More Truffles!!

So two of my friends are getting married today, Sonya & Warren. So I agreed to make a big batch of chocolate truffles for their wedding reception. Here they are, all 82 of them!! I bought the brown candy cups for this project, and turns out they were too small. So I had to use the white cups that I had in my crafting stuff, unfortunately, I ran out!! Ah well, who cares what the candy cups looks like right? Its all about the chocolate!!

 

 

I've made chocolate truffles twice before this, but they were hand rolled ganache dipped in liquid chocolate and left to harden. This batch was made using two different chocolate molds:  swirl chocolate molds and the "cherry flip" mold. I ended up doing 7 1/2 trays worth of truffles.  

 

Gearing up for "V" day!

That's right, Valentine's Day!

 Shown above are some chocolate covered strawberries I made for a party last night. I used Ghirardelli - 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Bar mixed with Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate Baking Chips. I have this small chocolate fondue pot that melts chocolate perfectly.  I prefer dark chocolate myself, but most folks like a mix of dark and milk. But I think I went overboard on the milk chocolate this time. Ah well, still tasted yummy! The pink drizzle is Wilton's Pink Candy Melts. As I've mentioned in a previous post, I like Wilton's products, but the candy melts are NOT chocolate. And they do not melt or pour like chocolate. So I had to rig a small piping bag out of a sandwich baggie. I cut a tiny snip away from one corner and it worked perfectly to make the cute drizzles. I got creative with them as you can see, hehe.

The strawberries have a slight glean to them because I stored them in the fridge overnight, and the moisture condensed on the outside. Its a quick way to get the chocolate to set up quickly, but it can make the strawberries a tad runny. I would recommend a short time in the fridge to urge the chocolate to set up, then store them in a container at room temperature. On to other V day goodies!

Today I made a batch of Rice Krispy treats. Since I'm taking them to a pot-luck, and its near Valentine's day, I dyed the marshmallows pink! I used one drop of red paste food coloring, and wow! I bought the food coloring from Williams Sonoma. Here is the mixture in the pot getting stirred up. I haven't made these treats in ages and I don't know why not. They are so quick and easy!!

The German Chocolate Cake Experiment

Its my baby's birthday today!! He's turning 30 and I wanted to bake him a cake to celebrate. He loves chocolate and coconut, so I figured that German Chocolate Cake would be a great match. (He struggles with his birthday being so close to Christmas, as I am sure most December birthdays do. So I wanted to make this one special. Not to mention it's a milestone birthday!!) I started off with three 9 inch chocolate cake circles.

 

Latest foodie creation - nutter butter snowmen

So I saw these cute Nutter Butter Snowmen on the browneyedbaker's blog that I read. I thought they were so cute and I wanted to give them a try. So here's my first attempt!

 I used Wilton brand white & pink candy melts. (I had left over pink melts, so I decided to give that color a go too.) The buttons are mini M&M's and the face is just ready-to-use black icing piped on with a #2 tip.  These candy melts are the ones sold in chip form that you melt in the microwave or double boiler and pour into candy molds. They are vanilla flavor so they should blend well with the salty & peanut buttery cookies. 

However, I have no idea how the browneyedbaker got her snowmen dips to be so smooth. The candy melts are considered "confectionary coating". (Which do not have the same properties and "pourability" as real chocolate.)  I was not able to get the melts to pour over the nutter buttters. I just had to dip them in, pick them up on a fork and tap off the access candy melt. That gave the smoothest appearance that I could manage. But I think they turned out pretty good otherwise, no? 

*Lesson learned: I will stick to using candy melts in candy molds. They are much easier to deal with that way because you can put the melts into a baggie or frosting bag and just pipe the melts into your mold. But I do want to try to make chocolate dipped pretzel rods. So maybe I will give the melts another try...