Clockwise from foreground left - Marzipan Snowballs, plain with tempered dark, Crystallized Ginger rolled in Gingersnaps, plain topped with cocoa nibs, peppermint rolled in mint hot chocolate powder, plain. Marc and I have gone through many truffle travails the last two weeks, and even though I feared we would be defeated, we (Marc mostly) pressed on and prevailed. Among other things, my rather unpleasant flold (103 degree flu, sniffly cold), and the general speedy lunacy that is the holiday season, really threw a monkey wrench in our chocolate adventures. My fantasy, (oh…how naive) was that we’d make a few different flavors of truffles over a couple of days, and tra la la, have beautiful pictures for posting and tasty truffles to bestow well before Christmas. Hmmm…apparently there was another plan at work, and it included me having to take a back seat role for fear of delivering more than just chocolate (i.e., cooties) to our loved ones, and we finally finished the last batch today…December 30th. Truthfully, we did create some delicious chocolate treats, but they are just a little late. AND we have some good pictures, but they took an inordinate amount of doctoring on Marc’s part to be presentable. Making ganache (truffle filling) is easy, fun and incredibly versatile. If I had really known how much precision is necessary with tempering, I would have practiced and gotten through the learning curve some other time of the year, and just made what we knew worked, right before the holidays. Temper, Temper Before we get into truffle making in a general sense, there is a little background you should have on tempering chocolate. All chocolate bars you buy commercially are tempered. They have a clear glossy sheen, and snap crisply when you break them. Whenever you melt chocolate, it loses it’s temper. Meaning that if you just melted it, and then it hardened, the chocolate wouldn’t return to that crisp glossy state. Tempering chocolate is a precise chemical series of events. The effects of tempering come from the formation of beta crystals. When you melt tempered chocolate, you melt those beta crystals, and if you want to re-temper, you need to bring the chocolate up to a high enough temperature to melt completely, but not above 125, otherwise it’s scorched and can never be tempered again. Then you need to bring it down to a low, but still melted temperature to encourage the beta crystals to form. Then the key is reheating the chocolate to a particular 2 degree range in order not to let all other detrimental (gamma, alpha, etc.) crystals form, but still maintain beta crystals. Tricky, huh?  read more »

I'm very pleased with the entries I've gotten so far, for my pub crawl. I think this is going to be fun! Just a reminder, entries are due by Monday, March 17th. You can send them to me day & night on the 17th.
The 1st place winner gets:  read more »

I have had a fascination for anything sweet, and especially cakes right from when I was a kid! And I had this extra-special affection for swiss rolls, those colorful, spiral cakes that tasted like heaven, and even with the minimal frosting and decoration, they always attracted the attention of dessert-lovers, including me!!  read more »

I have had a fascination for anything sweet, and especially cakes right from when I was a kid! And I had this extra-special affection for swiss rolls, those colorful, spiral cakes that tasted like heaven, and even with the minimal frosting and decoration, they always attracted the attention of dessert-lovers, including me!!  read more »

Please welcome guest author Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic who shares his recipe for some of the best cupcakes we've ever had. ~Elise Most coconut cupcakes are often a bit too dense and flavorless in my opinion, often presenting bland cake with a avalanche of coconut plopped on top. Tired of coconut cupcake posers, I decided to develop a recipe that would really rally in the flavor of coconut in a cupcake. This one uses coconut milk in place of milk, and butter instead of oil, and has shredded coconut through and through giving it a divine taste that puts other coconut cupcakes to shame. In light of that, the cupcake itself is surprisingly light in texture, almost airy. The coconut cream cheese frosting enhances the cupcake so each bite is just sweet and exotic, leaving whispers of flavor behind. It is, in my opinion, the ultimate coconut cupcake recipe.  read more »

Indonesia is an archipelago country in South East Asia that consists of 18,000 islands and is occupied by 250 ethnic groups. Diversity in culture has influenced the world of pleasure for the culinary adventurer.

Throughout the history, Indonesia has been involved in trade due to its location and natural resources. Indonesia's indigenous techniques and ingredients merge with influences from India, the Middle East, China and Europe. Spanish and Portuguese traders brought New World produce even before the Dutch came to colonize most of Indonesia. Indonesian island of Maluku is famed as "the Spice Island" also gave contribution on the introduction of native spices to Indonesian and global cuisine.  read more »

"Brother bought a coconut, he bought it for a dime His sister had another one, she paid it for the lime She put the lime in the coconut, she drank 'em both up She put the lime in the coconut, she drank 'em both up She put the lime in the coconut, she drank 'em both up Put the lime in the coconut, she called the doctor, woke him up, and said Doctor, ain't there nothin' I can take, I saidDoctor, to relieve this bellyache, I saidDoctor, ain't there nothin' I can take, I saidDoctor, to relieve this bellyache" ~Harry Nilsson Ok, now that I have you all groovin and swingin around the kitchen to a calypso beat, it's time to talk about this week's Tuesdays With Dorie challenge, and if you are thinking it must have something to do with limes and coconuts and palm trees, then you would be correct!  read more »

Christmas Cake Ingredients: 250 gm sugar 400 gm cooking butter 7 eggs 375 gm flour 500 gm mixed dry fruits 50 gm caramel color 120 ml brandy 120 ml rum For marzipan 200 gm almonds 2 egg whites 100 gm milk 200 gm sugar 1 drop almond essence For Royal Icing 200 gm icing sugar 200 gm stiff white eggs 1/2 tsp vanilla essence Method: Add all the ingredients together into a mixing bowl and blend well. Grease mold with butter and put cake mixture into mold. Heat the oven to 190 degree C and bake cake for 45 minutes. Make sure that the cake is well baked and de-mold and cool for 45 minutes. For the Marzipan, make an almond paste and add the egg whites, milk, sugar, essence, color and make leaves and flowers. Make the royal icing by mixing all ingredients and spread over the cake.  read more »