Rum and Praline Truffles

I've been cooking again - I finally got a recipe off my brother for some truffles he made over Christmas. Better late than never I suppose...

Melted sugar cooling on a greased, heatproof surface. Add crushed hazelnuts while still heating the sugar if you like. Crush the end result into tiny pieces once cooled.

Four batches of praline. 2 with, 2 without nuts.

Gently melt chocolate over hot (but not boiling) water. Most recipes will tell you to avoid getting water in the chocolate, even to the extent of drying anything used to stir it, because it will seize. We *want* it to seize though. Use hot water, or water with coffee granules dissolved in it.

Yuck. It seized. Add butter and milk next, but be warned, it's gonna get worse before it gets better...

Told you so... This is the white chocolate version and it looks a bit, er, wrong.

Keep stirring it - it'll all combine eventually and make a nice smooth sauce.

Add the praline we made earlier, then cool for 1/4 day.

Four batches of truffle mixture, ready to roll.

Roll the end result into little balls, then coat in chocolate vermicelli, or just dust with icing sugar for a more rustic look. Keep them cool or they'll go a bit squashy. This is showing just half the yield.

Microwave Mishap

I was trying to soften up some butter earlier in the microwave and it seems the high-tech plastic wrapping they use still actually contains some traces of metal. I can speak with some certainty here as I watched the spectacular light show it put on, and pulled out the charred smoking remains of the wrapper once I'd managed to turn the power off.

And just after that I managed to burn myself with some sugar I was melting. I'm not doing very well at the moment.

Real World 2, Pointy 0

Me and DIY Don't See Eye-to-Eye

I seem to have this curse with the physical world, or at least some sort of reverse Midas touch. Anything manual or mechanical I touch seems to break without me even trying.

So, I was quite pleased with myself after spending about 6 hours today sanding and glossing the window frames in my conservatory, having spent about 8 hours last weekend sanding and undercoating.

That was, until just now when I went out there to inspect my handiwork. From a distance I noticed it didn't really have the sheen I was expecting, and as I got closer a curious thought crossed my mind.

"Why has that gloss dried looking like undercoat?"

The answer is, of course, that I've only accidentally gone and put a second coat of undercoat on instead of gloss.

Grrrrr...

Valentine's Cake 2008

Blimey, 2 cakes barely a week apart. This one's a white chocolate sponge cake smothered with a home-made white chocolate cream. Ideal if you like white chocolate, or rubbish if you don't.



It's probably the richest cake I've made so far. I feel a bit queasy having eaten more than my fair share of the leftovers.

I bought the candy flowers, btw. Although I'm planning on trying my hand at sugarcraft at some point...

What's better than cake and shoes?

What's better than cake and shoes? Shoes on a cake, of course!



This was a birthday present for one of the girls in the department I worked in a while ago. They were getting upset because I only started baking after I left there so they've not had any from me yet.

Well now they have.

Next up, Valentine's day...

The Beigel Fairy's Been

I went to Brick Lane last night with the department I work in at one of my clients. Their annual team-building trip to the German offices got cancelled because of budgetary reasons so they decided to flick the finger at the bean-counters and take themselves out instead, and I got towed along in their wake.

I like going to Brick Lane for a few reasons - the obvious food and drink being top of the list, but I also like it because my auto-pilot regime for getting home seems to include a trip to the 24-hour beigel shop at the north end of the road.

As a result I found I'd left myself a lovely present of a big fat beigel in the fridge this morning, rammed to the hilt with really tender salt beef and enough mustard to blow an elephant's nose off. So I quickly thanked myself for my drunken thoughfulness, then scoffed it for breakfast.

Yum yum.

I Just Lost The Game

After my longest winning streak of about a year, I just lost The Game. :-(

If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, here's the rules...

RULE 1: You are playing The Game.
RULE 2: Whenever you think about The Game, you lose.
RULE 3: Loss must be announced.