Chocolate Truffles Gone Awry

I love to make Christmas cookies.  But it's exhausting.  So when I saw Gilt City deal on a truffle-making class, I thought "quick, impressive alternative!"  Not so much.  This week I'm reporting a big honking cooking failure.

Now everything with this class was great.  Fun, tasty, friendly folks.  It took place in the basement of Castle and Elephant by Taste of Chocolate, or Boston Chocolate School.  We were greeted with decadent hot chocolate and a history lesson, including a sample of cocoa butter and coca beans.



I had every intention of walking away from this class with some new skills.  Our chocolatier made it look so easy.  We were even give a recipe list to take home with several recipes for flavored ganaches and a detailed explanation on tempering chocolate.  Actually, the class itself really focused on the chocolate tempering - although we didn't try it ourselves.  She had these big machines that just constantly kept the chocolate at temperature.  My at-home problem wasn't tempering - technically, I never even made it that far.  We were also handed pre-made blocks of ganache in three different flavors.  Then we were sent on our way to shape, dip and decorate our truffles. It seemed so easy when an experienced set of chocolatiers had pre-made the ganache and tempered the chocolate!

When I attempted to reproduce those delicious chocolates at home, my problem was the ganache.  Ganache was solidly breezed over.  No one mentioned to me the importance of temperature.  That I would need to heat the heavy cream to the same temperature of the chocolate.  That there was this risk of separation between the fat and the chocolate.  That it could turn into a crumbly, lumpy mess rather than the smooth "pudding-like" consistency that was described.   Nope.  I got to discover that on my own.

I scoured the internet to find some sort of "fix" for the crumbly, dry ganache.  I read about reheating half of it and then bringing down the temperature by mixing in the rest of the room temperature ganache.  This did not work.  It actually separated further until there were two distinct substances - little ponds of fat across a bumpy brown landscape.

I ended up tossing the lot and baked a bunch of cookies instead (I'll get everyone caught up on the cookies in the next post).  Below I am posting the original recipe for the chocolate caramel truffles that I attempted to make.  Perhaps someone else will have better luck.




Chocolate Caramel Truffles
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
3/4 heavy cream
18 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
2 tbsp butter, soft

1. Place sugar and water in pot.
2. Let mixture cook until amber in color (using a candy thermometer this should be approximately 350F).
3. Remove from heat and whisk in heavy cream a little at a time. Mix in a slow stream to prevent from boiling over.




4. Pour the hot caramel over the chopped chocolate.
5. Cover with foil and let sit for 5 minutes.
6. After 5 minutes, remove foil and whisk to blend.  Next, whisk in butter.
7. Refrigerate until solid enough to roll into truffles.

The Most Magical Place on Earth

It's not where you think.  There are no life-sized cartoon mice or princesses with castles.  Nope.  It's in a truck with a secret password.

When I went to New York City this weekend, I had one mission in mind:  Find a Wafel and Dinge truck. I'd read about this food truck, saw endless odes to its amazingness on Yelp and in magazine articles, and I just knew that if there was anything I was going to get on a Chinatown bus and travel 4 hours for, it was going to be this truck.

So what about that secret password?  You go to their twitter feed for a daily ticket to a free dinge.  Sadly, Saturday's secret password was not so much a password as an exercise in torturing other customers. Opera is not our thing, even in the name of free dinges.  My friend and I decided we could handle forking over the extra $1 to double-dinge our order and not burst eardrums.



Now everything anyone has ever said about these wafels doesn't hold a candle to what your first bite is like.  There were fireworks exploding, which I couldn't see at first because I went temporarily blind in my ecstasy.  I'm pretty sure there was also a Baptist choir belting out hallelujah, several rainbows appeared simultaneously through the cloudy gloom, and there were puppies.  Really cute puppies.

At the Wafel & Dinge cart just off Central Park

Okay, maybe only that last part was true. About the puppies.  Beside us on the park bench a couple shared small bites of the wafel with their puffy-jacketed pug who spent the entire time perched upright against their knees with an intent stare fixed on the wafel.  I would act similarly if someone was withholding wafel from me.

I actually have no idea what amazing recipe these folks have to make the wafels so addictive, but they come out chewy and slightly caramelized on the corners.  And then the dinges, or the toppings, there are so many choices but the one you can't forego is the speculoos spread.  It's like peanut butter, but better. I know, I know.  What could be better than peanut butter?  Well, this is it.  It's made from ground up ginger cookies. It's like making gingerbread in smooth spreadable form.  And then (it can get better), if you drizzle warm Belgian fudge over the speculoos-laden caramelized wafel, it's like a superior nutella.  That's right, it got even better.

Wafel with speculoos and Belgian chocolate

I mean, I've been fantasizing about these wafels since before I even finished my last bite.  My friend and I, sitting in the bitter cold at the edge of Central Park, looked at each other shyly and from powdered sugar-dusted lips tentatively voices what was going through both our minds, "What if we went back for more wafel?"

"At this cart?  Maybe we should go find another truck."

"Oh, you're right. I suppose we can't go back for seconds here.  Do you think there's one parked in Soho?"

"Probably. What if we went to every truck?  And got a wafel at each one?"

"That is the best idea ever."

 
 P.S. There were nuts purchased also.

Homemade Cranberry Bliss Bars

Homemade Cranberry Bliss Bar

I've had my mind set on replicating the Starbuck's Cranberry Bliss Bar from the first time I bit into one.  Years ago. You know the one.  The million calorie holiday treat that's here for a mere two month showing but causes you to gain 10 lbs?   Don't worry, this version is no healthier.

While I'd like to consider myself a baking genius who just digs into the encyclopedia of her mind to retrieve a base recipe for whatever strikes my fancy, I'm totally not.  I always google or crack open a cookbook.  So when I searched for "Starbucks Cranberry Bliss Bar recipe", much to my delight, hundreds of recipes showed up.  And frankly, they all pretty much looked alike.  So when I post the recipe that I used here, I'm not referencing any one source - it is a general mash-up of the same recipe circling every baking blog or site on the net.  You can do the google math.

Cake:

2 stick unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
2 tablespoons crystallized ginger, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup dried cranberries, minced
4 oz white chocolate, coarsely chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.  


2. Whip together the softened butter and brown sugar in your electric mixer. Add in the eggs, minced ginger and vanilla extract, and continue to whip.  At this point, the consistency was a bit frothy (the eggs) and lumpy (the ginger).  




In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.  Slowly add the dry ingredient mixture to the wet mixture with electric mixer on a slow speed to prevent flour clouds.


Lastly fold in the minced dried cranberries and white chocolate by hand, until evenly distributed.  



Pour into a butter-greased 9" x 13" baking pan.  Bake for 30 mins or until golden on top, and the cake tester draws out clean.  Allow to cool in the baking pan.

Frosting:
3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
4 oz light cream cheese, softened
Juice from 1/2 naval orange, squeezed
2 tablespoons grated orange rind
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup dried cranberries, coarsely chopped

1. Using an electric mixer, whip the softened cream cheese, powdered sugar, juice, rind and vanilla together until fluffy. 
2. Then fold in the chopped cranberries by hand until evenly distributed.
3. Frost the top of the cooled cake base while still in its pan.  Allow several hours to set.

Drizzle:
2oz white chocolate, coarsely chopped

1. Using a double boiler, melt the white chocolate.
2. Drizzle over the top of the frosted cake.

The final product, cut for serving.

Weekly Tidbits: Apples and Cheddar

Sausage, sauteed apples, sharp cheddar and an egg over easy

I love to experiment in the kitchen when I get the chance and this past week was no exception.  My recipes aren't always post-worthy in their own right, but really just a smattering of ideas or old favorites.  Nothing ground breaking and well documented.  Or rather, I did photograph them, which is why you're going to get a sample.

One of my favorite flavor combos is apple pie and sharp cheddar cheese.  Nothing goes better with apple pie, not even vanilla bean ice cream, than a nice aged sharp white cheddar.  The salt perfectly offsets the sweet fruit. I've been having cravings since Thanksgiving.  So Sunday morning, I decided that I was going to tackle it.  I was going to have it for breakfast.  That's right.  Pretty ballsy.

But what else goes great with apple? Sausage. That must be why they have those apple-smoked sausages everywhere.  So here are the meal deets:

2 veggie sausage links
1 chopped apple, sauteed to soften and cook down (pan fried)
Cinnamon, nutmeg and a dash of salt to taste in the apple sauce
Sliced sharp cheddar
A fried or poached egg on the side

I used the Boca veggie sausage links.  I find that a lot of the vegetarian sausage substitute have almost a metallic flavor to them. It's weird.  I don't know if it's the spices or what, but I find that they really taste best when eaten with other flavors - maple syrup, egg yolk, apple sauce, etc.  On their own it's a bit iffy and I try not to think too hard about what's in them.  I suppose ignorance is bliss whether your sausage is made from soy or meat.

In any case, this is definitely going to be a go-to meal in the future.  If you want a bit of fiber or a more filling meal, I would lay your warm sauteed apples over a nicely softened bed of shredded wheat.  I was planning to do that, but realized that after months of neglecting the shredded wheat in my cabinet, that I'd finally tossed it out last week.  Oops.  So I added in an egg cooked over easy for a little more substance and protein.

I enjoyed this decadent breakfast with mug of coconut macaroon coffee mixed with eggnog.

Eggnog French Toast

"A photo is worth a thousands words."  That's how I feel about the photos of my eggnog french toast below.    As in, my mouth is watering just looking at it, remembering the eggy, sweet soft bread drizzled with real maple syrup and melted butter for just that touch of creaminess.  In fact, I was going to write an entire entry discussing how french toast is just like bread pudding, but faster.  And how odd it is that we consider bread pudding dessert, when it's the same exact ingredients as french toast, which is for breakfast.  But that someone must actually consider bread pudding a breakfast food also because they serve it in the cafeteria for breakfast where I work.  I'm not going to do that though.  Just look at the pretty pictures.




Really, it's just like the bread pudding, but faster.

Eggnog French Toast for (a really gluttonous) One

3 slices of soft Portugeuse sweet bread, or brioche, torn in half if cut wide
1 egg
1/2 cup of light eggnog (because we like to pretend we're making this healthy)
Dash of cinnamon
Butter, unsalted (for pan and to top toast if desired)
Maple Syrup

1. Whisk together egg, eggnog and cinnamon until frothy.
2. Dunk halfs of bread into the eggy mixture until coated on both sides and let sit for approximately 15-20 seconds until its soaked through but still firm
3. Place soaked bread slices onto medium-hot skillet with a touch of butter in the bottom, and flip until cooked through and golden.
4. Top with a bit of butter and maple syrup.
5. Die of pleasure.

Eggnog Bread Pudding

Eggnog Bread Pudding

This has been a comfort food kind of week for me.  Or rather, after feeling a bit sick to my stomach the first half of the week and not eating, I was ready to have a yummy treat that would both settle my tummy and provide a big warm and fuzzy hug.  And you know what kind of food does that the best?  Bread pudding.

When I bought the day old bread for the bread pudding, I had visions of a spicy pumpkin souffle in mind.  But last night when I realized that the only liquid dairy product in my kitchen was eggnog, plans had to change.  I had to get in the Christmas spirit and let go of the squashy autumn flavors.

Unfortunately, I didn't accept this change to my (complete lack of) recipe until after I had photographed the ingredients.  Thus no ingredient snapshot.  But I did my best to capture some of the vitals add-ins after the fact.  Next time I think that I might toss in dried (or fresh?) cranberries as opposed to raisins and apples, along with a stronger hint of nutmeg.


The great part about this recipe is that the eggnog and whiskey is already sweetened, so there is no need to add sugar into the mix.  The raisins and apple also add a bit of sweet, fruity flavor in each bite.  I'm very pleased with the portions in this recipe also.  Often times my bread will be a bit too stale, or I won't use enough liquid in the mix, or a bit too much egg so that it almost quiche-ifies (my word!).  So proportionally, I was very pleased with how this came out.  Everything came together in a soft, but thoroughly cooked treat.

Ingredients

1/2 loaf of Portugeuse bread, torn into bite-size pieces
3 large eggs
1 cup of light eggnog
1/2 cup of American Honey
1/2 cup golden raisins
1 apple, diced into 1/2" cubes
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, diced

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375F.

2. Whisk together eggs, eggnog and whiskey in a small bowl.


3. Toss together bread, raisins and apple and when mixed place into a medium-sized (8-9" diameter) baking pan.


4. Pour the eggnog mixture over the dry ingredients in the baking pan, using a large spatula to fold it in and coat all of the bread.

5. Evenly sprinkle the diced butter over the top of the bread pudding and place in the oven.


6. Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until a knife or cake tester draws clean.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Best served warm with a dollop of ice cream!