  I lied.

Trufflicious, and beautiful. Score 1 for science.

These are the same recipe as the previous truffles, with only one difference: I used a chocolate mould.  (Actually an ice-cube mould, but who is to know?)  Instead of fighting the cooling of the mixture, simply pour some chocolate into a mould, smooth it around the edges, then leave to set.  Then pour in some truffle mixture and leave again.  Finally add a chocolate layer to seal the truffle inside.  The end result tastes the same as hand-crafted variety, but is infinitely easier to present well!

I also tried some variation here.  Notice that there are white and milk chocolate truffles.  Much to my dismay, the white chocolate ones were a little too sweet since the truffle mixture is also filled with condensed milk.  They weren’t bad, but not as good as the milk variety.  However, more successful was cherry brandy flavouring – a dash or two in the truffle mixture lead to a divine melting on the pallete, and Tia Maria worked as well.

Tasty yummy goodness, and I’m not even sad that I left it ages to blog about it – we had mixture left over and this evening another dozen truffles have mysteriously appeared.  I’m off now to eat them…

Who made it: Dan

Recipe: See my previous post.

Marbled Chocolate Loaf

Yum.  Chocolate.

Marbley chocolatey goodness.

This is a pretty tasty cake recipe.  The usual marble loaf concept, you dollop in dark and light mixture alternately and then bake.  The white chocolate on top is awesome and the only sad thing is that there isn’t any in the middle!  There is white chocolate in the light mixture too, for extra sweetness.  Mmm…

We had something of an incident making this – we’d followed the recipe for a 2lb loaf, as our tin works for another 2lb recipe.  But I don’t think it is actually that big – perhaps 1.5lb.  Halfway through cooking we had a lovely risen loaf, and eruptions of dribbly chocolate goodness spewing out of the side.  Not a problem as it just went on the and into the bin, but a sad loss of perfectly good cake!  At least it didn’t spoin the main event.  And it is demonstrably the largest we could possibly have made the cake…

Also, notice how Anna cunningly made the shape of a pair of high heeled shoes in the cross-section?  Vengance for a few geeky conversations yesterday I suspect!

Who made it: Anna and Dan jointly.

Recipe: Hallelujah! Chocolate! by The Chocolate Squad, page 24.

Frosted Primrose Cakes

These yummy fairy cakes are coated in a white chocolate frosting.

Is there a circumstance where more chocolate is not better?

There isn’t too much to say about these guys – take fairy cakes, which are mighty yummy, and coat them in white chocolate magic goo.  Unsurprisingly the result tastes very pleasing indeed.  The decorations are because its Mothers Day – Anna made these for her Mum who was fortunately visiting us on the day itself.

The cakes were literally dripping in icing – we poured it on until it wouldn’t stay any more.  Every time I moved them for a photo, I got deliciously sticky fingers, so the process took some time…

Who made it: this was all Anna.  All I did was lick the bowl, but its OK because I licked it for maybe 10 minutes until it was clean and then didn’t want dinner.

Recipe: “Fairy Cakes”, by Joanna Farrow, page 42.

Truffles

First up: acknowledgements.  Huge thanks to Anne for making these for us at Christmas, and putting up the recipe!

There is only one word to describe these truffles: divine. It might be blasphemous, but the only way I can describe the taste is as a Mars Bar made personally by God.

Home made truffles come in all shapes and sizes yet just one awesome favour. Trust me, you don't want them to taste of anything else.

Making your own truffles is a way of turning some tasty chocolate into loads of even tastier chocolate (again with the divinity thing – except that chocolate tastes better than loaves and fishes!).  It’s a fair amount of effort, and it matters which chocolate you start with, because “all” you do it melt it in with some condensed milk, refrigerate, and coat in chocolate.

Of course, that’s some “all”. Anne details all the clever tricks that make it easier, but at the end of the day warm melted chocolate goes on cold balls of truffle that melt at room temperature.  Its a very tricky business!  We don’t have Anne’s “truffle-fu”, so got a little more “variation” than would be ideal.  Still, the taste is all there.  After the ordeal of making them, we were wondering why we bothered since chocolate tastes so yummy anyway.  But the next day when I tried the first one…

Oh.  My.

I won’t be making them as a present – they are tricky, and I couldn’t get them as perfect as Anne did – but if anyone is reading this – I’ll take it as a present any time!  And getting the taste right is thankfully easy, and oh so worth it…

Who made it: A joint effort, though I’ll claim responsibility for the decoration!

Recipe: See Anne’s post, and the pioneer woman‘s post, which is two links in the industrious history of this magnificent recipe.

Chocolate Pots

Chocolate Pots. That would be pots, filled with chocolate.

Dark chocolate, white chocolate and milk chocolate make for a chocolatey chocolateness

This recipe comes from  the “Co-operative magazine” which mysteriously appears every so often in the post.  In fact, this magazine has some exceptionally good recipes in; so good we thought “Mmm, lets write a blog about all this yummy food”.

This comes as a slight disappointment on the tail of the previous recipes from the co-op, which remain sadly unreviewed. The bottom layer is a creamy chocolate sauce, topped by white chocolate mousse, and a milk chocolate mousse.  These are all pretty tasty as you’d expect, but the overall effect is extremely sweet and it took me two tries to make it all the way though.

This is a shame, as the dessert would have made a perfect topping for a cake, or flavouring for smaller chocolates.  In general, I’ve found this sort of dessert a bit much, favouring instead cakes or baked puddings.  Perhaps I’m just a simple cake monster and should stick to what I know and love?

Who made it: Anna slaved over a hot stove and a whirring blender whilst Dan supervised by licking everything he could find.  Yes, everything.