make life sweeter!

I just had to bake something today....it had been a week since I last baked (even though my last post wasn’t that long ago)...and I could feel the baking-itch again. I settled for an easy recipe that had been on my to-do list for ages now: Chocolate truffle cookies from ‘The Ultimate Cookie Book’. I was a bit apprehensive about making them at first because the recipe only uses cocoa powder and no chocolate. Usually I’m not a big fan of cookies that are made with cocoa powder and not with chocolate. The only reason I tried this recipe was because it used a lot of cocoa powder, half of the amount of flour used.
It’s a very easy and quick recipe to make and the results as seen in the book looked wonderful.



I was surprised by the outcome of the cookies. Instead of looking more or less round and only somewhat puffed up they looked like chocolate crinkle cookies. Not that it mattered because they looked beautiful as they were but I wondered why they didn't look more like the picture in the baking book. I checked the recipe and I didn’t do a lot different.. I added a little more cocoa powder (that way I could finish the box) and instead of using Kirsch I used Amaretto. But these adjustments couldn’t have caused the flattening, spreading and puffing-up of the cookies.
Anyway...as I already stated, it doesn’t really matter....

They were crisp on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. Their taste was sweet as would be expected with the amount of sugar inside and outside the cookie. After the initial sweetness, the bitterness of the cocoa powder kicks in and takes the edge off the sweetness. All in all a tasty cookie but I have to try a regular chocolate crinkle cookie recipe with real chocolate to compare tastes.



makes about 10

50 g (2 oz / ½ cup) flour
30 g (1 oz / ¼ cup) cocoa powder
½ ts baking powder
25 g (1 oz / 2 tbs) butter, cold and diced
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp Amaretto
50 g (2 oz / ½ cup) icing sugar, sifted

Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. Put flour mixture and butter in food processor and process until it looks look moist small breadcrumbs. Mix the egg and Amaretto. Add to the flour and butter mixture. Process until combined. Chill for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 200ºC (390ºF). Line a baking sheet with baking parchment. Make balls the size of walnuts. Roll each ball through the icing sugar and make sure it is thickly coated. Bake for about 10 minutes.

1 cookie – 70 kcal
100 g – 350 kcal

carbohydrate 40 g – protein 9 g – fat 17 g (saturated fat 9 g) – fibre 6 g

My best friend San that was staying with us for a few days, likes to have something sweet for breakfast. At home she usually has Choco Prince Vanille with cappuccino for breakfast. She likes sweet a lot but is a bit fussy about some stuff (dark chocolate, fruit, dried fruit, marzipan, nuts, spices). She doesn’t eat bread, cereal or yoghurt for breakfast so being the good friend that I am I baked her self-frosting Nutella cake for breakfast. The recipe I found a couple of months ago on Nic’s Baking Sheet and I wanted to use it ever since.
I must say that the cakes looked wonderful when they came out of the oven. Especially the one in the star-shaped disposable baking pan. Besides looking great they were really very easy to make. And most important: San loved them! I thought they tasted good but not very special. The Nutella-taste wasn’t very distinct but that’s probably because I’m used to eating Nutella by the spoon ;) Maybe it would have been better with an extra filling of Nutella. But...who am I to complain anyway....San loved them and that’s what counts!

makes 12

140 g (10 tbs) butter, room temperature
150 g (¾ cup) sugar
3 eggs, at room temperature
½ ts vanilla
200 g (1 ¾ cup) flour, sifted
2 tsp baking powder
5 tbs Nutella

Preheat the oven at 165º C (325ºF). Line a muffin tin with paper cups. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add one egg at a time and beat until fully incorporated after each egg. Add the vanilla. Add the flour and baking powder and stir until just blended. Fill each muffin cup up to ¾ with the batter. Top each muffin with 1 ½ tsp of Nutella and swirl it in with a toothpick. Bake for 20 minutes.

Note – I used different baking pans: two heart-shaped and one star-shaped. I baked them about 15 minutes longer.

1 muffin – 240 kcal
100 g – 410 kcal

carbohydrate 46 g – protein 7g – fat 22 g (saturated fat 12 g) – fibre 1 g

My best friend San that visited us for a few days brought me some lovely looking Easter chocolate. It looks just like a framed picture. It is made by 'de Bonte Koe Chocoladekunst', a well known chocolate shop in the Rotterdam area.

Nearly forgot to make my pud today! Did some research on English puds a couple of weeks ago and decided to go with Chester pudding. Meanwhile my best friend arrived to stay with us for a couple of days and all of a sudden I just forgot that it was St. George Day! When I realised that it was, I quickly ran to the kitchen and made the Chester pudding I was planning to make.
There are actually two varieties of this pudding, baked and steamed. They share the same name put don’t share the same ingredients (baked Chester pudding here and steamed Chester pudding here). As for the history of Chester pudding....I couldn’t find anything unfortunately...if anybody knows, please enlighten me.
And before I forget: Happy St. George Day!



I used this recipe from Jane Grigson for Chester pudding. Instead of baking a big pie I made 10 small tartlets.

60 g (2.1 oz) butter
grated rind and juice of a lemon
125 g (4.4 oz) granulated sugar
4 egg yolks, beaten
24 almonds, blanched, grated in a nut mill or processed
4 egg whites
125 g (4.4 oz) sugar

Line 10 small tartlet tins with sweet short crust and bake them blind until lightly coloured.
While the pastry cases bake, make the lemon filling. Melt the butter in a small heavy pan. Off the heat, whisk in the rind and juice, sugar and egg yolks. When smooth add the almonds. Put back on the stove and stir until the mixture is very hot but not near boiling. Spread it into the warm pastry case (or into the cold pastry, if it has been baked in advance). It will already be setting into a thick jelly.
Preheat the oven to 220ºC (425ºF). Whisk the egg whites until stiff, pour the sugar in and whisk again until very stiff and a creamy-smooth texture. Pile onto the tart, right to the pastry edges. Put into the oven. After five minutes, check and if the peaks of the meringue are beginning to turn dark brown, lower the heat to 160ºC (325ºF); if they are not dark brown, leave for another five minutes before turning down.
Leave the meringue to go crisp on the outside. This can take nearly 30 minutes. Keep checking and tapping the crust gently. When it is ready, remove and put onto a warm plate. Best eaten warm, with cream, but good cold as well.

Chandra of Lick the Spoon is hosting this months Sugar High Friday and she wants us to liven up the party with a drunken dessert! Pretty soon after she announced this months SHF I new what I wanted to make: chocolates! I actually made these chocolates two weeks ago with my friend Christie. After eating sugar-free and chocolate-free for nearly a week (read why here) we just had to make something chocolaty. We made Moscatel chocolates from Kees Raat’s Bonbon book. They are made with white chocolate and Moscatel, a Spanish dessert wine. Instead of using Moscatel (which I didn’t have) we used Dalmatian Prošek. Prošek - not to be confused it with Italian Prosecco - is a typical dessert wine from Dalmatia, Croatia (the region my father is from). It is a very tasty - quite heavy taste I would say – sweet, amber coloured wine made from raisins. It can be drunk as an aperitif or as a dessert wine. I don’t know if Moscatel is anything like Prošek but I figured that the heavy taste of Prošek would combine well with the white chocolate. Fortunately I figured right! You can taste the Prošek very well and the alcohol taste takes the edge off the sweet taste of the white chocolate. As Croats would say: Živjeli!



From: Bonbon by Kees Raat

makes about 30 smallish chocolates

113 g (4 oz) Prošek (NOT fl oz!)
25 g (0.9 oz) whipping cream (NOT fl oz!)
dash of salt
375 g (13 ¼ oz) white chocolate
25 g (0.9 oz) butter, chopped and at room temperature

dipping
300 (10 ½ oz) + 100 g (3 ½ oz) white chocolate

Bring the Prošek, cream and salt to a boil. Put the chocolate in a bowl and add the hot Prošek mixture. Stir until the chocolate melts (reheat a bit if necessary). Add the butter and stir until smooth. Allow the mixture to come to room temperature.
Temper the chocolate by melting 300 g (10 ½ oz) of the white chocolate and allowing it to reach 45-50ºC (113-122ºF). Whilst stirring with a spatula slowly add enough of the 100 g (3 ½ oz) of white chocolate so that the chocolate is 29ºC (84ºF) (read Note 1)
Take some of the molten chocolate with a teaspoon and make thin chocolate rounds on baking paper. Use the back of the back of teaspoon to spread the chocolate a bit. Make 30 chocolate rounds. Allow the rounds to harden.
Pipe the filling on the rounds.
Temper the chocolate again so that the chocolate you are working with is 29ºC (84ºF). Use a special chocolate dipping fork or a fork with thin teeth from which you’ve removed one outer tooth and one inner tooth). Lift the filling + round with the fork and dip into the chocolate. Tap the fork a few times on the rim of the bowl so that the chocolate will look smooth and even. Scrape the fork over the rim to allow excess chocolate to slide back into the bowl. (I found it easier to spoon chocolate over the filling and then do the tapping and the scraping). Place the fork at an angle on baking paper and carefully let the chocolate glide off the fork.

Note 1 ~ if you’re working in a warm kitchen the amounts should be changed, you should melt less chocolate (eg 250 g / 9 oz) and add more chopped chocolate (eg 150 g / 5 oz). Otherwise you won’t be able to lower the temperature to 29ºC (84ºF)

Note 2 ~ allow left over chocolate to harden. Store in fat-free paper at app. 18ºC (64ºF). You can use it till up to 6 months. Every time you want to use it to dip chocolates in you should temper it again.

Storing ~ The chocolates have a shelf-life of 2 weeks if stored in a dry place at 12 to 18ºC (54 to 64 ºF).
They can also be frozen for max 3 months. Pack the chocolates in wrapping plastic with the smallest amount of air possible. Place them in a plastic container Take them from the freezer 36 hours before you need them. Allow to defrost for 24 hours in the wrapping plastic in the fridge and 12 hours at room temperature.

1 chocolate – 144 kcal
100 g – 514

carbohydrate 42 g – protein 7 g – fat 34 g (saturated fat 21 g) – fibre 0 g