Evolution of the truffle

At this time of year I often make truffles. Something luscious, vegan and packed full of kilojoules is the perfect way to celebrate the solstice.

Over the years the truffles have evolved from a coconut cream based chocolate ball, to an infused coconut oil one. 

The problem with truffles is they’re often frustrating and time consuming to make. The mix needs to be firm but not so cold it shatters, nor so warm it melts just looking at it. Let’s face it – late at night on the solstice eve, constantly walking between the workbench and fridge to rechill the mix between every half dozen truffles gets a tad tiresome. In humid December weather, sitting in a tepid bath with an icy drink (and smouldering companion) would be way more fun.

A couple of months ago I promised to take a sweet to a friends place for dinner. I dithered. I dathered. Until finally I only had a couple of hours to concoct something. The ‘something’ became a cubed version of truffles, simple cut into mouth-sized bites. 

If time permits you can still go down the sensory truffle path and infuse the oil with orange peel, spices or something else equally delicious (chilli anyone?). But the version I ended up creating with walnuts and liqueur worked fine. Lets put it this way; there were no complaints or leftovers.

Because how I conceptualised this recipe and what actually went into it are slightly different - I'm giving two different ingredients lists. I know some of you actually like qualities and others (like me) have a 'look and adapt' approach. Lets keep everyone happy!

The truffle that became a square

Freeform ingredients list

Base
2 parts good quality chocolate

1 part coconut oil (plain or infused)

Pinch of sea salt

Texture and flavour

A handful of walnuts, broken into smallish pieces - and/or nut paste

A generous handful of something fruity with an edge e.g. dried cherries, freeze dried raspberries or orange zest

OR a couple of tsp of a good quality liqueur such as Grand Marnier or Frangelico if you want to extend the nut thing use hazel instead of walnuts. (Note: too much grog might stop it from setting)

A quantified list of ingredients

200 gm 80% good quality chocolate
100 gm coconut oil
100 gm almond butter (make sure it's pure, check the ingredients especially if its a big brand)
3/4 cup walnuts, roughly chopped
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tsp Grand Marnier

Method

If you’re going to infuse the coconut oil, start this a day or two before. Otherwise the chocolate slice takes a few minutes to put together, plus another hour to chill.

Assemble your ingredients and find an appropriate tin or container. Ideally use a square or rectangular baking tin (nothing with sloping sides or alas, you’ll just have to eat all the trimmings!)  Aim for a size appropriate to the mass of ingredients so that the chocolate concoction comes up to about 3-5 cm high (depending on how small our large you want your squares). Metal is ideal, you don’t need to grease, though you can line with baking paper if desired.

Blitz or chop the chocolate so they’re in even sized pieces. In a double boiler gently heat until half the chocolate is melted.

If your coconut oil is solid, melt over a low heat – it takes a very short time so don’t take your eye off it. I usually let it half melt then turn the heat off.

Combine the chocolate, nut paste (optional) and oil (hopefully they’re still semi solid rather than a liquid but it still works, though the nuts or fruit might drop to the bottom). Mix through the nuts, fruit and/or flavouring of choice.

Refrigerate for about an hour until fully solid (use the freezer if in a hurry). It's a good idea to allow it to come up to room temperature before cutting, to avoid snaps and shards. If necessary, run a warm knife around the edges and cut into bite-sized cubes. Of course if you painstakingly lined the tin, you just have to pull the slab out and cut.

You can pretty up the cubes of chocolatey goodness with a sprinkling of cocoa, icing sugar or rose petals but really, these taste so good they don’t need they don’t need it.

MIA

It has been a while. I have indeed been missing in action, or more accurately missing action full stop.

Two months to the day after I had my idyllic birthday in Chiang Mai, I was whisked off on a hospital trolley into surgery. To say the last five month has been life changing (in not necessarily a positive way) is an understatement.

But this is a food blog.

What has lured me back?

Truffles!

Or rather to quietly bookmark a simple variation from Evan Kleinman.

For a vegan dark truffle base all you have to do is reduce a cup of stout on high heat until the volume has halved, then stir in 225g of dark glossy chocolate. Chill the mixture and roll in the usual way.

Forget the bacon!

(The laughing buddha may be speaking no evil but I think what he's really saying is life's too short to eat crap chocolate)

In other news, the Significant Eater and I have adopted an adorable Burmese cat.

And the cat and I will be decamping Melbourne mid-year to move to Sydney’s inner west.

Now, go back and talk amongst yourselves.

Heide’s carnival cookies

Did you notice I don’t have a single biscuit recipe on this blog? There’s a slice, lots of muffins, a handful of desserts and far too many drinks in the sweet treats section. Well today I’m going to remedy that omission and guess what, it’s vegan!

Vegan Schmegan! How can a biscuit without sugar, butter or flour taste any good? 

Oh my goodness, domestic goddess supreme Heidi Swanson’s done it. A dairy-free, gluten-free (it your oats are untainted), egg-free and even (added) sugar-free sweet treat that has people coming back for more. Even the chocolate-vanilla-y aroma of these “cookies” has me salivating.

But first a little nomenclature: Being an Anglo-file, at least where language is concerned, makes me baulk at calling these cookies. Beyond semantics, I tend to pigeonhole a biscuit/cookie as a disc of something sweet and crispy. The carnival cookies (suitably Americanised due to their country of origin) certainly evoke the spirit of a biscuit but are also reminiscent of an unleavened version of my muffins. The banana makes them soft and a little doughy.

Whatever. They passed muster and weren’t ruined by my habitual tweaking. A tad more chocolate on hand than recipe called for, no problem, you can never have too much chocolate in a sweet morsel. Not a huge fan of peanuts? The walnuts substituted nicely. I also ground my own almonds, gave the rolled oats a quick whiz (rather leaving them whole as indicated in the original recipe), popped the corn, passed a cinnamon stick over a fine grater and was a little heavy handed with the remains of my homemade vanilla extract.

The might look a little well done but it's just the chocolate the chocolate that includes chunks and powdery goodness

Carnival cookies

(adapted from Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Every Day: Well Loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen)

4 small or 3 medium bananas, mashed

1.5 teaspoons natural vanilla essence/extract

60g coconut oil, melted

120 g rolled oats, blitzed for a couple of seconds in a food processor

60 g almonds, blitzed to make almond meal

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 tsp good quality ground cinnamon, or half a cinnamon quill finely grated

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

100 g walnuts, lightly crushed but still chunky

180 g chopped dark chocolate (70% plus) or good quality chocolate chips

1 heaped tablespoon popping corn, popped with a little coconut oil (about 20 g of popped corn)

Preheat oven to 180c

To make the popcorn: Heat a large pot with a tight fitting lid. Add a scant teaspoon of coconut oil, throw in the corn kernels and put on the lid. Shake pot every minute or so and let the kernels do their thing. Once the popping has subsided remove from the heat and carefully take off the lid. Allow the popcorn to cool, discarding any unpopped kernels.

In a large bowl combine mashed banana, vanilla and coconut oil. In another bowl assemble the dry ingredients: the oats, almond meal, baking powder cinnamon and salt. I ground everything myself in my powerful mini food-processor, one by one blitzing the oats, almonds and chocolate.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ones and stir til combined. Gently fold through the chocolate, then the walnuts and lastly the popcorn. The mixture is quite wet but have faith because it will hold together ok.

There is enough mixture to fill two baking sheets. I only have one so cooked them in two batches. The first following Heidi’s instructions to use a heaped tablespoon of dough, shaped into a ball by hand, came out quite large and round, needing about 18 minutes of cooking.

The second tray I used less, barely a level tablespoon of mixture per cookie, rounded to a ball by hand then flattened slightly on the tray. This batch took about 14 minutes to cook in my oven. The smaller size is perfect for a mouthful of something sweet with coffee or a treat. The small mouthfuls have also been a hit impromptu festive gift.

Update January 2013:
I've made a second batch, no measuring this time and all came out fine. Yippee, I so love baking intuitively rather than with the accoutrements of a pseudoscientist (like something out of the Ponds Institute).

Variation: This batch was made with cornflakes leftover from my dad's visit, I subbed them for popcorn. The combo of chocolate, cornflakes and walnuts was reminiscent of Afghan biscuits from my childhood. That's a good thing.

Further variations I'd consider in the future include desicated coconut and dried cherries. Possibly together. With chocolate of course.

This is a wonderfully adaptive recipe and non-vegans love the biscuits equally as much as those eschewing dairy and eggs. A perfect replacement for my (non-vegan) banana-based muffins.

Hate banana? Try some applesauce or a chunky, cooked apple puree. I reckon that would work just as well.

dessert gyoza

This post has been in the pipeline for the past year. Blame the delay on gluttony. This is a morsel best eaten hot, so the restraint required to delay gratification and take a photo is quite large.

For those pedants loving precise measurements, the joy of this recipe is that you can make a small batch of three or four (if you can restrain yourself) for some late night solo pleasure, or dozens for a large crowd. As only a teaspoon of filling per gyoza is needed, a little goes a very long way. You can whiz up a batch in a mini food processor (for this job a regular sized processor is way too large, unless you like A LOT of dessert) and store the leftovers in a jar in the fridge for later use.

While flour isn't exactly a health food, this recipe does incorporate wonderful antioxidant rich dark chocolate with the calcium (and other nutrient) abundance of figs and nuts. It's also vegan/dairy-free.

Chocolate gyoza

2 parts dark chocolate, at least 70% (For two people 40 grams of chocolate is enough)

1 part dried figs

1 part walnuts

Gyoza wrappers*

Coconut oil

Icing sugar (optional)

To the make the filling either finely chop the chocolate, fried figs and walnuts, or blitz in a mini food processor.

Take a gyoza wrapper; place a heaped teaspoon of filling mixture in the centre, run a little water around the outer few centimetres of the wrapper, fold and gently press together. You can crimp by hand or use one of those nifty cheap plastic gyoza presses from an Asian grocery store. Repeat until you have the desired number of gyoza.

Heat a frying pan on medium. Add a teaspoon of coconut oil (really this is the best oil for the job) and place as many gyoza as you can in the pan. It’s ok for them to snuggle up next to each other. Cook for about 3 minutes on the first side, flip over, then another 2 minutes on the other. Or til just golden.

Plate up. Dust with icing sugar if desired and eat while hot.

Variations

What do you like with your chocolate? I settled on figs and nuts to slightly mitigate the sweetness and bring a little more healthy goodness to the dessert.

But if you’re not a health freak you can spike pure chocolate with a little orange zest, a splash of liqueur, a smidgeon of sea salt or even black pepper.

* you can find gyoza wrappers in the fridge at most Asian grocery stores.

quick update from the trenches

There’s been some cooking

Accidental sorrel soup.

How to turn an average end-of-the-week-leftover-veggie soup into a stellar meal? Just add a handful of sorrel and blend. The base combo of alliums/cauliflower/zucchini/potato simmered in stock got the zing it needed when blended with the lemony green herb. A little goes a long way.

Oranges are not the only fruit.

But certainly the most abundant one in our house at the moment due to the arrival of two boxes of home-grown citrus. A batch of orange and spice vegan truffles were scoffed with alarming speed and with zest added to every conceivable dish, the fridge is full of lemons and oranges devested of their skin. As always, there’s large batch of preserved lemons on the go.

Quinoa for breakfast and dinner.

Cooked in orange and ginger juice. A superb breakfast that can be dolled up with a drizzle of maple syrup and some toasted almonds for a deceptively healthy dessert.

Speaking of dessert.

You know I’m not the queen of cooked desserts, right? But my oh my, I had a brilliant idea and minutes later dessert gyozas were on the table. I’d call them a work in progress but really they’re so simple they don’t need work. Three batches down I can’t stop long enough to photograph them before they’re gone. Will share soon, blogging mojo willing.

What’s rocking your kitchen?

scented vegan truffles: a sensory experience

Scent: orange, vanilla, coconut, chocolate.

Texture: silky, melt in your mouth.

Flavour: see scent…all that and more.

Sound: can you hear the groans of pleasure, followed by, “holly f*ck give me more”?

For those who thought vegan food was all mung beans and healthy goodness, I give you the most luscious morsel to have graced my senses in living memory.


Vegan truffle redux
(Quantities for an experimental batch of about 20 truffles)

300 gm organic coconut oil
The rind of one organic orange
1 –2 vanilla pods
600 gm good quality dark chocolate (I used an organic 70% block of couverture)

Add coconut oil to a small pot. In this part of the world, it’ll be solid rather than free flowing. Wash and dry your orange. I used a Valencia as it was the freshest around at this end of the citrus season. As you’re using the skin of a highly sprayed crop, it’s worth buying organic. Carefully peel or zest the orange, avoiding the pith. Split your vanilla pod(s) open. Add the peel and vanilla to the coconut oil and melt over a low heat. Once melted cover with a lid, turn off the heat and leave to infuse in a warm place for about 24 hours. You should have a heavenly scented oil that after some time solidifies again.

The next day, or whenever the mood takes you (you can store the infused oil in the fridge for a couple of weeks if need be), chop your chocolate finely then whiz in the food processor. After a few blitzes if should be the consistency of breadcrumbs. Now heat the oil til it melts, strain through a sieve and pour onto the chocolate in the food processor bowl. A couple more whizzes and you’ll have a divine smelling, melted chocolate mixture. Poor into a tub, cover and refrigerate for 2-3 hours, til solid.

Now comes the fun part. The melon-baller method is a lot less messy than rolling with your hands (read my previous effort if you’d prefer the rustic version). Set out some good quality cocoa powder in a bowl, grab the melon-baller and a couple of teaspoons and get ready to go. On a warm day you may need to do this in batches if the mixture starts sticking to the baller. Just pop the truffle mix back in the fridge for 15 minutes.



Scoop some truffle mix, dunk it in the cocoa and toss it around with a couple of teaspoons, til coated. Repeat…again and again and again…

Sight:


a real food photographer would dust them with more cocoa to cover the teaspoon marks and arrange them on a pretty plate…but hell, life is too short to play with chocolate on such a hot day

Cook's notes

While my previous vegan truffles were moreish, the infused coconut oil version took them to a whole new level.

Obviously you can have fun infusing the coconut oil with your favourite flavour combinations. I’d originally chosen cardamom instead of vanilla but they were old and had lost too much of their essential oils.

Go easy. These are so rich. Savour the flavour, aroma and texture. More than one or two in a sitting could leave you feeling a little queasy.

another PR fail

Dear PR person,

You hunted down my email address and contacted me recently on behalf of a chocolate company. You generously offered me a goodie bag to give away to my readers and free tickets for a big foodie event.

Following the script for savvy PR companies who’ve done Social Marketing 101 you said nice things about a recipe I’d posted a couple of years ago on my blog.

When I promptly replied to your email with a query about the products, I never heard back from you. It was very polite and directly addressed a question I have for the company you represent.

Maybe you can clear up the confusion around the dairy content of your dark chocolate? With the change of packaging milk products are now listed in the ingredients. From memory this is neither the last in order, nor a case of "may contain traces of.." yet some (brand of chocolate) sources claim the recipe hasn't changed and there is no dairy in it? I'm confused.

But two weeks later I’ve not had a response.

I didn’t mention the event or the blog giveaway because as much as I once liked the brand you are promoting since the labeling changes I have stopped purchasing the chocolate. I have a dairy allergy and it’s just not worth risking the immune system crash that comes with it. But as there are Chinese whispers going on as to whether it contains milk products or mere “traces of” I’d love to clear it up.

So are you only interested in getting bums on seats (or more accurately product placements on blogs) regarding the event or are they genuinely trying to represent your client and promote the brand? I never expected you to be able to answer the question I posed but I did expect you to get back within 24 hours to say you’d forwarded on the email to the client. You might have even done another plug for the event you were promoting.

Surely the idea of using social networks to market a product is about creating a dialogue. You’ve picked up the ball, isn’t it time you learnt to run with it?

Regards,
AOF

making stuff is fun!

'Tis the season to be jolly, so they say. I reckon you don't need an excuse to have fun in the kitchen and make stuff.

For a change I'm remembering to keep some of the bounty for myself. The batches are small, no massive all day assembly line productions, just exploring some new (and old) recipes and making sure there's a spare or two to share.

It began sedately in November with preserved lemons, spiced prunes (organic Australian prunes bathed in cointreau and spices) and homemade vanilla essence.

This weekend I stepped up the challenge, playing with some ideas that I've had for a while. Here are a couple of recipes to add to the collection.

Lemon cordial

Equal quantities of fresh lemon juice and sugar syrup (sugar syrup = equal quantities of sugar and water, bought to a simmer til the sugar melts).

Yes, it is as simple as that! A touch of citric acid will extend the shelf life, you only need 1/2 tsp per 500 mls of cordial.

Update: Cindy was spot on wither her comment - a dash of rose water really lifts this cordial and all subsequent batches have had a generous capful of rose water.

Serve with chilled mineral water (and a dash of clear spirits if you desire).


Vegan chocolate Truffles

2 parts good quality, dairy-free dark chocolate
1 part coconut cream
a dash of your favourite liqueur (optional)

cocoa powder for dusting

Roughly chop your chocolate then blitz in a food processor until granular (I borrowed this method from Delia Smith who uses the description "granular like sugar"). I then measured my ground chocolate to determine how much coconut cream I needed. I used 2 cups of ground chocolate and 1 cup of coconut cream. Heat your coconut cream til it starts to bubbles. It's quite thick so it tends to boil like a Rotorua mud pool - fortunately it doesn't smell like that. Pour half of the hot coconut cream into the chocolate that you have returned to the food processor and blitz. Add the rest of the hot coconut cream and give it another blast. The resulting ganache is glossy and inviting. I've read a good tip, if the mixture splits just add some cold coconut cream.

You can leave the mixture as is or fortify it with your favourite booze. I used about 3 tablespoons of my spiced cointreau that the prunes had been marinating in - as the cardamons, cinnamon and cloves combined with the orange flavour of the liqueur was delightfully festive. It's best to add a small amount, mix, taste and add more as needed rather than pour the lot in at once.

Pour the ganache into a tray or tub to firm up in the fridge or the freezer. It only needs an hour or two in the latter. Once it is firm but not too hard to roll get ready for the fun.

Remove your rings, scrub your hands, have a bowl of ice water and an old hand towel ready. If your hands are warm dunk them into the chilled water and then dry them. Use a spoon or a melon-baller to scoop up a small amount of the firm ganache and roll into a ball. Set aside. Repeat the process, dunking your hands to cool them off as need be.

Once you've finished rolling your balls, place some cocoa powder in a bowl or cup and using two forks to handle them, drop the balls in the cocoa and toss 'til they are covered. Place on a rack so any excess cocoa can fall off. I must admit my balls were far from perfectly shaped but after a dunk in cocoa they didn't look so bad. Keep the truffles cool and consume within a week.

The truffles are rich and luscious, with that melt in the mouth feel that makes you crave more.


Enjoy the season!

quickie - old friends and new adventures

Not sure what happened while I was in Wellington recently. Due to family obligations it wasn’t exactly a holiday so sadly missed the final days of the very successful inaugural “Wellington of a plate”. I did however fall in love with a newish schoc flavour – bitter peppermint. The other (re)discovery was a love on cornflakes. Last night I had them as a post dinner snack with dried cherries, pistachios and soy milk.

Flan, frittata or bakes. I don’t care what you call it but I also got reacquainted recently with the joy of taking a bunch of vegetables (in this case Lucy’s lovely chard and kale straight from her garden), adding some flavours (onion, garlic and za’atar), something salty (olives and tuna) and binding it with a few beaten eggs. Twenty minutes in a moderate oven (as long as you’ve precooked your ingredients) there’s a lovely bake on the table for dinner.

Lisa Dempster has posted a great story on how Lord of the Flies dealt with her original musings on ”Lord of the Flies: still the best?". Is any publicity good publicity and did LOTF get social media right or wrong?

I’m popping out for a bit. Off to steamy Malaysia in one more sleep. Any tips on where to go, what to eat on the peninsula? Plans are rather open at the moment. Will acclimatise in Melaka for a few days then who know where we will go – food and rest are the only things on the agenda for a while.

schoc therapy

Schoc chocolate opened at the end of 2002 but it took me another five years to discover them. However once tasted, it was hard to go back to the everyday, better quality supermarket variety. The flavour choices in other lines are comparatively dull after sea salt or lime and chilli.

The highlight of my recent trip home was a visit to relatives in Greytown. This once sleepy town in the Wairarapa is now a hot bed of high real estate prices and boutiques run by Khandallah housewives (for Australian equivalent think Trude and Prue from Kath and Kim, I swear last summer I overheard two store owners that were their doppelgangers). Just like Victoria’s own Daylesford, Greytown is a small town with an ever growing tourist trade wanting gourmet food, homewards and other accoutrements of status.

Which brings us to Schoc. Run by Murray and partner Roger in a cutesy 1920’s cottage. While there is an espresso bar with Schoc outlet in central Wellington, Greytown is the home of Schoc. This is where the goodies are made and there is marginally more space to display the wares and take your time tasting the tiny chips of the tablet range from little wooden spice boxes. However on this visit the place was swamped by a busload of women who probably thought the flavours were peculiar and couldn’t work out why it cost so much more than a block of Cadbury’s.

Schoc is obviously created by people who love, eat, sleep and breathe chocolate. This is obvious when you read the delivery notes setting a deliberate mailing schedule to avoid their precious cargo sitting in hot postal warehouses over the weekend. It also explains why we can’t buy it in Melbourne. Murray has yet to find an outlet that understands chocolate to his own high exacting standards. (“David Jones!” he scoffed, “they know nothing about chocolate”).




While many connoisseurs will head straight to the extensive truffle range such as Smoked Tea (Lapsang Souchong Tea infused ganache dipped in dark chocolate) or Tequila, Lime & Salt (Mexican Tequila, dried lime & flakey crystal sea salt in a white chocolate hand-painted mould) due to my problems tolerating dairy I head straight to the dark section of the flavoured tablets (ranging from 53-76.5% cocoa mass). If I had more time or the busload of philistines hadn’t been there I would have like to have explored the single bean and country of origin blocks this time.

Instead I picked up a couple of old favourites – lemon and black pepper and limechilli, as well as rose which is fast becoming my latest obsession. I got to have a quick chat to Murray (I was with my aunt who knows everyone in town which was quite handy) and tell him how much I loved his products.



While the Australian dollar is strong it is tempting to place a bulk order to be shipped over when I run out of my current supplies but gluttony (and not fitting my summer clothes as it) is aside, I like the ritual of sampling and buying a select few tablets each time I visit. But if I’ve peaked your appetite you can order directly from Schoc and taste their great chocolate for yourself.