make life sweeter!

A quick reminder that the deadline for Go Ahead Honey, it's Gluten Free! is coming Monday 24rd of March. So there is still some time to enter your gluten-free baked children's birthday treat!
Even though the truffles above are gluten-free they are not baked and not eligible for the event. However...they are eligible for this month's SHF hosted by Danielle of Habeas Brûlée. I made these orange truffles a while back as birthday presents for two girlfriends of mine. I was too quick trying to roll the ganache into truffles but I was pressed for time so it had to be done anyway. I used a round spoon to scoop out balls and dipped them into melted chocolate. The fact that the melted chocolate was warm (I know, this is logical) made the ganache balls turn into 'shape shifters'. So halfway dipping I stopped and just threw the truffles into the cocoa powder without dipping. At the time I already knew that it was a short-term solution. Not dipping and rolling in cocoa powder makes for cocoa powder saturated with fat and that makes for less appetizing looking truffles. So I made one plate with dipped 'free form' truffles. Their appearance wasn't great but at least they were covered in chocolate which gave them a bit of a bite and the cocoa powder stayed fresh. The non-dipped truffles went onto a second plate. At first the non-dipped truffles looked better but of course by the time I gave the truffles away the cocoa powder started getting saturated with fat and became dark. The ones in the picture are fresh undipped ones btw. The 'shape shifters' were less photogenic ;)
Although the truffle making didn't go all that well, they did taste good! I mean, what can go wrong with a combination of bittersweet chocolate, whipping cream, butter, orange and honey?

Also wanted to let you know that I have two exams in the near future so I won't be baking and posting a lot from now till 4th April.



Orange ganache

250 g (8 oz) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
30 g butter
1 tbs honey
250 ml (1 cup) whipping cream
zest of 1 orange

Place the chocolate, butter and honey in a heat-proof bowl.
Heat the cream with the orange until just simmering. Let it steep for 30 minutes. Strain through a fine meshed sieve into a measuring cup. Press onto the orange with the back of a spoon to get more flavour out of it.
Fill up the measuring cup until you have 250 (1 cup) again. Reheat the cream. Pour the cream over the chocolate and allow to stand for a few minutes. Stir until smooth. Allow to come to room temperature for a several hours until firm enough to roll. Chill for some time if necessary.

Making truffles

cocoa powder, sifted
orange ganache
400 g (14 oz) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

Put a piece of baking paper on your working surface to put the truffles on.
Put the cocoa powder in a bowl.
Scoop out balls with a melon baller. Roll between your hands to make a smoother ball. Place on the baking paper.
Melt the chocolate au bain marie (or in the microwave). Allow it to cool down (if necessary) to 40°C (104°F). Place a ganache ball on a fork, submerge the ball in the chocolate. Use a spoon to cover the top with chocolate. Tap the fork a few times on the bowl and slide the bottom of the fork over the lip of the bowl to remove excess chocolate. Tip the truffle in the cocoa powder and use your hand to move it around covering it completely with cocoa powder. Place the truffle onto the baking paper. Repeat with all the truffles.

I thought it would be a good idea to let my oldest son show the cookie crown with candy that I made for this month's SHF which is hosted by CandyRecapper this month. While the idea seemed a good one at the time, in practice it was difficult to take a flash-less picture of a tired and slightly hungry 2 ½ year old holding a cookie on top of his head. He kept on moving all the time. He wanted to look at the cookie but I kept on saying, no honey, hold it on your head, no not like that, like this. Meanwhile he was touching the little pearls on the cookie, which in turn fell to the ground one after the other which in turn made him want to jump up and go after them. So after trying to get a good and focused picture I just gave up on the idea and let him eat the little pearls and a piece of the cookie (I didn't allow him to eat the entire cookie because we were just about to have lunch...in case you were wondering why he could eat the entire cookie ;)



Before I continue with the making of the cookie I'd like to have your attention for the following...
Maybe some of you have already seen the logo of Adopt a blogger in my sidebar, maybe some of you have even clicked on the link. For people who don't know what I'm talking about, Adopt a blogger is an event launched by Kristen at Dine and Dish. Read all about it here.
After mixing and matching veteran and newbie bloggers I was matched with newbie food blogger Nikki of Crazy Delicious. I was very happy to see I was matched with a fellow baker, a fellow Daring Baker even! But we have more in common, we are both Croatian...both only in part but still :) Check out what Nikki blogs about here.

And now for the cookies...I made the cookies from the dough I had left-over from the cashew nuts, honey & vanilla pie. It's a great dough to use for cut-out cookies. I cut a crown out of paper and used it to cut out the cookies. I cut out some small rounds that I filled with crushed hard candy halfway through the baking time. If like me, you don't own such a small cutter you can use an unskrewed ballpoint pen instead, that's what I did :)



For the cookies

cookie dough
some hard candy
a little bit of white chocolate
edible balls, pearls or other sprinkles

Roll out the chilled (but not too hard) dough between 2 sheets of baking paper. Pull off the baking paper from both sides but let the dough lie on on of them.
Cut out crowns. Transfer to a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Cut out several small rounds were you see fit. Bake the cookies for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile crush a few hard candies.
Take the baking sheet out of the oven and fill the small rounds with crushed candy. Continue baking for 5-10 minutes or until the cookies start to brown on the edges.
Allow to cool completely on the baking sheets.
Melt a tiny bit of white chocolate and use this to glue whatever balls, pearls or sprinkles you like.

Busy times over here, finished my second exam of three this week....big sigh....did ok (enough) on both. Friday last exam. Also Friday A's father and brother are coming for a pre-Christmas dinner. We're leaving for Croatia on Sunday so we'll be spending Christmas and also New Year's day with my parents (who arrived there last Sunday). We're taking A's grandmother too, that'll be the first time she'll be visiting Croatia and also meeting the Croatian part of my family. I'm sort of tired because I went to bed too late last night because I was studying....I don't think my writing is very coherent, sorry about that...
Anyway, as I was saying: a busy week. Still don't know what too cook for Friday night. Also I'm trying to fit in the Daring Bakers December challenge.
The pudding you see in the picture above is a Dutch classic: Almond semolina pudding with red currant sauce. I made it for the 38th edition of SHF that is hosted by Kochtopf's Zorra. For this pudding you just cook the semolina in milk, add some ground almonds, sugar and vanilla. To serve with the pudding I made the classic sauce to accompany it: red currant sauce. You can find small bottles of red currant juice in every supermarket in the Netherlands but I'm not sure how the situation is in other countries. Of course you could use fresh red currant juice (probably even better!). And a good substitute would be cranberry juice which is very red and very tart too.
The semolina that's available in the Netherlands is a pretty fine one btw.
I used a pudding mould that isn't really a pudding mould but a brioche pan. I bought it a while back but haven't made brioche yet. It works very well for this pudding and I was very happy with the shiny appearence of the pudding. That's probably because the mould is non-stick. The pudding didn't come out by itself, I had to give it a hand by pulling the sides away from the mould. As soon as some air went up to the top it came out beautifully.

Almond semolina pudding

serves 6

½ vanilla bean
1 l (4 ¼ cup) milk
100 g (3 ½ oz) semolina
50 g (¾ oz) ground almonds
75 g (2 ⅔ oz) sugar + extra

Cut the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the vanilla seeds. Add the seeds to the milk.Let the vanilla steep in the milk on low heat for 15 minutes.
Mix the semolina, almonds and sugar. Add the mixture to the hot milk. Bring to a boil and allow to cook. Cook and stir for 5 minutes. Rinse a pudding mould with cold water and add the pudding. Sprinkle with sugar to prevent the forming of a crust. Allow to cool to room temperature. Chill in the fridge for a few hours.
Place a big plate ovet the pudding mould and invert it to get out the pudding. Serve with the red currant sauce.

Red currant sauce

rind of ¼ lemon (only the yellow part)
100 ml (scant ½ cup) water
300 ml (1 ¼ cup) red currant juice
1 tbs potato starch
60 g (2 oz) sugar

Allow the lemon rind to steep in the water for 5 minutes.
Mix the potato starch with a little bit of water until lump free.
Add the red currant juice and bring to a boil. Add the potato starch water mix whilst stirring. Add the sugar and allow to cook for 1 minute. Allow the sauce to cool down completely.

This was not what I had in mind for the November edition of SHF. But if plan A fails, plan B just has to do. When I read that Leslie at 'definitely not martha' wanted to see beta carotene packed recipes I thought I had the ultimate recipe, nice and sweet, orange coloured and packed with beta carotene. My idea was to make carrot and white chocolate truffles. Instead of using cream to make the ganache I used homemade carrot juice (I steamed the carrots before juicing). The ganache had a pretty orange colour due to the very intense orange of the carrot juice. I used more chocolate (100 g / 3 ½ oz) than carrot juice (75 ml / 2 ½ fl. oz) and also added some butter. I put the ganache in the fridge to firm up, and here we get to the core of the problem....it didn't firm up. I gave it a day more, and it seemed a bit firmer (but still liquid) and just to be sure I gave it another day....but as you already saw in the picture this didn't give the result I was looking for. So much for the truffles....
Plan B was excecuted in a hurry so it doesn't look very pretty. I used some orange chiffon cake scraps that I still had in my freezer from the Daring Bakers Oktober challenge and filled it with the clementine and lemon curd that was left over from the tart I made last week. I topped it off with the carrot and white chocolate ganache. This resulted in a very citrusy tangy sweet petit four. The ganache did not have a carrot taste (you could smell it a bit though) but it sort of mellowed down the sweetness of the white chocolate and and of course it added plenty of beta carotene! The ganache in turn mellowed down the tartness of the clementine and lemon curd. All in all it was a delicious combination.
I think the glaze would be excellent over carrot cake too or any other cake that happens to need an orange coloured glaze.

Btw the curd and chiffon are good sources of vitamine A too because of the eggs and egg yolks. Vitamine A is the vitamine beta carotene is transformed into in the human body. Just thought I'd share my infinite wisdom with you ;)

Recipe for the orange chiffon cake here.
Recipe for the clementine and lemon curd here.

Carrot and white chocolate glaze

75 ml (2 ½ fl. oz)carrot juice (made from about 350 g steamed carrots)
100 g (3 ½ oz) white chocolate, finely chopped
10 g (2 ts) butter, softened

Bring the carrot juice to a boil. Pour over the chocolate and butter. Allow to stand for a few minutes. Stir until smooth. Chill for at least 2 hours.

No, I didn't pee in this glass :o)

I have to admit that I wasn't overly enthousiastic when I read this month's SHF theme: apples and alcohol - sorry for that Andrew! - because I don't like using alcohol in sweet stuff. Probably that's because I'm not a big drinker and for the last 3 years practically a non-drinker (pregnancies and breastfeeding). And even before my kids I only drank a few drinks a month.
But hey, it's SHF so if I have the time to join in, I will join in! After a brainstorm session with some friends I decided on making a jelly of Muscat. My initial idea was to add pieces of apple in the jelly as well but as time became an issue I settled with this easy yet elegant jelly based on just Muscat and apple juice.
I have become somewhat of a Muscat fan since I tasted Yarden Muscat whilst living in Israel. I don't know if it is the best but so far it is my absolute favorite. The Muscat I used for the jelly was from Noa, another Israeli brand, not as good as the Yarden but still very good.
You would expect to taste apple juice in the jelly but somehow you don't really taste it. Not that I considered that a problem because the Muscat taste was wonderful but still, I expected more apple taste. For my personal taste I would use a little more apple juice and a little less Muscat because I found it a bit on the heavy side. Spooning wine is faster than sipping ;) especially when you're practically a non-drinker.

Muscat and apple juice jelly

makes 6 small glasses

1 ts powdered gelatine
150 ml clear apple juice
200 ml Muscat

Sprinkle the gelatin in the apple juice and mix. Allow to stand for 5 minutes. Heat the apple juice au bain marie until it becomes clear (or when it reaches about 70°C). Slowly pour the apple juice mixture in the Muscat whilst whisking.
Pour into 6 small glasses and allow to cool down to room temperature. Chill in the fridge for a few more hours before serving.

Note - the jelly will be soft so if you want it to be sliceable, use more gelatine