Tag: truffles

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Everyone Wants Me to Have a Meltdown

You heard me.  Everyone wants me to have a meltdown. In fact, everyone I know wouldn’t mind if I had a meltdown every single week.

But it is not as bad as it sounds.  By meltdown, they don’t mean a hissy fit or dissolving into tears.  Instead, it means they’re waiting for me to literally melt down something brown and sweet and…yes, you knew this was going to involve chocolate somehow.

(Suddenly I am reminded of Rilla of Ingleside and her supposed overuse of italics. I always thought her use of italics was spot on.)

In short, me having a meltdown is code for me making fudge. Or chocolate mint thins.  Or truffles.  Naturally, there is photo evidence of my latest meltdown.

Everyone Wants Me to Have a Meltdown

Peanut butter truffles.   Yes, they are having a very bad hair day (or whatever you say when truffles start sweating because they don’t like the temperature of the photography studio place where I take photos).

The initial plan was to keep all the truffles. After all, it was a four day weekend (plenty of time for plenty of truffles) and there are some definite peanut-butter-lovers in my family (including the dog, who gets to lick the empty jar).  Yet somehow two truffles here and two truffles there went off to new homes and before I knew it there were ten missing. To any concerned parties who thought we were shorted on account of my unapologetic sharing tendencies, we STILL had plenty.  (But yes, I will make you more.  On your birthday.  Which I cannot be fooled into thinking is in March.)

Want to have your own meltdown?  I have some tips:

  • Always melt more chocolate than you think you’re going to need.  Because you can make all sorts of things with the leftovers.
  • Never let anybody watch you handle the chocolate because they will start marveling how it is possible for one person to leave chocolate on so many surfaces.
  • Also never let anyone know you are making anything because they will show up with puppy dog eyes begging for chunks of chocolate or truffle centers.
  • Always make sure there is room in the freezer/fridge BEFORE standing there with messy hands and a full sized pizza pan laden with truffles, wondering where you’re going to put it.
  • And last but not least…either portion off truffles so everyone has their own container, or insist on being around to divvy them up.

‘Cause otherwise they’re gone.

Ps.  The peanut butter truffle recipe is from Use Real Butter.

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Nontraditional Thanksgiving Foods

I was getting ready to tell you about Thanksgiving.   (All the way back in November.  Although it’s the middle of December.  Apparently it’s taken me that long to recover.)

But first, in honor of Chocolate Covered Anything Day, I made this little collage of, well, chocolate covered everything:

Nontraditional Thanksgiving Foods & Chocolate Covered Everything

All pictures are my own.  All opinions are also my own:

Chocolate Covered Bacon:  Fun for something different.
Chocolate Covered Oreos:  Yes.  Oh yes.  Just don’t try this at home.  You might eat too many oreos.  (I didn’t, but I can see how it could happen quite easily!)
Chocolate Covered Potato Chips:  This tasted about the same as the bacon, just not as chewy.
Chocolate Covered Coconut:  Delicious.
Chocolate Covered Celery:  Nope.  Don’t do it.  (I knew it wouldn’t like it.  I did it for the picture, not because I thought it would be incredibly tasty or the next big craze.)
Chocolate Covered Apples:  Also Delicious
Chocolate Covered Pineapple: Very Delicious

Now back to Thanksgiving….

…which usually brings to mind foods like turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, and that stuff that some people cook in the turkey (and some people don’t) that some people call stuffing and some people call dressing.  My family was confusing the issue by calling it both.  Next year we should combine the two and call it “stressing”.  🙂

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Chocolate Week 2016

It’s Chocolate Week! In the UK.  I’m not in the UK and have never been to the UK and maybe never will have a chance to visit the UK.  But that’s ok. I have assured myself it can still be Chocolate Week.  Not only that, but I’m sure it’s fine if you pretend it’s Chocolate Week too. Even if you’re not in the UK either.

Speaking of chocolate and weeks, there’s been a lot of chocolate happenings going on at my house in the past few weeks.

#1.  There was that Saturday I made Oreo Truffles, Mint Thins, AND Smores Bark… all in one day.

oreo-truffles-and-mint-thins-and-smores-bark
Yeah.  That was pretty epic.

#2. Ever heard of Funny-Faced Fudge?  I hadn’t either.  It started out as rather normal looking fudge that was placed in the fridge to set up. (Back story: The idea was that if some semi-waxy milk chocolate the boys weren’t eating (or at least they weren’t eating as fast as they normally eat milk chocolate) was melted together with a particularly strong brand of sweetened condensed milk that it might turn into a decent fudge.  Let’s just say it was edible and leave it at that.)  When the pan was retrieved hours later, we were amused to find somebody had scratched a funny face into the top. Sorry, no pictures.  It was evening and my no-natural-lighting picture-taking capabilities are shaky at best.

(I’m sure my brother just snorted when he read this.  Fine.  My no-natural-lighting picture taking capabilities are non-existent.)

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Alter Eco Truffles

Once in a while, a chocolate comes along and manages a statistical improbability: winning over every single member of my family after the first bite.  This isn’t exactly an easy task. If it is too dark, 2/5s lose all interest. 1/5 of us do not eat white chocolate at all. (“What is white chocolate even made out of?”)  Peanuts in chocolate are a welcome addition (if you ask 3 out of 5) and not-so-welcome (if you interview the other two).  Coffee in chocolate…well, that’s a story for another day.

The most recent chocolate to be unanimously approved? Alter Eco Truffles.

Alter Eco Truffles - Velvet

Words fail me.  These truffles – made with coconut oil, whole milk powder, cane sugar, cocoa butter, cacao beans, caramel flavor, & vanilla beans – are incredibly silky and decadent.  They melt in your mouth.   I wouldn’t be surprised if these truffles have inspired people to write poetry about them.

(In case Alter Eco is new to you, visit their website for more info.    Fair trade and organic ingredients?  Check.  Compostable packaging?  Check.  Dark chocolate with flavors such as burnt caramel, quinoa, and brown butter?  Check check check.)

Words may have failed me, but, if I remember correctly, everyone else had this to say:

“They’re SO creamy!”
“I remember you got the purple ones a long time ago.  They’re both really good.”
“I think these are my favorite.”
“Are there any more of those?”

There weren’t.   Be warned: Alter Eco Truffles (in Velvet) disappear.  Fast.

Because they’re really good.

Alter Eco Truffles - Coconut Oil + Cocoa Powder(This is proof I haven’t mastered the art of making coconut oil photogenic yet…)