How To Improvise Truffles

How To Improvise Truffles.
As a relatively new cook, I’m a bit unorthodox. I rarely follow recipes and when I do, I always add a little pinch or splash of something extra.
One thing that I never follow recipes for has always been Chocolates. Truffles, Bonbons, cream filled chocolates, no matter how much I know I should follow a recipe, I never can keep myself on track. For the last two years I’ve made an assorted box of chocolates on Valentine’s Day and each time the candies were my own special concoctions. I always want to blog about my favorite chocolates but then I find I never can because I make the candies by feel, not by measurement. Finally, I’ve decided to write a post about how to improvise your own truffles instead and just give the basic idea of the ones I made this year.

What you need:

• Organic Butter
• Powdered Sugar (Hopefully homemade but no judgment if you chose to use the store bought, I know I have!)
• Milk or Non-Dairy Milk
• Flavorings

Basic Cream Truffles
For a basic cream truffle or chocolate, you can make either a classic ganache or a simple butter cream. I prefer butter creams because you can’t make any flavor other then chocolate with a ganache. With butter cream you can flavor it any way imaginable.
Mix up a batch of butter cream. When the butter cream is finished, chill until hard but not frozen.
Then scoop out rounded teaspoon sized truffles and roll into smooth balls. When you’ve made them into balls, pop them into the freezer until completely frozen.
Once the truffles are frozen, they become much easier to handle. This way you can coat or drizzle them in chocolate or even make an outer layer!

For my butter cream, I made a mild mocha cream. It was simply butter, powdered sugar, salt, milk, and coffee extract. After my butter cream balls were frozen, I mixed up a batch of no bake brownies. If you want to replicate this, try to find a recipe on the dry side or just add more cocoa. You can also make a cookie truffle batch and use that as your second layer. I then pressed out a bit of the no bake brownie and smoothed it over my butter cream until it made a complete protective shell. Viola! Mocha Cream Filled Brownie Bites.

Liquid Filled Chocolates
If you want to make a liquid filled chocolate all you have to do is make or buy a sweet filling and pour it into hard chocolate coated rubber molds. Last year I made raspberry cream filled chocolates. The filling was simply a soft cream with a little thickener and my favorite raspberry jam.
Just melt chocolate ,spread it into your rubber mold, or even onto mini cupcake wrappers (carefully).
Once that chocolate hardens in the refrigerator or freezer, you can fill it with whatever liquid or cream filling you want.
The wetter the filling is, the thicker you need your chocolate shell to be or you risk the chocolates leaking.

Cookie Truffles

First off, make a basic butter cream. Flavor it however you like. Now mix in milk and flour, preferably softer flour (ex. I used whole wheat pastry flour) until you get a ball of dough that sticks together but doesn’t crumble. If you want the texture to be more like a short bread, use a larger butter to powdered sugar ratio and let the dough get to the crumbling stage when you add flour. It may be more messy to eat but the texture is exactly like shortbread.

You can make brownie truffles by subbing cocoa powder for some of the flour or oatmeal truffles by using oat flour and rolled oats in your dough instead of other flours.

This year I made all cookie truffles. If your butter cream comes out too soft to serve on it’s own, you can mix in flour and flavorings and make a large batch of cookie truffles. It’s the perfect way to save a ruined batch. For my cookie truffles this year I made:

White Chocolate Coconut Pecan Shortbread 

Mocha Cream Filled Brownie Bites Brown

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls with Cocoa Nibs and

Sugar Oatmeal Cookie Truffles

I hope this post can give you a few ideas on how to invent your own truffles. Good luck!

Angel Food Cake’ Soul Mate

  I adore angel food cake! Maybe it’s because it’s so soft and fluffy and sweet or maybe it’s because it’s the only cake I would really want to eat on a semi-regular basis. The only issue with angel food is that it can call for around twelve egg whites. That’s an entire carton of eggs and twelve wasted yolks.

My mom made me a whole wheat angel food cake for my birthday,she even made it with half sugar and half stevia and bought my very non-foodie guilty pleasure,canned whipped cream! She knows me way too well. I loved it but then the day after my birthday,I started obsessing over all those poor wasted egg yolks. The only recipe I could think of was creme brulee and I wasn’t really in the mood to make (or eat) a dozen egg yolks worth of creamy custard. I searched for a recipe that called for six or more egg yolks and eventually stumbled upon the perfect solution. It was the Gold Cake.

The recipe called for a whole cup which shockingly enough worked out to be fourteen egg yolks. It felt absurd separating more eggs just to use up leftovers until I found the perfect frosting recipe to top it all off. Oddly enough,the frosting called for two raw egg whites. It was a match made in heaven. The gold cake turned out to be an easy moist yellow cake. It was dense without being overwhelming and still managed to have a nice crumb. The frosting was like a whipped butter cream. With local organic eggs,I didn’t feel too strange about having raw egg whites in my frosting but you could easily substitute pasteurized egg whites if it gives you pause. I followed the basic recipe on allrecipes.com but added orange extract to the frosting and doubled the recipe.

Gold Cake

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 cup egg yolks
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Grease and flour two 8 inch round pans.
3. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl.
4. Cream butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl. Add egg yolks and vanilla; beat until fluffy.
5. Add milk to butter mixture in 2 parts alternately with flour mixture in 3 parts, beginning and ending with flour mixture.
6. Spread in prepared pans.
7. Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes until browned on top and a pick tests clean.

Whipped Butter Cream Frosting

• 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-2 tsp orange extract
• 2 egg white
• 9 tablespoons butter, softened

1. Cream butter together and slowly beat in the confectioners’ sugar.
2. Once thoroughly combined,add the egg whites and butter and beat at high speed until smooth and fluffy, approximately 5-10 minutes.
3. Add vanilla and orange extract to taste.

Spread half of the frosting on the first layer,leaving the sides unfrosted. Place second layer on top and press down slightly so the frosting is pushed out slightly for a more aesthetically pleasing layering (or not,it will be delicious either way) Spread the second half on the top on the cake and grate orange rind on immediately for the final touch.Viola! You have the perfect soulmate of angel food cake. Rich and decadent but still light and easy enough that you won’t feel too worn out making two cakes in a row.

Cinnamon Swirl Peanut Butter Cups

   I’m not sure if it’s a fast approaching Halloween spirit or just the warm fuzzy feelings of Fall, but I’ve noticed that Foodgawker is flooded with comfort foods. From gooey macaroni and cheese to thick creamy pumpkin pie lattes, it’s decadent and seasonal all the way.

I didn’t want to be left out so I made up a quick and addictive recipe. It’s a classic as well…but with a twist. Literally.

Cinnamon Swirl Peanut Butter Cups

Now what’s more comforting then cinnamon, peanut butter, and chocolate?

    Before I invented this recipe, I looked at other homemade peanut butter cups. I wanted to see if I was making something original or something that’s been done and done to death. The typical filling was peanut butter and powdered sugar coated in melted chocolate. That’s it! Sweet simple and hardly a recipe at all.There were a few variations like Salted Peanut Butter Cups (just the basic recipe with a sprinkle of salt) and Cashew Butter Cups.

  Boring! Ok, well the cashew was an interesting idea but salt? Really? That’s like saying pumpkin pie is a new recipe because you added nutmeg. It’s very common in the first place and a tiny change to make such a big deal of it. My recipe is a little more unique and, in my opinion, much more delicious.

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp Organic crunchy peanut butter
• 2 tbsp Organic virgin coconut oil
• 2 tsp raw honey
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 cup semi-sweet or dark chocolate.

Directions

1.) Mix the peanut butter, coconut oil, honey, salt, and cinnamon together in a small bowl until completely combined and melted. Coconut oil is solid when refrigerated but when mixed and left out at room temperature, it gets soft and easier to swirl into the chocolate.

2.)Melt chocolate over low heat.

3.) Once it’s melted completely, pour half of the chocolate into 4-5 miniature cupcake wrappers. Pour all the peanut butter mixture onto of the warm chocolate. Dollop the last of the melted chocolate in the middle of the peanut butter and use a toothpick to swirl the peanut butter into the chocolate and vice versa.

4.) Pop into the freezer and it should set in about 10 minutes. You can peel off the cupcake wrappers and Viola! You have beautiful healthy peanut butter cups.

This can be made with other nut butters for allergies and with maple syrup to make the recipe vegan. I also added a little food coloring for fun but these little creamy treats are very beautiful when they go all natural as well.

Loaves and kisses,

Maddie

Chocolate Medication and Birthday Back To School.

Chocolate is amazing.

Everyone knows this. Every chubby cheeked child who ever had a chocolate smeared face, every teenager who refused to give up trick or treating, every adult who has tried the ultimate heart break remedy of dark comedies and dark chocolate.

Chocolate is beautiful,delicious,and classic.

But is chocolate ever healthy?

I know you see news reports about newly discovered benefits of chocolate. They ramble out a little science as the screen flashes from Hershey’s Kisses to M&Ms, shows images of mass production Butterfingers and stock piled KitKat Bars.

Chocolate may be good for us but vanillin, red 40, hydrogenated palm kernel oil, and polyglycerol polyricinoleate are not. I don’t even know that that last one is. I don’t think anyone really does except,perhaps, the makers of KitKat Bars.

So is the chocolate that the news shows us healthy? Of course not. But I’m pretty sure I’ve found the solution to the chocolate lovers dilemma.

Chocolate Medication.

I call this delicious little recipe Chocolate Medication because of it’s three main ingredients.

• Raw Coconut Oil – improves hair and skin health and supports digestion and metabolism.
• Organic Cocoa – lowers blood pressure, improves blood vessel health, brain health and cholesterol levels as well as being rich in antioxidants.
• Raw Honey – raises levels of antioxidants, promote better blood sugar, protects against bacteria, and fights high cholesterol.

That’s it! A little dash of salt and you have a delicious healthy chocolaty dream come true!

I eat this mostly for the coconut oil because my normal diet is rather low in fat. I’ve only just started but have already found my system has *ahem* “regulated”, my skin and hair have gotten softer, and my nails are stronger then before. I have one serving each morning with some dairy and protein such as yogurt or cottage cheese with fruit.

Chocolate Medication

• 1 tbsp raw coconut oil
• 1 tbsp organic cocoa
• 1 tsp raw honey
• a dash of salt

Directions

Combine ingredients and stir until smooth. Place it in the freezer for a few minutes and the texture will change from fudgey frosting to a smooth, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate bar.

This also works well when you want molding chocolate. I used this recipe for my uncle Tom’s birthday present. He’s a teacher so I made a little apple out of two heart molds. This would make a great back to school present too! I wrote out the description for him,

“Cinnamon Coconut Butter Apple with Salted Dark Chocolate Base on top of a Salted Pecan Brown Rice Crisp with Marshmallow Nametag.”

Everything sounds better when you say it with fancy words. And you know what?

He won’t even know that it’s the healthiest chocolate he ever ate.

Loaves and Kisses,

Maddie

Oatmeal Cookie Dough Truffles

This summer is FLYING by! After the Fairy festival and the Red Woods I was lucky enough to go stay at my aunt’s house in Cape Cod,Massachusetts. While I did a lot of amazing things like…

biking to Province Town with my mom

sunbathing on BEAUTIFUL beaches

and parasailing!

I realized that I didn’t cook quite as much as I expected to. Cape Cod is a different altitude then what I normally bake at and although I hadn’t expected baking to be very different,the final results really were. I made a few dishes such as my mom’s birthday cake (a apple spice cake which whipped cream and caramel sauce) but I mostly saved my time for more exciting things like the beach and beach boys 😉

So this recipe isn’t a vacation inspired treat. Instead it’s just a summer treat and that makes it still pretty cool if I do say so myself! Although this recipe is entirely my own invention,I’ve noticed that the finished product resembles (in appearances only) Chocolate Covered Katie’s fudge babies. This is a vegan and,most importantly for summer, a no-bake dessert. Here you are….

Oatmeal Cookie Dough Truffles

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup Organic Smooth Peanut Butter
• 3/4 Cup Organic Toasted Rolled Oats
• 4 tsp Maple syrup
• 2 tbsp+ 2 tsp coconut oil
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 2 tbsp all purpose flour
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 1/3 cup walnuts
• Cinnamon,
• Vanilla, 
•  and Salt to taste
• 1/2 cup sweetened flaked coconut
• 1/3-1/2 cup almonds

Directions

1) Grind the oats in a food processor until slightly powdery. It’s OK if there are some peices bigger then others,it gives the truffles a better texture.

2) Pour the oats, peanut butter, maple syrup, coconut oil, flour, 1/4 cup flaked coconut, salt, vanilla, cinnamon and brown sugar into a stand mixer. Beat on low until combined. 

3) Chop up walnuts, chocolate chips, and raisins and add to oatmeal mixture.

4) Finely chop almonds and 1/4 cup flaked coconut and toast until fragrant. Set aside to cool.

5) Form oatmeal mixture into teaspoon sized balls, coat in cooled almonds mixture, and chill on parchment paper until set.

Makes about 20-30 truffles.

These cookie dough balls are soft when at room tempurature like actual cookie dough but become harder like traditional truffles when they’ve been chilled. I brought them to a party and every single one was gone long before the party was even over.

Loaves and Kisses!

~Maddie

Watermelon Smoothie

Omgosh! I’m finally back! The fairy festival trip was amazing and spontaneously turned into a trip to the Red Woods! Sadly I got pretty sick with what seemed suspiciously like whooping-cough on the way back so I’ve been out of commission for a while. That’s why there’s been no new posts and also why I don’t have all that much to show you.

Well….there is one thing.

Watermelon Smoothies!

This recipe is a great way to eat up any watermelon that is just on the edge of going bad. You know that stage where the texture is a little funky but the flavor is almost better because it’s gotten so sweet?  Well this is the perfect way to use it up! You still get the sweet refreshing quality without the slightly nasty texture.

Ingredients

• 1/2 of a small watermelon (about 6-7 oz)
• 2/3 cup milk (dairy or non-dairy)
• 1/2 tbsp Agar Agar
• salt
• cinnamon
• 

Directions

1) First you need to prepare your agar agar base. Place the Agar Agar and milk in a heavy sauce pan and let sit for 5 minutes. This blooms the Agar Agar (almost like yeast). Bring to a boil until it thickens. Let cool at room temperature until it is solid. If you didn’t boil it long enough that you can return the pan to the heat and bring to a boil again. Once the mixture is solid,store it in the refrigerator until needed.

2) Chop up your watermelon and put into blender with agar agar. Right now the agar agar will look completely unappetizing but hold on! Blend until completely smooth.

3) Stir in salt and cinnamon to taste.

4) Add a dollop of WHIPPED CREAM!

This smoothie is delicious on its own but it’s unbelievably tasty with a little dollop of my special whipped cream. I use this recipe all the time as frosting but it can be used just like whipped cream.

• Ingrediants
• 1 (8 oz) package of Neuchâtel cream cheese
• 2 cups of heavy whipping cream
• 1/2 cup of turbinado sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract.

Directions

1) Whip in a stand mixer the neufchatel, sugar, and vanilla until throughly combined. Add the heavy cream slowly to the whipping mixture until the frosting is firm and fluffy. 

This is super easy and makes a HUGE amount of frosting! It keeps well in the fridge and a little goes a long way compared to normal whipped cream because of how phenomenal the flavor is!

Without the frosting,this smoothie is only 117 calories so there’s room to indulge with a little cream.

Loaves and kisses!

Maddie

 

3rd Times’s The Charm

As I’ve already mentioned in my blog (does it count as a blog if I only have six posts so far?) I read this AMAZING recipe blog called Chocolate Covered Katie. Recently she started a challenge called “Hug A Vegan Dessert.” Other bloggers can make a new recipe, create a twist on a current recipe, or just blog about a sweet vegan product. Here’s a link!

http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2011/05/17/want-to-be-featured/

And I’ve been DYING to make a vegan dessert! I really want to get some publicity on this blog and I also love challenges (compeditive? me?) so this was right up my ally. But dispite my wanting to make a vegan dessert and blog about it, doing it was a completely different matter.

First off I’ve been feeling a major writer’s block comming on. As in painfully strong. Just typing anything is a little hard for me so excuse this slightly less charming post. I’m sure my delicious little creations will make it worth the read.

Secondly, and a littly more comicly, I am just AWFUL at writing down measurments. Baking for me is kind of like dancing, if I think too much about it, I’m an awful wreck. But if I just thow myself into it, shut my brain off, and just do it then it normally comes out great. That’s why I made two, yes, TWO vegan desserts before I actually had anything to blog about!

My first one was a play on a recipe for vegan brownies. By the end product, it didn’t even resemble the original recipe. My version had peanut butter banana frosting, melted dark chocolate mixed into the batter , and tons more cocoa powder then it called for. And it was DELICIOUS! Sadly, I had no clue what the measurments were so that recipe was a little kaput. ……Not that I would call it a complete waste of time! Nothing with that much chocolate goodness is a complete waste!

My second recipe was actually made for an occasion. Or maybe the occasion was made up as an excuse to make the recipe, I’m not really sure anymore. It was a quadrupled gingerbread version of Chocolate Covered Katie’s Single Lady Cupcake with gingerbread molasses frosting. Yes, I QUADRUPLED a single serving recipe. I know I’m insane, thank you for noticing. I then made mini-cupcakes and VIOLA!

Beautiful but completely undocumented so that was a no-blow too.

Then, one beautiful obligation free day, I made cupcakes! Vegan cupcakes! With written down measurements! and thus my evil concoction final masterpiece was born!

The Vegan’s Revenge! This recipe is undeniable proof that being vegan can be both unbeliavably delicious and decident!

Mwahahaha!

Ingrediants:

The Cupcakes

• 30 grams bread flour (1/4 cup)
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp turbanando sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp applesauce
• 1 tbsp + 1 tsp water
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 4 tsp coconut oil
• 30 grams chocolate chips (about 1/4 cup) + 1 1/2 tsp coconut oil
• 10 grams coconut chips

Frosting

• 30 grams coconut butter
• 1 tbsp coco powder
• 2 tbsp light brown sugar 
• 1 tbsp applesauce

Directions For Cupcakes

1.) About an hour before you start your cupcakes, place a jar of Artisina Coconut Butter in your refidgorator.

2.) Combine the flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar. Mix.

3.) Mix in the applesauce, water, and cocoa powder. There’s a hell of a lot of cocoa powder so don’t expect it to all mix in. That’s why the next step comes in!

4.) To add flavor and healthy fats, as well as help with mixing, melt 4 tsp coconut oil in the microwave and mix into batter.

5.) Measure into a small microwavable bowl 30 grams of vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips. I say vegan because some semi-sweet chocolate chips use a milk fat emulsifier.

6.) Melt chocolate chips and then mix in 1 1/2 tsp of coconut oil. Add chocolate mix to batter.

Now for the exciting part! Although if all that chocolate didn’t excite you,maybe you should go see a doctor.

7.) Take out your coconut butter once it’s been chilled. The coconut butter should now be solid. You can use the tip of a knife to chip out small peices of the coconut butter, thus making COCONUT CHIPS! I’m a genious! Measure out 10 grams of coconut chips and gently mix into batter.

8.) Preheat your oven to 330 degrees. Devide your batter into two cupcake tins lined with a pretty cupcake wrapper. Because everything is yummier when it’s been wrapped up in something shiny. Bake for 18 minutes. Cool on a wire rake.

Directions For Frosting

1.)Microwave 30 grams of coconut butter until melted then mix in cocoa powder,brown sugar,and applesauce. Mix until smooth. Frost the cupcakes when cooled. (wow,that was much shorter)

I know these recipes are far from fat-free or diet friendly but my goal here was to show how yummy vegan can be and I feel like I succeded. These cupcakes are super fudgy with a nice little crisp on the outside and little coconuty suprises inside plus the frosting goes wonderfully with them. Each super decidant cupcake is still only 409 calories with frosting.

Loaves and Kisses!

Maddie