Lily’s Blog, Dragon Absconded!
Baking Until I Drop

My sister bought me a bar of chocolate from Grenada Chocolate Company.
I think I shall have it today.

Well, my sister showed us the chocolate she bought.
Lots of dark chocolate.
And some nougat for someone else.

And my mom thought we should let our niece taste it because I opened the bag of butter truffles and was eating it or licking my fingers and she started smacking her lips and tasting/smelling the air.

So, my sister, who has resisted any thought of chocolate for my niece while this young let her taste a soft speck of chocolate.

I think she liked it! :)

*sniff*

I just said goodbye to the last two chocolate truffles.
It was very hard…! I’m like bank account…very receptive to deposits of chocolate, withdrawals are a completely different thing.
Ah well, thankfully I got a lovely email this morning me of oatmeal raisin cookies in my friends’ lab and it helped me to deal with the loss :-)
They are/were very good cookies … chewy and buttery and mmmm.

Oh, and I don’t have to pay rent for May!
I actually love my rental agency. They don’t bother me unduly!

WHITE CHOCOLATE IS NOT CHOCOLATE!

Okay, I just really needed to get that out there. People need to know this.

Thank yous go to Jamie for introducing me to the wonderful world of making my own truffles!
(Please tell me if I’m missing any important details as I’m doing this by memory!)

Now, on with our story:

Truffles are pretty easy to make…well mostly.

Your basic chocolate truffle requires these ingredients:

• 1 lb of chocolate, chopped coarsely
• 1 1/2 cups of whipping cream
• 4 tblsps cocoa powder or icing sugar
• 1 1/2 lb of chocolate, chopped coarsely, for tempering

This will make about 60 truffles. I’m told you must get the little paper cups to put them in so that they look pretty!

Now the how to:
I’ll break it up into stages.

1. Making the truffle cream:
   1. Melt 1 lb of chocolate in a double boiler (or if you don’t have one…improvise). I think you have to make sure the water in the outer pot doesn’t touch the base of the inner pot (the one with the chocolate. Make sure it doesn’t burn and keep stirring.
   2. Boil the cream
   3. Now mix the cream and the melted chocolate together until it’s all chocolatey and well blended.
   4. Now you cover it securely and put it in the fridge or freezer for a few hours.
2. Making the truffle centres:
   1. Line trays with parchment paper.
   2. Take the truffle cream out of the fridge and use a melon baller (or fill a pastry bag and make mounds) to scoop out little mounds of chocolate. You can pick whatever size you’re comfortable with and put them on the trays.
   3. When you’re done, put them in the fridge or freezer again, covered securely, for a few hours.
   4. Take them out again and use either your hands or gloves for this. Dust your hands with cocoa powder and roll the mounds into ball shapes and put them back onto lined trays.
   5. Refrigerate again for a few hours
3. Tempering chocolate and coating the truffles:
   1. Melt two thirds of the chocolate in a double boiler and remove when done.
   2. Add the remaining third of chocolate in thirds to the melted chocolate, mixing well to ensure all chocolate is melted before adding the next batch. Voilà! Tempered chocolate!
   3. Take the trays out of the fridge and dip each truffle in the tempered chocolate, trying your best to evenly coat it and shake off excess chocolate. Then put them back on lined trays
   4. If you want to decorate them with something, make sure to do it before the coating sets, so put your beans, rinds, m&m’s on after coating about 4 truffles or so.
   5. Cover the truffles securely and put them in the fridge to set for about 15 minutes.
   6. Take them out and put them in the paper cups.
   7. You want to store them securely remember!

Things to remember:

• You might need to use different lined trays or change the linings!
• If the chocolate gets too soft to scoop out, or too hard to coat the centres or just not right…you can always retemper them or rerefrigerate
• It’s chocolate! If you use good chocolate it’s not too hard to go wrong. Even if it doesn’t come out right…CHOCOLATE NEVER GOES TO WASTE

Now..clicky for pictures of me doing these lovely things :-)

Continue reading Chocolate Truffles

I baked a chocolate cake yesterday!
And, frosted it in the evening.

I’m not the greatest cake baker so it’s a box cake and a tub of bought frosting. But who cares.

Look!

Continue reading Chocolate Cake

I want to make this cake. I bought a bar of Maya Gold…more on this later.

Green & Black’s DARK CHOCOLATE MOUSSE CAKE

This rich, dense chocolate cake is incredibly easy to make but will always impress. It can be served with whipped cream, crème fraïche, Green & Black’s Organic Vanilla ice cream or simply on its own sliced into small fingers with coffee. It can also be made with Green & Black’s Dark, Milk, White and Maya chocolates either on their own or in a combination. If it is made the day before and then chilled over night it becomes even more dense, fudgey and wicked. The lack of flour in the recipe also makes it suitable for coeliacs.