thepassionatecook

Mojito Cheesecakes

When life hands you lemons, my daughter would say "give them back and say: I want the Jonas Brothers!".
When life hand you limes, the answer is simple and a wee bit more grown-up: make mojitos! I don't often drink cocktails, haven't been for a long time, anyway, what with nursing two children and rarely getting a night off, but now that I've got my body back to myself, I can drink whatever I please... and there's going to be rather a lot of mojitos made this summer, believe me!

Of course, I am a bit of a light-weight and drink them very weak, but that doesn't distract from the flavour too much and the pleasure lasts for longer. In fact, this incarnation of mojitos in cheesecake format can do entirely without the alcohol... I found them in an issue of delicious magazine and there's a fabulous line-up of summer recipes by Tom Aikens - sticky pork ribs, tuna teriyaki burgers and for dessert: mojito cheesecake. What a wonderful grown-up menu for a garden party!

When I saw the recipe, I knew this was just the thing to make for this month's Sugar High Friday, brainchild of the lovely Jennifer aka Domestic Goddess, and this instalment is hosted by the equally talented Helen of Tartelette. Actually, I lie: I had made them already, not one to resist anything dreamed up by the gorgeous Tom, so this was a great opportunity to for once take part in a food blogging event that I am not organising myself... life's just too busy at the moment!

Cheesecakes are always wonderful in themselves, but even more so when they're as light and tart as this one. Tom makes them with mascarpone and cottage cheese, I tinkered a bit, using up what I had in the fridge: a combination of quark, mascarpone and crème fraîche... still worked a treat! Served straight from the fridge in mini tumblers, they make for excellent finger food at any summer party, a sweet, yet refreshing dessert that nobody in their right minds is going to refuse!

Churros con champurrado (Churros with Mexican hot chocolate): SHF

It's about time I participated in Sugar High Friday again... I was almost caught out by the fact that these days, it's actually the round-up that is published on the Friday, but deadline for submission is the preceding Monday! It was only because I am hosting the August edition this year and Jennifer gave me a heart-to-heart to explain the (new) rules, that I can now present my entry on time! You gotta love the theme of this round: cravings! This is the mission our Domestic Goddess gave us:

"So, I ask you. What is your favourite, most craved dessert? What do you want when you are on a diet or when you've been away from home for a long time? What dessert always catches your eye on a menu in a restaurant and you've had it made by a thousand different people but never made it yourself? I want to know. I want you to make it for SHF this month and post about it on June 25th and I will post the round-up on Friday June 29th."

Although for many people, something they so deeply crave will invariably be something their mother used to make, in my case it isn't. There is one thing I have been craving for ages, in fact, I haven't eaten it in over 17 years. And I have never, ever made it myself, so I am glad that the opportunity finally presented itself! When I lived in Mexico, I used to eat churros whenever I came across one (and you would think that since I gained 25 kg over there, this must have been hourly, but there were other delicacies to distract me). When I recently saw them made on Saveurs Mexicaines, a blog I follow with passion since it brings back so many good memories, I just knew that this fit the bill for this SHF.
Apparently, churros are a Spanish pastry brought to Mexico and the rest of Latin America by the conquistadores and in return they got: chocolate! There is hardly a better combo than those crisp strands of dough piped directly into some hot oil and fried for 3-5 minutes, then rolled in some cinnamon sugar and served with a bowl of steaming hot chocolate: dunking compulsory, I should think!
In Spain, churros are a favourite amongst revellers after a long night of dancing, which is probably the main reason for my long abstinence... I've had quite a few trips to Spain in this time, but I've been sight-seeing or visiting friends I hadn't seen for ages and I didn't really feel like going to a club until the wee hours of the morning, not even for some churros wrapped in grease-proof paper!
In Mexico, however, the family I stayed with ate them like other people would have their night-cap. With the main meal happening at lunch (not to be confused with 12pm, which may be what cuts your day in half, but lunch is served mid-afternoon), pan dulce, or sweet bread, is a favourite snack before going to bed, a last chance for the family to reunite over a steaming bowl of hot chocolate - and churros are a natural extension of pan dulce, really. You also find churros offered as a sweet treat in the (late) afternoon, when the smell of deep-fried pastries fills the streets... and like with so many other things, Mexicans are celebrating one-upmanship by elaborating on the original recipe from Spain and like to stuff theirs, most commonly with cajeta (a kind of dulce de leche, but made from goat's milk)... now here we're talking! How much more indulging can it get? But after years of craving, plain churros did just fine for now!
Champurrado, then. Mexican hot chocolate. This is different from what you had for breakfast as a kid. No instant powder dissolved in milk, it is a chocolate version of another drink most Mexicans enjoy daily, namely atole. Atole is made by dissolving corn flour (masa harina) in water and sweetening it, it is consumed cold and really an acquired taste. But it belongs to a Mexican meal like the amen to a prayer. Adding chocolate makes it much more palatable, in my opinion, that's exactly what champurrado is: using atole as a base, you dissolve (pure) chocolate and brown sugar in it, simmer it with some cinnamon sticks, and the end result is an onctuous chocolate drink thickened by the corn starch - and it is surprisingly moreish. And yes, you read and re-read that right: there is no milk involved, which makes it perfect for me and any person with a lactose intolerance.
Why is it, then, that most recipes for churros will invariably come with instructions for hot chocolate using milk? Some even add cream, probably to achieve a thicker consistency. Is it pure ignorance, then, ignorance of the fact that originally, Mexican hot chocolate used to be made without milk and dairy is only a recent addition, shunned by champurrado purists? Or are people simply not ready to stomach a dairy-free hot chocolate?  You certainly don't need it for the creaminess, if you make it the traditional way, like atole. My husband frowned when I explained how champurrado was made and, much as expected, he didn't warm to it, finding the taste of corn too overwhelming. He also isn't too keen on cinnamon and seeing how the churros are drowning in cinnamon sugar, I didn't expect him to like this one single bit. But what was supposed to turn into churros decadence for one depraved blogger ended up as a late-night chat with the better half. Nice under normal circumstances, yes, but there I was sitting at the edge of my seat counting every single strand of glistening pastry he picked up, struggling to get my fair share!
And if you're not convinced that champurrado is the way to go or if you can't find corn flour in your neck of the woods, by all means bring out the milk. But don't blame me for not trying to show you the real deal!

SHF#25: The round-up

The worst decision to make when doing a round-up is to choose which order to present the entries in. I could have done it in the order they came in, which makes it slightly unfair to all those whose celebrations of Thanksgiving I chose to completely ignore... so I figured let's go alphabetical once more, but in reverse order for a change!

Xochitl cooks alright, but is hard to please when it comes to truffles, but seemed to have liked the base recipe she created for Bittersweet chocolate truffles. She played around a little to infuse them with raspberry jam, cranberry & kirsch, pasilla chile, lemon thyme, jasmin fruit concassees... and she promises to bring me some when I meet her on Saturday - GOOD GIRL!

Meeta of What's For Lunch, Honey? works with a rich hazelnut & chocolate cream to create Hazelnut nougat truffles that don't involve any type of ganache or the fiddly aspects of tempering chocolate. Rolled in various ground nuts (pistachio and coconut to name but two), they also contain a crunchy centre and won't get stuck in your teeth like real nougat does!

Interrupting Thanksgiving celebrations, Virtual Frolic shares with us a tea-infused recipe: Cotillion Tea Truffles use a classic recipe and seem to have helped (momentarily) coming out of a tryptophan-induced coma brought on by too much of that Turkey...

Vicious Ange dusts off her Green & Black's Chocolate book to create rich Traditional French chocolate truffles dusted in cocoa powder... she works in the sweltering heat of Melbourne, by the way, so sombreros off to her!

Black on Black truffles, a recipe adapted from Pierre Hermé, are the order of the day in Veronica's Test Kitchen. She even had some tasters round who swear they are best had with a glass of rich red wine!

Vegan Vanguard rose to the challenge of making vegan truffles... and if you thought that meant compromising on flavour and indulgence, you are sadly mistaken! Have a look at those Hazelnut macadamia truffles, peppermint truffles and, my personal favourite, pomegranate truffles - they certainly got me drooling!

Exotic flavours are brought to us by TriniGourmet. You'd be forgiven to think that it just snowed in Trinidad by the looks of the crystals on Sarina's Coconut-scented rum truffles (they turned out to be light brown sugar... but she definitely had me fooled for a moment! (This post has just been updated with a recipe!)

Truffles take over the noisy kitchen as the resident chocolatier moves one step closer to opening a truffle shop. Defying all traditional methods for making S'mores truffles, I thank the Gods that the pickled garlic pictured didn't find its way into the chocolate balls...

Truffles and the occasional parcel from home keep The Casual Baker from doing what she does best... and using an Intense Orange chocolate bar from Switzerland's biggest Schoggi maker, she created Cointreau chocolate
truffles to die for!

Helen of Tartelette dusts off some chocolate moulds in her attic to make her own shells... for Dark chocolate rolled truffles, Dark chocolate and candied ginger rolled truffles, Pecan praline dark chocolate rolled truffles, Pumpkin dark chocolate molded truffles, Dulce de leche molded truffles and Coffee buttercream molded truffles. Somebody must have been quite busy this last month!

Another newbie to SHF, Eva of Sweet Sins combines chilli and kirsch for some sinful-looking truffles... she needn't have been nervous about her first contibution - they look and sound amazing, don't you agree?

It looks like Sam of sweet pleasure and I were on one wavelength this week, as he also used black sesame for his beautiful Black sesame truffles! Apart from their stunning looks, they convince through the simplicity of the recipe... always welcome!

Andrew of SpittoonExtra attempts to make big-handed man's truffles and, ever the pioneer, experiments with quince jelly and lemon yoghurt among other things. Sadly, he's not divulging any recipes, though...

Always a busy bee, Mae of riceandnoodles finds time to sneak in her entry at the last minute. And I am glad she did, as her Orange & Cointreau Grand Marnier and Milk chocolate & hazelnut truffles sound too good to give a miss!

My good friend Pille found just enough time to make some vividly coloured Dark chocolate & matcha truffles before jetting off to chilly Copenhagen. She reckons the bitterness of the Matcha powder are the perfect way to ensure that no kids indulge in them... so she can have them all for herself!

Indian tea masala truffles are brought to us by Mocktale. She beats all odds on a hot day to roll temperamental ganache into beautiful chocolate balls with a subtle peppery hint brought on by the spices she bought in an Indian shopping frenzy a few months ago... together with that beautiful plate!

Ilva of Lucullian delights proves that her blog's not just for show (although the photography is stunning, as usual), coming up with enticing flavour combinations for this instalment of SHF. Her varieties of truffles use two staples of my kitchen: balsamic vinegar (no salad is complete without it) and my favourite spice, nutmeg! Oh yes!

Küchenlatein's Ulrike goes out of her way to make three different kinds of truffle from one base recipe: rum truffles rolled in pistachio, bailey's truffles covered in coconut and cointreau truffles dusted with cocoa - I'm spoilt for choice here... maybe I'll just have one each!

Brilynn of Jumbo Empanadas received a truffle recipe by way of Canadian blogging by post and uses it for some delicious looking Baileys truffles and pistachio truffles. She also gets extra truffle points this time for being the first one to send her contribution in... and can therefore help herself to some more truffles ;-)

Habeas Brulee invites you to join a truffle-making workshop - one where you even make your chocolate from scratch!!! With so much hard work grinding your own cocoa bean, I am not surprised she produced only a single Ocumare truffle - but the beauty lies in the quality, not the quantity!

It is no surprise that Dianne of A Gluten-Free Journey should come up with a recipe for truffles sans gluten... but with a dash of Italy in the form of Disaronno! For the first attempt at making confectionary in 10 years, these look very succeeded.

There's chocolate in the garlic press this week as Sarah cracks open a bottle of Kalua and a can of maple syrup to make her first entry to SHF: Dark chocolate truffles. They are adorned with milk chocolate and are a sweet reminder of her wedding day...

Fanny the foodfairy of blog foodbeam has been a busy girl messing with improving some of Pierre Hermé's recipes. She rolled Ginger & milk chocolate truffles, Salted caramel truffles, Cinnamon truffles and Vanilla truffles and tried to find out how vision impacts flavour... results on her site!

More alcohol-laden chocolate comes to us in the form of Chocolate truffles with grappa. Claudia of Fool for Food filled hollow chocolate balls (I never knew you could buy those ready-made?) with ganache, then coated them in chocolate... and they were so tricky to handle, she had to eat half of them in the process ;-)

For someone who is as new to the blogging world as Food Vagabond, Hande impresses with knowledge gathered at a recent chocolate & wine pairing workshop.The concoctions she proposes here are nothing short of stunning as she uses Barbera d’Asti, Sauternes vinegar, Apple balsamic vinegar and, true to her cultural heritage, some Turkish smoky red pepper truffles!

Food Lover's Journey steers clear of the beaten path to help herself to some Almond truffle biscuits. Probably just as well, as rolling truffles in 36 C can't be a pleasant job - and it sounds even worse in Fahrenheit!

Lauren of The Foodie Files gives hers the X-Factor by infusing them with tea. I wish I was among  those lucky enough to be getting these delectable Earl Grey truffles as little "thank you"s this year...

I-Ling is feeding us green tea truffles this time, with her Matcha chocolate truffles. She took my mission seriously, heading for a chocolatier at her local market and eating not just her's, but also her friend's portion of them ;-)

Elle of Feeding My Enthusiasms is impressing everyone this Thanksgiving with delightful Cognac Prune Truffles. I wonder how many of them you can eat before being over the limit... but then, there's nothing wrong with veggying out on a sofa all day long, so bring them on!

Chrispy gives up valuable hours of skiing the slopes of Washington to write up her post about truffles - are you mad, woman? She gives us a recipe for Black Russian truffle with an experiment with a White Russian truffle... and great background info on chocolate itself!

English Patis has another late entry, but tempts us with an array of Chocolate & orange truffles - she even makes a child-friendly version using orange extract instead of liqueur... they also use condensed milk instead of double cream, so should keep longer!

Abby of eat the right stuff had the advantage of having participated in our recent chocolate truffle workshop in London... but her Winter truffles went way beyond what we learnt there! Dried fruit, roast chestnuts, cookies and booze - a whole meal crammed into a small truffle! Irresistible!

Do You Know the Muffin Man? Well, I do and I can tell you that he was busy making truffles in his Bakery Arts class all of last week! He also used ready-made chocolate balls and decorated them to perfection... just have a look at those!

Nemisbéka's blog is, unfortunately, in Hungarian - but she reveals the recipe for her Triple chocolate truffles in English for the occasion. Unfortunately, she had to suffer the loss of her melon baller on the way... and took this as a sign from God to treat herself to a shiny new toy!

The original, the one and only Domestic Goddess takes out her Little black dress chocolate truffles to celebrate the fact that the fabulous virtual foodblogger event she's created has just turned two! But she reckons you can leave the formal party wear behind and indulge in them enveloped on nothing but your PJ's... glad to hear that, because you'll need more than one late night to devour those 2.5 pounds of truffles!

Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness brings no less than eight truffles to the party: Sweet smoked paprika, Cashew-topped vanilla, Orange, Hazelnut, Fleur de Sel-topped tea, Amaretto, Pecan-topped plain and Mint truffles... and she says she's not eating a single one of them, but feeding them to the family! Way too charitable!

On Dessert First you not only get a crash-course in chocolate truffle techniques, but are also tempted with intriguing creations like Wasabi ginger truffles and Matcha truffles. No wonder Anita is obsessed with chocolate making after these successful creations!

Knowing how busy Nicky of delicious:days is at the moment, I really appreciate her contributing to SHF this time. As you'd expect, not only are the pictures absolutely mind-blowing, she also uses a highly unusual technique straight from the mouth of a trusted source... and creates Kalua truffles that outshine everything!

Far from modest are Daydream delicious...' first attempts at making her Very Valrhona chocolate truffles: rosewater-infused white chocolate and decadent dark chocolate enrobing a honey-roasted, chocolate-coated almond.. the pure thought makes me weep with joy! Just hoping she keeps some for our Christmas gathering next week!!!

With events such as this one, you always know you're going to get a fair amount of recipes that are way out there. Culinary Concoctions by Peabody's White Chocolate Truffles infused with Pear Skins, Wildflower Honey and Nutmeg is one of them... unusual, but tempting, and quite a tongue-twister as well!

Sam of brandnew blog Coomber Creek really lives in the boonies somewhere Down Under so couldn't find a chocolatier anywhere near to save her life! She took inspiration from a visiting anteater for her Chocolate Echidna Truffles and you'll be pleased to hear that the poor animal is not featured on the list of ingredients!

As you'd expect, Jeanne has not only done her homework, but is sharing some of the invaluable tricks of the trade we picked up in our chocolate truffle workshop. On top of all that the Cook Sister! has also found the time to dream up two delicious recipes for us: Chocolate caramel fudge truffles with Fleur de Sel and, true to her South African roots, Amarula cream truffles... booze and chocolate can be such a great combination!

Despite the hot weather, Haalo of Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once experimented with festive flavours that bring us in the right mood for the upcoming season: Cherry Chocolate Truffles and Christmas Pudding Truffles not only sound delicious, they look the part, too!

Some of us will just take some time off blogging when they travel, but Lara of Cook & Eat was out there posting a different truffle recipe every day! She even found time to dine with us London bloggers! You must check out the amazing Lemon & dark chocolate, Espresso & dark chocolate, Hazelnut, espresso & milk chocolate, Pumpkin & dark chocolate and Pomegranate, oolong and dark chocolate truffles she created!

Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity went through some pain to create not one, but three varieties of truffles: the efforts of making Nutella Truffles, Limoncello Truffles, Caramel Truffles with Fleur de Sel leave her convinced that spending $4 a piece at the local chocolatier is a good idea...

Elizabeth of Cake or Death? was very ambitious trying to re-create Ferrero Rocher... what a daunting task! She thinks her truffles could use more work in terms of aesthetics, but to me, they look all the more desirable... and the taste is what it's all about, isn't it!

Dehydrated strawberries anyone? Brownie Points opens a newly acquired tub of them and knows just how to make them work in her Strawberry balsamic truffles - bringing a notion of fruit into a truffle is always a good idea and just look at that amazing colour, will you?

Boxcar Kitchen also experimented with salt - her Caramel-dark chocolate truffles with fleur de sel were a sure winner at the Thanksgiving table... but she's keeping some white chocolate truffles with orange flower water in the fridge under the pretense that they're not firm enough yet...

Kerstin goes Beyond Burgers and Bratwurst and hires her students to help her roll delectable Baileys chocolate truffles for her first SHF entry. Attendence levels will roar after that one session, and for all the right reasons, believe you me!

Anne of Anne's Food loves the combination of the sweet and salty and creates Peanut truffles in shiny cups, topped with chopped peanuts! With a recipe like this one, I predict Hershey's filing for bancruptcy very soon...

Andrea's Recipe Box gets a new, delectable addition this week with Milk chocolate Kahlúa truffles. After sending her husband on a business trip and tucking her three (!) boys (!!!) in early one night, she rolls the most delectable coffee-infused chocolate balls and skillfully decorates them with coffee beans, despite all eyes being on Don Juan DeMarco (on the telly)...

Amy's Pickles honours the birthplace of chocolate by making some scrumptious Mexican chocolate truffles, using cinnamon, cayenne pepper and kaluha... no human sacrifices needed when you can appease the Gods with such lovely treats!!!

A Veggie Venture is concerned about your waistline and proposes Surprise Weight Watchers truffles. They're made from pumpkin so are big in fibre, but Alanna insists that despite only counting as 1 WW point, they are utterly scrumptious!

1 x umruehren bitte (aka kochtopf) knows some of my favourite mass-produced truffles - Ferrero Rocher and their younger siblings Raffaelo. She's not shy to try and recreate the latter, with instant success... and she makes creating her ricotta-based Snowballs sound oh so easy!

As for my own attempts at creating truffles, I also decided on a threesome: Sea-salted caramel fudge hearts with fleur de sel, Rooibos-infused chocolate truffles and White chocolate, cardamom and sesame truffles...

I have thoroughly enjoyed this round of Sugar High Friday and found it to be such an inspiring source for creating even more of of these delicacies! I feel like I've piled on the pounds from reading through all of your posts alone and just wish I had added one more rule for this event: "Send me some of your truffles to sample!"... I have no problems divulging my postal address for this purpose!!!

 

SHF#25: And God created chocolate truffles

*** Leading up to Christmas, lots of readers have been asking for a link to the round-up... find it here. Happy tempering and rolling (and send me a few, will you?) ***

I have a sneaking suspicion that every host of Sugar High Friday since the beginning of this fabulous virtual event initiated by the Domestic Goddess actually knew what they were talking about when they chose the theme for their edition... all of them seemed to have picked a sugar-laden topic that was close to their heart and therefore gave them some advantage over the poor foodbloggers out there who were good sports to try making their first puff pastry or come up with a calorie-free dessert. So maybe, just maybe, I am the exception to the rule - as for many of you out there, this is my very first attempt at making chocolate truffles at home, having so far relied on trusted "dealers" like Maison du Chocolat or my local and favourite William Curley.
Hopelessly ambitious when it comes to something that is so mind-blowingly indulgent as the chocolate truffle, I decided to make not one, but three different variations... although admittedly, this strategy was nothing but a safety net: I only had to get one out of three right and could just feast on the "cripples" left behind on the way!
They turned out allright, though, all of them (but I made sure I still pigged out on them as much as the calorie-conscious part of my brain allowed... and believe you me, this part of my brain is very small) - even though there was the odd disaster, like trying to melt white chocolate in the microwave only to be alerted to wads of smoke coming out of it. Burnt white chocolate anyone? It wasn't actually that bad once you had gotten over the taste... but definitely useless for dipping truffles in. All in all, I found making my own truffles much easier than I had expected and also less time consuming - so I will be making more for Christmas presents this year!

First up an adaptation of a recipe I found in the latest issue (Dec. 2006) of Elle A Table. A smooth and creamy white chocolate centre, which even after hours of freezing was quite tricky to handle, flavoured with tahini (sesame paste) and dunked in white chocolate laced with black and white sesame seeds. Having only just discovered cardamom spice, I used this lovely and refreshing spice to give an extra twist to the filling - so here you have some truffles that are out of the ordinary, but certainly a subtle enough  combination of flavours to even please the truffle novice.

I have always been a sucker for caramel and I especially like the salted variety - with masses of fleur de sel left over from our (not so recent anymore) butter & salt tasting, the sea salt caramel chocolate fudge hearts (top picture) were an obvious choice. Remembering Shuna's warnings (she finds making caramel in your home kitchen without a fire extinguisher and a team of paramedics standing by a gamble with Death and speaks of her own experiences working in restaurant kitchens), I made my caramel the safe way - not melting the sugar straight in the pan, but diluted in water, which makes it a slower and therefore safer process. Having been unable to find the phantastic "stencils" we used at the chocolate workshop (they're about 10 cm high and conical, which makes the truffles fall out easily on the other end, keeping their shape intact), I resorted to the smallest cookie cutters I could find - stars would have been my preferred option, but I only found hearts... well, well, here's an idea for Valentine's Day, then!

Last up, a very basic truffle recipe: a simple chocolate ganache dunked in chocolate or plain, then rolled in cocoa powder or ground almonds. As per the lessons we learnt in the workshop, I tried to infuse the ganache - and opted for tea. Now, you see Matcha flavouring next to everything at the moment and Earl Grey sounded a bit too boring for my liking - so I opted for one of my favourite teas, the South African Rooibos. Inititally I was thinking of the Honeybush variety, but there was none left, so I figured the last spoonfuls of the rhubarb infused redbush tea I got from Dagmar   in an EBBM earlier this year would work just as well. Unfortunately, the subtle aromas were almost completely lost in all the Valrhona I used The Rooibos aroma comes out quite beautifully, actually, if you only roll the truffles in cocoa, rather than dunking in more chocolate... but it is very subtle. so now we know why Earl Grey is the most prominent tea flavouring around... its strong perfume, like it or not, can stand up to anything, even a powerful chocolate ganache!

Call it cheating, but I organised a chocolate truffle workshop for UK foodbloggers a few weeks back in anticipation of today's big event - and learnt one important lesson from eating the truffles we produced at the workshop only some three weeks later.. so when it came to SHF, I chose to use UHT (long-life) cream for all my recipes. Despite a certain chocolatier in Paris is experimenting very successfully with cheesy chocolates, I wouldn't want to be giving any truffles away for Christmas where the crunchy coating on the outside gives way to a filling smelling like a pair of old socks... so UHT is the way to go!

Although I had a host of gadgets at my disposal (thanks to Sarah who is an avid reader of this blog and lent me her chocolate dipping tools), one little problem couldn't be avoided: I had bought a thermometer to temper the chocolate, but when I unpacked it, the battery was flat... and I couldn't even change it as the darn thing wouldn't open. According to my notes, the tempering is necessary not only to create a hard and crunchy chocolate crust (at least that's one tick), but also to give it its shiny, glossy appearance... so the absence of a thermometer may have been the cause for the coating for my truffle hearts to go a bit pear-shaped in the drying process - or can you think of something else that could have caused this? It resulted in a very interesting look that you couldn't imitate if you tried...

I can't wait to read everybody else's contributions when I do the round-up... despite the holiday season in the US, I already see my mailbox filling up with intriguing entries - and I also see a record number of new blogs participating, which is doubly exciting! So, come back for the round-up which will hopefully be published on Monday, hormones permitting!!!

SHF XXII - We're jammin': Apricot & roast pistachio jam

We're jammin
I wanna jam it with you,
We're jammin, jammin
And I hope you like jammin too

Like the rest of the foodblogging world, I guess, I have had rather a lot of jam sessions lately - mostly featuring members of the Berry family. Chuck couldn't make it, unfortunately, but Blue, Rasp and Goose (you sometimes do have to wonder how they come up with their pseudonyms these day, don't you) all staged brilliant performances in my kitchen. So within a matter of hopefully no more than weeks, you will be able to read more about combinations like gooseberry & black currant, blueberry & raspberry and, my personal favourite this year, raspberry & apple.
I only found out about the theme of this SHF by chance, when I met up with the hosts, Nicky and Oliver of delicious:days, in Salzburg two weeks ago and as I was expecting a delivery of apricots from the Wachau region that same week, I decided to contribute a recipe for apricot jam. Now, I've done a fair bit of travelling and lived abroad for most of my adult life and I have come to notice one thing about food (and especially fruit): it never quite tastes the same depending on where you eat it. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to grasp that fruit that travels far will have been picked long before it has actually reached the necessary degree of ripeness and, bananas aside, no fruit ripens off the plant. (No matter how Sainsbury's want to make you believe it.) It may get softer with time, but this is more a sign of beginning decay than a proof of the fruit reaching its hayday. If you've ever tasted a banana or a mango on your holidays somewhere in, say, Latin America, you will know exactly what I am talking about.
But in addition to choosing the right time for picking the fruit, variety and climate play a big part as well. I cannot understand those people who say that white asparagus tastes insipid - not in my part of the world it doesn't! But if you insist that you must have it preserved out of a glass, then it will, of course. Saying that, I've also had fresh white asparagus in France one time and found it to be inferior to the variety we get in Austria: if you ever happen to be there in its very short season (late May to late June), make sure you have some - simply cooked in salt water and drizzled with butter and parmesan... this will change your opinion of white asparagus forever.
I find apricots to be just as capricious. It's difficult enough to find a shop in the UK that sells them ripe, but even so, I have never, ever, managed to find some in this country that came even close to what they taste like in Central Europe. No matter whether they were imported from France, Israel, Chile or even locally grown... it must be the continental climate with harsh winters and dry and hot summers that makes apricots from Hungary and the Wachau (a wine growing region on board of the River Danube in Austria) superior to any other apricots I have ever tasted.
So when my Mum said she'd be getting 20kg of apricots from the Wachau region on the last day of my stay with them, I was jumping for joy... only to be bitterly disappointed when the day came and the farmer said he couldn't deliver because the fruits weren't ripe enough. I bought 2 kg of Hungarian apricots instead to ease the pain and made two varieties of jam: I prepared half of the apricots with lemongrass (a preserve I had  made before and found to be delicious, if very subtle in its flavour), but that wasn't enough of an experiment for SHF. I settled on pistachios, roughly chopped, then roasted, a sort of North African (or Turkish?) twist to a breakfast staple. Shame that the addition of nuts limits its shelf life quite a bit - but no matter how much other people will insist that jam tastes best after standing around in your cupboard for 8 months, I disagree. Anything tastes better fresh, and jam is no exception. Of course, jamming is a necessity in countries where fruit is highly seasonal, but the fact that it does keep for months doesn't mean that its taste will improve. So I am not bothered about the fact that I will have to consume this particular jam within no more than 2 months. Especially not seeing that I am already down to my last glass after just two weeks... the combination of flavours with the smokiness of the nuts and the bursting fruit of the apricot makes it simply irresistible!

Jam's about my pride and truth I cannot hide
Too Keep you satisfied.
True love that now exist is the love I can't resist
So jam by my side.
We're jammin
To think that jammin was a thing of the past,
We're jamming, jammin
And I hope this jam is gonna last!
(lyrics: Bob Marley)

Moëlleux au chocolat et au cafe - SHF XIII

Sugar-high Friday is a tender year old this month - which means I have missed a whopping 11 installments. Suffice to say that Fridays are bad days for posting for me, not only because the week leaves me dire little time to do any cooking (and I can't possibly think a week ahead) and by the time I get to breathe through at the end of the work week, SHF is almost over. No time to find a recipe, do the shopping and whip up something spectacular in a matter of two hours! Especially since desserts are not my forte - merely for lack of trying. By the end of the meal, we're usually so stuffed that we skip this part... so I very seldom prepare any at all. And when I need my daily sugar-fix at around 4 in the afternoon, I tend to indulge in great quality chocolate, which I buy at artisan chocolatiers (Pierre Marcolini, Maison du Chocolat, William Curley, etc) - of course these chocolates are not quite as cheap as your regular purple wrappers, so that one piece needs to go a long way... So whenever the theme is something as ecclectic as, say, tea, I don't usually have a recipe up my sleeve. I have managed to participate the February edition, though, with a baked apple, white chocolate cream and almond glaze mille-feuille, which was something I had wanted to make for ages and was just waiting for such an opportunity to come around. This time, I was helped by the fact that I have taken some time off work and the theme for the month is dark chocolate, which I use a lot. Kelli challenged us to go beyond our staple desserts, though, or at least give something tried and tested a new twist. Though I would have liked to browse cookbooks for hours to find something new, I did not have the leisure... my other engagements (like - hopefully not - being on TV and all) kept me too busy ;-) I was tempted to do a chocolate soufflé, just because SHF coincides with an IMBB this time and the theme is soufflés - kill two birds with one stone, eh? But I have posted a chocolate & wattleseed soufflé before, so I resisted, despite my innate laziness.
So here's a recipe a use a lot - not just because it's delicious and dangerously moreish, also because it's so simple you'll make it once and never forget the recipe! It's a traditional moëlleux to which today I added some crushed coffee beans - only try this at home if you have good quality coffee. Like our Musetti, which I am incredibly lucky to have a constant supply of, as in the UK, this is only available to restaurants and bars... but I tried it once, fell in love and after 3 months of hassling the Italian headquarters, they sent out a decree to their UK branch (a warehouse in the middle of nowhere) that they must deliver coffee to me when they do their round in South-West London, even though I only order 2 or 3 kilos at a time, not 20 or 30+.
But I digress. This cake is great for anyone who needs an indulging, gluten-free dessert... no flour in sight! Serve with any kind of fruit, I often cover the top with a load of raspberries, which are a personal favourite of mine, but the physalis go quite nicely with it, and so would a fig stew or some poached pears... you catch my drift. The coffee beans add a lovely crunch to this smoothest of chocolate cakes, so do try it if you can get your hands on some!

Baked apple & white chocolate mousse millefeuille

As I mentioned yesterday, my plans for today's SHF organised by A la cuisine have gone out of the window a little bit... I won't lie, I've always been scared of making my own puff pastry, it seems such a time-consuming effort and I am not convinced it makes that much difference. Whether my fellow foodbloggers will prove me wrong today, I am curious to see!
So I went to the supermarket instead. Bought a plain, fresh, but bog-standard pack of puff pastry. Even ready rolled! Because the one thing that's missing in my kitchen is a proper rolling pin. Mine is 15 years old and from IKEA - now, I can positively warn you that you should never, ever buy anything there which is not flat packed. A cobbler should stick to his last! And sticking is exactly what the dough does when I roll it with this stupid pin!
For the longest time I have been wanting to re-create a delicious cake that I had the last time I went to Vienna. Sitting in the beautiful surroundings of the Palmenhaus in the Burggarten, I sampled two delicious and quite unusual cakes. This provided the idea for today's recipe, although I am not even approximating what I had back then. I used puff pastry (today's theme) instead of shortcrust pastry and sponge, and the white chocolate mousse is also not original. I think they just use some cream strengthened with gelatine, whereas I followed a tip from my Mum, melting chocolate in cream, cooling and then whipping it up the following day. The topping turned out very nicely - thin almond slivers, roasted and then "glued" together in a mixture of butter, juice and honey... although I was very happy with the outcome of my baking adventure, I will still try and get closer to what I enjoyed so much in the Palmenhaus - with the sponge and shortcrust, you could even make a big birthday cake out of it, rather than individual desserts... I like puff pastry, don't get me wrong, but in this setup, it can be a messy business and not something you want to serve at a formal dinner party...

If you want more yummy recipes involving puff pastry, savoury and sweet, try:
Aubergine, pine nut & goats cheese puffs
Salmon & caviar scrambled egg tartlets
Roast red onion & fennel tartlets
Caramelised mushroom tart
Quick “pizza” with artichokes, tomatoes & parmesan
Plum tarte tatin with caramelised walnuts

Enjoy!

SHF II - Sugar-High Fridays, here I come!

What started out as a small sparkle of creativity in Italian obsessed with baking has turned out to be an explosive success among us foodbloggers. If we all write about food, shouldn't we get together once a month, at least virtually, and all cook to the same tune, or theme, rather? There have been 10 days of burning blogs, with themes like soup, cake, rice, fish, dumplings to name but a few. After a new initiative devoted to wine instigated by Lenndeavours, the Domestic Goddess felt we could do with even more indulgence and brought to life the Sugar-high Friday, where all sweet-teeth are invited to blog about sinful desserts. After missing out on the first one after disaster struck and my white chocolate terrine was merely a white chocolate soup (mind you, had I not been so upset, I maybe would have posted it as just that), I will be posting my first contribution to this great initiative tomorrow... so stay tuned!