Chocolate Truffles

The last couple of weeks have been rather stressful, dear readers, and a 4000 word essay is to blame.  Essays are not something I like doing.  I did not take an essay subject for my undergraduate course for a reason.  Sure, we wrote reports but it's not quite the same thing.  This one ended up being particularly awful and culminated with me being up until 2:30am the night before it was due, resulting in only 4 hours sleep.  That has never happened to me before with any piece of assigned work.  I have always finished at a reasonable hour, sometimes even a day or two ahead of the deadline, and been able to get plenty of sleep.  It was dreadful.  But it's been handed in now so I can put it out of my mind for a couple of weeks whilst it is being marked.  Anyway, said essay-that-is-not-on-my-mind is responsible for a serious delay in getting this post together.  I actually made these the day after the brownie post went out which was...three weeks ago.  Oh dear.  We're here now though so better late than never? 

Okay, so you might be looking at these and thinking, 'those don't look like truffles, they're the wrong shape'.  Well yes, you would be right.  Truffles get their name from their round shape and these are not round; they're square-ish.  That's because this recipe was actually supposed to be fudge.  You know me and fudge.  I love the stuff but still haven't quite mastered the art of making it.  I was attracted to this one because it looked nice and simple to make, which is one of my favourite qualities in a recipe.  And to be fair, it was simple.  Problem was, I did not end up with fudge.  

Admittedly, that's probably my own fault.  It's possible I did not cook it long enough.  And I wasn't sure how I would know when the condensed milk was almost boiling.  I went with waiting until bubbles were forming around the edges.  That's what I do when I cook milk for making custard anyway.  It may also be because some of the amounts are off.  For instance, a can of condensed milk over here ways 397g/14oz.  Apparently in America, it's 12oz cans, which I did not realise until after I had made it.  Oh well.  The rest of the recipe was easy enough.  Tangentially though, I do feel the need to complain about another encounter with the bizarre measurements they have in the US.  'Squares'?  Really?  When I first read the phrase I thought it meant individual cubes of chocolate, since bars come in rows of cubes.  But nope.  Apparently one square is equal to one ounce.  You learn something new every day.

Anyway, I came to the conclusion that this was not fudge after I cut it up and ate some.  It was too sticky for a start, which is why I rolled it in icing sugar, so the squares would not stick together in the container.  Then when I bit into it, it was too soft rather than slightly firm like fudge should be.  However, it wasn't until much later that it occurred to me that the texture resembled that of a truffle.  The mixture involved is essentially a ganache after all.  So hence the change in name.  If you make this using my recipe, you're going to have soft, truffley things.  If you follow the original better than I did, you'll get fudge.

Not to say that these aren't yummy, because they are.  Very rich and creamy.  I personally cannot eat more than one in a sitting though, but that's just me.  

Recipe - adapted from Little House Living

Makes 36 pieces

• 125ml/4.5fl.oz double cream
• 1 x 397g/14oz can condensed milk (sweetened if you're American)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 450g/16oz milk chocolate chips
• 115g/4oz milk chocolate
• 2 tbsp icing sugar, for dusting

1. Grease and line a 20cm/8inch square pan with greaseproof paper. Leave a slight overhang so you can get the fudge out easier after it has set.
2. Put the cream and condensed milk into a pan and cook over a medium heat.  Stir continuously and do not allow to boil.
3. Once bubbles have started forming around the edge of the pan remove from the heat and add the chocolate chips, chocolate and vanilla extract.  Stir.
4. Return the pan to the heat, and cook gently, whisking the mixture until all the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth and creamy.
5. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and then chill in the fridge overnight.
6. Once it has set and is quite firm to the touch, take it out of the fridge, remove it from the tin, peel off the greaseproof paper and use a sharp knife to cut it into 36 pieces (6 cuts down and 6 along).
7. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and toss the truffle cubes in it to lightly coat all sides.

Milk and Cookies Cupcakes

I've been trying to remember what inspired these and I honestly cannot remember.  For all I know it was a random idea which has steadily developed as I worked out all the component parts.  I am aware it is not an original idea.  'Milk and cookies' or 'cookies and cream' has been done before, but I try to avoid looking at recipes for things that I have ideas for because it's more fun to figure it all out myself.  Then I can be extra pleased when the final result is a success.  Obviously I look at recipes for individual parts but the combined thing is never from one place.

So, anyway, somewhere along the way I decided I wanted to do a cupcake inspired by the idea of 'milk and cookies'.  Now originally, I was going to base the cake part on the recipe I used for the hot-chocolate and strawberry milkshake cupcakes, where a lot of milk went into the actual batter before it was baked.  I would just obviously leave out the hot-chocolate/strawberry milkshake powder.  But then I was looking about for other milk cupcakes, to see if there was any other ways of doing it, and re-discovered the Tres Leches cake.  This is something I've seen before, usually accompanied by Dulce de Leche buttercream (which I've made before to go with toffee cupcakes).  I've never made it though but after reading several recipes I knew this would be a much better cake for the milk part of my 'milk and cookies' cupcakes.  I settled on a recipe I found on Allrecipes which was really well rated, but did something you're really not meant to do unless you're a really good baker and altered the recipe a little bit.

The changes I made were based on some of the reviewer comments which made sense to me.  The biggest was that I separated the eggs and whisked the egg whites before adding them in.  This was to get a better rise and a lighter cake.  Since this has often been the result when I've used it in my standard vanilla sponge cake, I thought this was a good idea.  I also added bicarbonate of soda alongside the baking powder, to get a little extra rise.  Well I certainly did end up with a much lighter cake.  These things were practically weightless when they came out the oven, prior to drowning in the milk.  It was rather amazing.  Another change I made was that I reduced the number of eggs from 5 to 4.  This is because the sizing of eggs is different in America compared to here in the UK.  Again, there were reviews mentioning poor results with so many eggs, so I thought I would use fewer eggs, because the UK sizes are bigger than the US.  And it worked out brilliant so hoorah!  Finally, I didn't use anywhere near the amount of milk recommended.  I originally made half a batch of the milk mixture but only ended up using half of that because I did not want my cakes to turn to mush.  Also turned out to be a good decision.  The cakes were still milk sodden all the way through, but were not mushy or goopy and everyone that ate them thought the balance of milk to cake was perfect.  So in the write up, it'll be a quarter batch of the original recipe.

The decoration for the cake ended up being a no-brainer, since the cake was the 'milk' the topping had to be the 'cookie'.  I knew from the get-go that I was going to decorate with a chocolate chip cookie and so obviously it made sense to make the buttercream cookie dough flavoured.  I've made it before and it was so delicious!

The final result was a complete success.  As I said, everyone thought the balance of cake to milk was perfect.  Lovely and wet and sweet but not goopy.  The cake stayed completely intact.  The buttercream was deliciously sweet too, and went splendidly with the cake and the biscuit was a nice little bonus.  My testers removed the cookie, scooped up some of the buttercream from the cake and ate it that way.  They said it was amazing. 

Recipe - makes about 14 cakes
 

Cookies

• 50g/1.7oz butter
• 65g/2.3oz caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 75g/2.5oz plain flour
• 1/2 tbsp milk
• 50g/1.7oz chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5 and line two baking trays with greaseproof paper.
2. Combine all the ingredients together in a bowl and mix until you get a nice dough.  You may have to form the dough with your hands after the initial mixing.
3. Shape into small half tablespoon size balls and flatten slightly, placing onto the trays, spaced well apart as they spread.  Make sure you've got at least 14 but you should end up with spares, just in case.
4. Bake until the edges are nice and golden, about 10-15 minutes.
5. Remove and leave to cool on the tray for about 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Cake - adapted from Allrecipes.com

• 190g/6.5oz plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 115g/4oz butter
• 200g/7oz caster sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 115ml/4fl.oz whole milk
• 100g/3.5oz condensed milk
• 85g/3oz evaporated milk

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line a 12 hole and a 6 hole muffin tin with 14 muffin cases. 
2. Sift the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl and set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, cream together the butter, sugar and vanilla until smooth and creamy.
4. Separate the eggs and add the yolks one at a time to the sugar butter, beating in after each addition.
5. Add the flour mixture to the batter two tablespoons at a time, and mix.
6. Whisk the eggs into soft peaks.  Add a spoonful to the cake batter and fold in.
7. Add the rest of the egg whites and fold in until you have no white streaks visible in your mixture.
8. Divide the mixture between the cases, filling them about two thirds full.
9. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until they are well risen and the tops are springy. 
10. Remove to a wire rack and use a skewer to poke about 10 holes into each cake.  Leave to cool.
11. Once cool, combine the whole milk, condensed milk and evaporated milk in a bowl.
12. Dip the top of the cakes into the milk one at a time, repeating several times until all the milk is used up. (This is less messy than pouring it over each cake and still soaks the cake through.)
13. Put in the fridge for about 30 minutes before icing.

Buttercream - adapted from What's Cooking on Planet Byn (as sited when used previously)

• 170g/6oz butter
• 90g/3oz brown sugar
• 225g/8oz icing sugar
• 65g/2.2oz plain flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1.5 tbsp milk
• 1.5 tsp vanilla extract
• 40g/1.5oz chocolate chips

1. Mix together the butter and the brown sugar until creamy.
2. Beat in the icing sugar until it is smooth.
3. Add flour and salt and beat in.
4. Finally add milk and vanilla and keep mixing until everything is combined and you have a reasonable smooth mixture.
5. Put in a piping bag with a large star nozzle and pipe a swirl of buttercream on top of each cake.
6. Decorate with chocolate chips then put in the fridge to set for about an hour.
7. Push a cookie into each buttercream swirl, keeping the weight leaning towards the centre of the cake so it does not fall over.

Raspberry Cremes

Valentine's Day is not really something the fiancé and I make a big thing of.  It's pretty much a normal day for the two of us, except that we make each other an edible present.  The last few years the fiancé has been trying to make me fudge because I love fudge.  He's not quite perfected it yet but he is determined to.  The fact that I now own a sugar thermometer did help in this year's attempt.  Definitely his best batch yet.  Me, on the other hand, I vary it up each year.  The first year I tried to make chilli chocolate.  I put far too much chilli powder in without realising, since whenever I tasted it, I didn't feel any heat.  But he liked them regardless.  I've also made him oatcakes and little tiny chocolate covered cakes in previous years.  This year though, I found two things that I couldn't choose between and so decided to do both.  The first of those is raspberry cremes.

Now this came from looking at a recipe for peppermint cremes on the Carnation website.  I thought it would be an easy enough idea to adapt into a raspberry creme.  I've had success flavouring fondant with raspberry jam so figured I could do the same here.  Originally I just planned to cover them in milk chocolate but a few days beforehand, I had an idea!  The fiancé and I are big fans of Pokémon and within the Pokémon universe, there is one called Luvdisc, which look like heart shaped fish.  The entry for the pokédex for this Pokémon reads:
"It is said that a couple finding this Pokémon will be blessed with eternal love."
So I figured I could go extra geeky on this present and decorate the cremes to look like Luvdisc.  So I swapped the milk chocolate out for white chocolate (which was probably a better idea anyway since white chocolate goes much better with raspberry) which I then tinted with blossom tint, and used a little writing icing to finish them off.  The overall look was actually quite effective.

The fiancé really likes them.  He says they are really, REALLY sweet, with nice creamy chocolate and lovely raspberry tang coming through.  There was visible trembling of pleasure too.

Recipe - adapted from Carnation
Makes about 24

• 255g/9oz icing sugar, plus extra for dusting
• 115g/4oz Carnation Condensed Milk
• Pink food colouring
• 4 tbsp seedless raspberry jam
• 150g/5.3oz white chocolate
• Dusty pink blossom tint 
• Pink and brown writing icing (optional)

1. Heat the jam in a small saucepan over a gentle heat until liquefied.
2. Put the condensed milk in a bowl and gradually sift in the icing sugar, stirring as you do so.
3. Add the jam and food colouring and knead gently.  If the dough is too sticky, add more icing sugar.
4. Roll out on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar to about 5mm/0.25inch thick. 
5. Use a 6.5cm/2.5inch heart shaped cutter to cut out the cremes and set them on a tray or wire rack.  Leave to dry in a cool place for about 2-3 hours.
6. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water and then tint with the blossom powder to turn it pink.
7. Prepare a tray by covering it in greaseproof paper.
8. Use a fork to dip the top side of each creme in the chocolate and then place chocolate side up on the tray to set.
9. (Optional) When all cremes have set, use the writing icing to draw an eye, cheek and lips on each so they resemble Luvdisc.

Pink Condensed Milk Cupcakes

I really, really want to make cupcakes that taste like strawberries.  I love strawberry flavoured things.  Less keen on the actual fruit, though they're bearable if taken with ice cream.  Now, researching ways to do this has often yielded the need for strawberry extract.  However, that does not seem to be available here in the UK.  At all.  Not even online.  It is quite annoying.  I can't even find essence.  I have seen and tried a strawberry flavouring before but whilst it smelt right, it does not taste good.  It's a shame.  But, ever the determined woman, I started looking in to if I could make one and did eventually stumble across a recipe for strawberry extract.  So I thought I would give it a go and see how strawberry tasting the cakes made with it turned out.

As for the cake's base recipe itself, I decided to take a different route from my usual one.  I'd seen a recipe on Carnation's website for vanilla cupcakes made with condensed milk.  The opinion of the people who had tried the recipe out was positive, so I thought I would try that method out at the same time, along with the buttercream.

So the result?  The extract came out like I expected it to but tasting it reminded me strongly of strawberry jam which, considering the what the recipe contains, it pretty much is.  However, I thought it would be worth continuing anyway.  Well, the cakes tasted nice enough but they did not taste like strawberry.  I'd also added some pink food colouring to the mixture to make the cakes look a bit more interesting, but it faded quite a bit whilst baking.  There is still a colour difference and the interior of the cakes is quite pink, if not as pink as I would have liked.  The buttercream though, tasted very much like strawberry jam and was rather lovely.  The fiancé agreed they tasted like jam, but very good quality jam because he doesn't really like strawberry jam but he did like the taste of this one.

So I ended up with vanilla cakes rather than strawberry, and buttercream that tasted like strawberry jam rather than strawberries.  The latter result makes me think the same taste could therefore be achieved with some seedless strawberry jam, albeit a jam that is of decent quality.  But I'll still put up the 'extract' recipe for those who want to try it.

Recipe:

Strawberry Extract Jam - adapted from eHow

• 250g/9oz strawberries
• 125ml/4.5fl.oz water
• 55g/2oz caster sugar  

1. Cut the stems off the strawberries and chop into thin slices.
2. Put the water, chopped strawberries and sugar into a saucepan, cover with a lid and bring to a simmer.
3. Remove the lid and cook the strawberries for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the fruit starts to go limp and fall apart.
4. Place a cheesecloth inside a strainer and place over a bowl.
5. Pour the strawberry mixture into the strainer and allow all the juice to pass into the bowl.  Press the leftover pulp against the cheesecloth to get any remaining juice.
6. Pour the juice into a clean saucepan and then set over a medium to high heat and reduce it to a half its amount, stirring every now and again to prevent burning.  The syrup should be slightly thicker than it was before.
7. Pour into a container and allow to cool.

Cupcakes - adapted from Carnation

Makes 12

• 125g/4.5oz plain flour
• 250g/9oz condensed milk 
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 85g/3oz butter
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• Pink food colouring (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line a 12 hole muffin tin with muffin cases.
2. Put all the ingredients into a bowl and whisk together until smooth and creamy.
3. Spoon the mixture into the cases and bake for about 20 minutes until the sponge is springy to touch and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
4. Leave to cool.

Buttercream

• 200g/7oz icing sugar
• 55g/2oz butter
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 tsp strawberry extract (above) or good quality seedless strawberry jam
• 3 tbsp condensed milk
• Pink food colouring
• Sprinkles

1. Warm the extract/jam up in a saucepan until it is quite runny.
2. Beat together all the ingredients until you get a thick, pipeable buttercream.
3. Put into a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle and pipe a swirl in the centre of each cake.
4. Decorate with the sprinkles of your choice.