Tag: chocolate

Christmas baking – Rum balls

Onto the next of my Christmas gifts from the kitchen. I have to say, that when I was rolling these in the coconut, it started to feel and smell like Christmas in my kitchen. This recipe uses bought fruit cake, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. Of course, if you have leftover home-made fruit cake at home, you can use that. But I’ve always made these with bought light fruit cake (just the basic home brand version) and have been happy with the result every time.

For a non-alcoholic version, just replace the rum with orange juice. The recipe below is a double batch of the original recipe.

rum balls

Click here for the recipe

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Christmas cooking – Quick and easy chocolate and almond fudge

In my quest to share the holiday spirit through food, I may have overdone it a bit this week. It started off innocently enough in the planning stage about a month ago. I like to give food gifts at Christmas. This began years ago when I was still in high school. I would make a hamper of goodies for my friend’s families. Now I tend to do food gifts for people at work. Last year I went a bit overboard making fudge, rum balls and truffles, which took several nights to complete, and this year I promised myself I was just going to make one thing. Small gingerbread trees (out of stars). I did a test run a month ago, it all worked so I was (I thought) set.

Then, a work morning tea was organised, and I offered to bake. So far, still okay. It was then decided that there would be a “best representation of a Christmas tree” competition at the morning tea. My team settled on my suggestion, a gingerbread Christmas tree decorated by the team. And there went my Christmas gift plan.

My team's gingerbread Christmas tree
My team’s gingerbread Christmas tree

The end result was over the last week I have:

  • Cooked a dinner party for friends (home made dips, slow cooked roast lamb with a few sides and two desserts);
  • Baked and decorated numerous gingerbread stars, men and ornaments, and assembled a tree made out of decorated stars;
  • Baked cupcakes and a yule log for the work morning tea; and
  • Made and packaged up fudge and rum balls to give out at work.
Death by chocolate cupckaes
Death by chocolate cupcakes

Not to mention I still had to work everyday, finishing up the Christmas shopping, etc. Let’s just say I spent a lot of yesterday sleeping to recover. But it was worth it. I had a lovely night with my friends over for dinner last weekend, the gingerbread tree turned out amazingly well (even if we didn’t win – we still got to eat it) and everyone loved the morning tea and the gifts. So I was happy, if a bit tired.

Now however I am very behind with posting, so today I will share my three holiday baked gift ideas, starting with the easiest fudge recipe ever. I don’t even know where the recipe came from originally, that is how long I’ve been making it. I think it was one of those Nestlé Christmas recipes that you find in magazines at this time of year.Choc almond fudge

Click here for the recipe

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Death by Chocolate Cupcakes

Not much baking this week, as I spent a few nights in the beautiful south west of Western Australia for the Margaret River Gourmet Escape. I got to meet some amazing local and international chefs and try some great food. I had a wonderful weekend of food and will definitely be going again next year. Unfortunately it is now back to reality, with lots of unpacking and laundry to do before I head back to work tomorrow.

I did, however, cook my Death by Chocolate cupcakes a few weeks ago for a work morning tea, so it is now a perfect time to share the recipe. This is another recipe from Sarah Brigden at babyCakes that works every time and the cupcakes always disappear very quickly whenever I cook them. Like the citrus coconut cupcakes, these don’t contain any butter and are oil based. Again, the mix needs to be made the night before or at least a few hours before cooking to create light cupcakes (it will keep for 2 weeks in the fridge or two months in the freezer before cooking). The recipe does not contain any eggs, so it is good for anyone with an egg allergy/intolerance. As with any recipe using chocolate, use a good chocolate that you like. If you like a dark/bitter chocolate, use that in the ganache and dutch cocoa in the cake mix. I usually use normal cocoa powder (not drinking chocolate) so that the cupcakes aren’t too bitter and a 50% professional baking chocolate (that I get from babyCakes) for the ganache for a rich chocolate taste without the bitterness.

I have also made chocolate orange cupcakes using this recipe by replacing the vinegar and some of the water with orange juice and adding orange zest to the cake mix, as well as orange liquor to the ganache. If I’m making the citrus coconut cupcakes at the same time, I like to use some of the raspberry swirl frosting on some of the chocolate cupcakes as well.

If your oven has hot and cold spots like mine, turn the tins around during cooking so that you get an even bake. As long as you don’t open the oven every minute, opening it a few times isn’t a problem.

Click here for the recipe.

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White Chocolate Yule Log (Gluten Free) – Cooking class

Continuing my very busy month of classes, I recently went to a class with Sarah at Baby Cakes to learn how to make a White Chocolate Yule Log (or Bȗche de Noël ). These are in all the patisseries in France at Christmas, so seeing as we are having Christmas at home with my family this year, I thought it would be nice to learn.

I always enjoy Sarah’s classes and her recipes have always worked perfectly at home. Her berry soufflé rose so high the first time I tried it at home, I had to scrub the top of my oven and top shelf (not that I minded, as I was so worried they wouldn’t rise – I’ve since learnt not to doubt Sarah’s recipes). I’ve made her cupcakes so many times, and they have always resulted in beautifully moist cupcakes. Sarah has been generous enough to allow me to share her recipes on my blog, so cupcakes will be coming soon (I am baking a massive batch tomorrow for birthday morning tea for work, so I’ll put them up early next week) and I’ll try and get the soufflé recipe up as well.

But back to the Yule Log. I’ve always thought they would be extremely difficult and fiddly, but it was actually a lot of fun to make and achievable at home, and it rolled up a lot easier than I expected. Plus the frosting hides any mistakes. The recipe may look like a lot of steps, but it is only a few ingredients and processes. I believe that these are traditionally decorated with marzipan or other decorations, meringue mushrooms and some of the ones I saw in France a few years ago were very elaborately decorated. Having just learnt how to use fondant, I tried making an elf and reindeer at home and took them along with me, and was quite happy with how they turned out for a first attempt. We also made chocolate decorations (melted chocolate, piped onto baking paper) and some fondant holly (roll out green fondant, cut with a holly cutter and then roll balls with red fondant for the berries). You can decorate it anyway you want. You could also replace the white chocolate ganache with dark chocolate for a dark log. That is the joy of cooking, you can make it the way you want using the basic recipe as the base.

Thank you to Sarah at Baby Cakes for allowing me to share this recipe.Bȗche de Noël

Click here for the recipe.

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Chocolate fudge and raspberry brownies

I have a confession to make. I am not a chocoholic. Don’t get me wrong, I like chocolate. But if I was given the choice between a chocolate and a citrus dessert, the citrus would win every time. I much prefer my citrus coconut cupcakes to the death by chocolate ones I make, I would rather a berry sorbet than a chocolate ice-cream and if given the choice between a chocolate bar and nougat, nougat would win every time. The only exception to this is hot chocolate in winter. Give me a mug of hot chocolate with a shot of white chocolate liquor in it…yum.

When I do have chocolate, I prefer it with something (chocolate and caramel, cherries, citrus, berries, coconut – the list goes on and on). Yet for the last two and a half years I have made these fudgy chocolate brownies with just chocolate (dark chocolate melted for the cake mix then with milk chocolate bits mixed through). They are incredibly rich and I cook them so they are still gooey and fudgy in the centre (as a good brownie should be in my opinion). They are great hot with ice-cream as a dessert or cold straight from the fridge (like a cross between cake and fudge).  A few months ago however, I decided to try making them with frozen raspberries instead of the milk choc bits. Wow, what a difference. I find the raspberries cuts through some of the richness, as well as  adding to the moistness of the brownie. And I love the flavour. I won’t make them without the raspberries now.

The good thing about this recipe though is you can add whatever you want. It doesn’t have to be raspberries, you could use milk or white chocolate bits, maybe some nuts. In the second picture below I used both raspberries and white chocolate. Some orange zest would make jaffa brownies. Play around with the flavours and use what you like. The most important thing though is to use a good chocolate that you like. If you don’t like the chocolate before you cook the brownie, you aren’t going to like the end result.

Bitter dark chocolate – still warm and extra gooey!

click here for the recipe

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