Productive day in many ways
All good, except that I checked our website to see whether the webmaster has found a podcast we lost last week (yes, so I’m on leave. This was supposed to be a 10 second check). I discovered that the whole web page is now lost. Gone! How is this possible? Meep! We’re doing a national press release on Tuesday morning which links to that page. Meep! Having noticed it at 5.20 on a Friday while at home, I am completely powerless! Meeeeep!
Sigh.
I absent-mindedly submitted a fic to Still Grrr which has already been posted there, tch. But I have another in my back catalogue to fit Holiday Havoc for October: what was Joyce doing at Halloween when the costumes took over? Find out here
I have uploaded to Yuletide using AO3 - for once I’m ahead of the tech curve!
I have sent in my Secret Slasha!
I have no more fic to write... oh. Better get going on another Rulesverse, I think.
I also tried a couple of very simple homemade chocolate recipes today, and slightly promised to share if they were successful. So, from two recent newspaper suggestions:
Chocolate bark
Very simple indeed, but since slabs like this are being sold for quite a bit of money by posh chocolate shops this year they were worth a try.
Basics: take 400g good quality white or dark chocolate. Break into small pieces. Melt two-thirds in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Once melted, remove from the heat, add the remaining third and stir maniacally till they melt too. This tempers the chocolate and keeps it glossy when it cools.
Then spread onto kitchen foil on a tray, to a depth of about 0.5cm or a little more.
Add toppings. Approximately 200g of dried fruit or chopped nuts of your choice. I did dried cherry and macadamia on white; and toasted almond, ginger and apricot on dark.
Leave until cold. Peel off foil. Break into jagged pieces.
What worked and what didn’t
These are infinitely customisable - I did a third batch for a pregnant (nut-avoiding) friend who dislikes apricots and dark chocolate, and whose three year old son is mildly lactose intolerant but can cope with cheap white chocolate as it’s only fractionally dairy. It wasn’t an exciting version, but normally, I’d have been unable to give them anything chocolately!
But: I’m not totally convinced by the tempering method; it’s not very glossy when cooled and it takes a lot of stirring to get the chocolate to melt. (Though using Lindt worked better as it’s thinner and easier to break up. Green & Blacks is very chunky and took a lot of extra chopping to get it small once I realised that was critical).
Another time I would also chop the nuts a lot smaller; it looks a bit heavy once they are broken into pieces. I would also make sure there's a hard edge all round so that the heavy topping doesn't keep pushing the chocolate outwards. Some bits of bark are very thin.
This wouldn’t work for small children as there’s so much chopping; a shame, as it’s so simple otherwise.
*
Aztec Truffles
Warm 100 ml each double cream and water, 100g light muscovado sugar, ½ tsp chilli flakes. Leave to cool and infuse.
Meanwhile, break up 200g 70% dark chocolate in a heatproof mixing bowl. Also, grease a dish and line with baking parchment (about 15cm x 18 cm says the recipe. Medium size, to me...)
Once your mix has infused enough, bring it to the boil, then strain off the liquid onto the chocolate. Stir till it melts (recipe says you can melt it further over a pan to simmering water if need be. I had no trouble with the liquid at boiling point). Pour the chocolate mixture into the prepared dish. Leave to cool and chill (1 hour in the fridge).
Once chilled, roll teaspoons of the mixture in cocoa powder to make truffle balls. Allegedgly makes about 30, but I did this on 150% quantities and got 30 so my teaspoons must be generous.
These will keep, covered and refrigerated, for up to a month.
What worked and what didn’t
Very simple and worked well. I had my doubts about adding sugar to chocolate, but they aren’t too sweet for my taste with 70% dark choc. Might experiment with leaving in the chilli flakes; they might be too bitty but they would also give more kick. There’s nothing in the version above to scare chilli-phobics, but chilli-lovers might like some more oomph.
Another time I might try cardamom instead of chilli, for a change, and because I love that combination. Maybe with some espresso replacing the water too. Could be delicious. The recipe says it also works well with Green & Blacks Maya Gold, which I do believe.
The only slight ‘but’ is that this ‘rolling teaspoonsful’ lark doesn’t work, even with cocoa-dusted hands and the teaspoon kept in warm water to help. The mixture is semi-solid but far too squidgy to roll. So get the roundest teaspoon you can find, scoop out something roughly ball-shaped, then turn it once or twice in the cocoa while slightly squishing any sticking-out-bits into place. That’s all you’re going to get. And you will be covered in cocoa anyway... Thank goodness I’m wearing a brown top, I suspect I’m more covered than I can tell.
This would work for small kids, but they probably wouldn't like the taste. Gah!
*
Making all four mixes consecutively took me 3 hours (1 hour of which is cooling time for the truffle mix, which I did last, d’oh). Presents for ten people, roughly. Yay! And thanks to curiouswombat I eventually found plastic gift bags in a party shop. With balloons instead of holly, but at least not saying Happy Birthday. Next year, I’ll know to order early.
Now, as long as we don’t have a warm spell and I don’t need to bake till Sunday night, the fact I’m currently using my oven as temporary storage for chocolate won’t be a problem! Thank goodness for a chilly kitchen, which isn’t something I’m usually grateful for.
Sigh.
I absent-mindedly submitted a fic to Still Grrr which has already been posted there, tch. But I have another in my back catalogue to fit Holiday Havoc for October: what was Joyce doing at Halloween when the costumes took over? Find out here
I have uploaded to Yuletide using AO3 - for once I’m ahead of the tech curve!
I have sent in my Secret Slasha!
I have no more fic to write... oh. Better get going on another Rulesverse, I think.
I also tried a couple of very simple homemade chocolate recipes today, and slightly promised to share if they were successful. So, from two recent newspaper suggestions:
Chocolate bark
Very simple indeed, but since slabs like this are being sold for quite a bit of money by posh chocolate shops this year they were worth a try.
Basics: take 400g good quality white or dark chocolate. Break into small pieces. Melt two-thirds in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Once melted, remove from the heat, add the remaining third and stir maniacally till they melt too. This tempers the chocolate and keeps it glossy when it cools.
Then spread onto kitchen foil on a tray, to a depth of about 0.5cm or a little more.
Add toppings. Approximately 200g of dried fruit or chopped nuts of your choice. I did dried cherry and macadamia on white; and toasted almond, ginger and apricot on dark.
Leave until cold. Peel off foil. Break into jagged pieces.
What worked and what didn’t
These are infinitely customisable - I did a third batch for a pregnant (nut-avoiding) friend who dislikes apricots and dark chocolate, and whose three year old son is mildly lactose intolerant but can cope with cheap white chocolate as it’s only fractionally dairy. It wasn’t an exciting version, but normally, I’d have been unable to give them anything chocolately!
But: I’m not totally convinced by the tempering method; it’s not very glossy when cooled and it takes a lot of stirring to get the chocolate to melt. (Though using Lindt worked better as it’s thinner and easier to break up. Green & Blacks is very chunky and took a lot of extra chopping to get it small once I realised that was critical).
Another time I would also chop the nuts a lot smaller; it looks a bit heavy once they are broken into pieces. I would also make sure there's a hard edge all round so that the heavy topping doesn't keep pushing the chocolate outwards. Some bits of bark are very thin.
This wouldn’t work for small children as there’s so much chopping; a shame, as it’s so simple otherwise.
*
Aztec Truffles
Warm 100 ml each double cream and water, 100g light muscovado sugar, ½ tsp chilli flakes. Leave to cool and infuse.
Meanwhile, break up 200g 70% dark chocolate in a heatproof mixing bowl. Also, grease a dish and line with baking parchment (about 15cm x 18 cm says the recipe. Medium size, to me...)
Once your mix has infused enough, bring it to the boil, then strain off the liquid onto the chocolate. Stir till it melts (recipe says you can melt it further over a pan to simmering water if need be. I had no trouble with the liquid at boiling point). Pour the chocolate mixture into the prepared dish. Leave to cool and chill (1 hour in the fridge).
Once chilled, roll teaspoons of the mixture in cocoa powder to make truffle balls. Allegedgly makes about 30, but I did this on 150% quantities and got 30 so my teaspoons must be generous.
These will keep, covered and refrigerated, for up to a month.
What worked and what didn’t
Very simple and worked well. I had my doubts about adding sugar to chocolate, but they aren’t too sweet for my taste with 70% dark choc. Might experiment with leaving in the chilli flakes; they might be too bitty but they would also give more kick. There’s nothing in the version above to scare chilli-phobics, but chilli-lovers might like some more oomph.
Another time I might try cardamom instead of chilli, for a change, and because I love that combination. Maybe with some espresso replacing the water too. Could be delicious. The recipe says it also works well with Green & Blacks Maya Gold, which I do believe.
The only slight ‘but’ is that this ‘rolling teaspoonsful’ lark doesn’t work, even with cocoa-dusted hands and the teaspoon kept in warm water to help. The mixture is semi-solid but far too squidgy to roll. So get the roundest teaspoon you can find, scoop out something roughly ball-shaped, then turn it once or twice in the cocoa while slightly squishing any sticking-out-bits into place. That’s all you’re going to get. And you will be covered in cocoa anyway... Thank goodness I’m wearing a brown top, I suspect I’m more covered than I can tell.
This would work for small kids, but they probably wouldn't like the taste. Gah!
*
Making all four mixes consecutively took me 3 hours (1 hour of which is cooling time for the truffle mix, which I did last, d’oh). Presents for ten people, roughly. Yay! And thanks to curiouswombat I eventually found plastic gift bags in a party shop. With balloons instead of holly, but at least not saying Happy Birthday. Next year, I’ll know to order early.
Now, as long as we don’t have a warm spell and I don’t need to bake till Sunday night, the fact I’m currently using my oven as temporary storage for chocolate won’t be a problem! Thank goodness for a chilly kitchen, which isn’t something I’m usually grateful for.