This year we are celebrating Christmas with my family in Christchurch. It is the first time in years I will not have to cook or organise the day, a job my daughter and her hubby have taken on which is so nice. Our family has grown substantially over the last few years, so Christmas is a fun, busy, noisy time, tinged with a little sadness now that my dear mother is no longer with us..... she loved Christmas.
In true kiwi tradition everyone has been assigned a dish to bring on the day (we were told in October, good planning skills B) for the table, a great way of sharing the load and expense. My task is to make a fruit salad and little nibbles for drinks, tick.
I am so looking forward to the day, predictions are it will be a scorcher!
It seems a bit of an overload to make truffles but this is a particularly nice and cute little recipe given to me by my friend Deb. Rich - yes, delicious - yes, lots of calories - yes - but who cares at this time of the the year. Take one Christmas pudding add a cake of melted dark chocolate and voila, little things of yumminess! They are really nice to have with coffee at the end of a meal (somehow you always find room) or to give as a gift to the host at a gathering.
I went on line to check the recipe's original creator and discovered many variations of the same recipe. I understand Nigella Lawson and Allison Holst have similar recipes but using different ingredients so my feeling is the recipe is not exclusive and we are free to play around with the flavours and call it our own. Some truffle recipes use fruit cake, with a little apricot jam or orange zest added and brandy instead of sherry.
Christmas Truffles
Makes about
25
In true kiwi tradition everyone has been assigned a dish to bring on the day (we were told in October, good planning skills B) for the table, a great way of sharing the load and expense. My task is to make a fruit salad and little nibbles for drinks, tick.
I am so looking forward to the day, predictions are it will be a scorcher!
It seems a bit of an overload to make truffles but this is a particularly nice and cute little recipe given to me by my friend Deb. Rich - yes, delicious - yes, lots of calories - yes - but who cares at this time of the the year. Take one Christmas pudding add a cake of melted dark chocolate and voila, little things of yumminess! They are really nice to have with coffee at the end of a meal (somehow you always find room) or to give as a gift to the host at a gathering.
I went on line to check the recipe's original creator and discovered many variations of the same recipe. I understand Nigella Lawson and Allison Holst have similar recipes but using different ingredients so my feeling is the recipe is not exclusive and we are free to play around with the flavours and call it our own. Some truffle recipes use fruit cake, with a little apricot jam or orange zest added and brandy instead of sherry.
Christmas Truffles
1 biggish Plum Duff
(just a supermarket one or you can use your left over pud from Christmas) – break up and soak in…
70ml sweet
sherry ( use less liquid if it is a smaller Plum Duff) and mash mixture with a fork.
Add 150g dark
chocolate – melted and 2tbsp of golden syrup. Mix all together in a large bowl and let it cool down a little in the fridge. When firm'ish, roll into
balls and place on a tray lined with baking paper.
Don't do what I did and try and make them in a hurry and roll them when the mixture was not firm enough. I had to redo them as they were not nice little balls, more like a blob!
Don't do what I did and try and make them in a hurry and roll them when the mixture was not firm enough. I had to redo them as they were not nice little balls, more like a blob!
 |
| Let's try that again shall we |
Topping - gently melt 100g white chocolate buttons in a bowl in the microwave for about 40 seconds in 10 second bursts ( or melt using the double boiler method).
Using a teaspoon -drizzle the top,
letting the white chocolate drip down the sides a little - decorate with bits of green and red glace cherries.
To make them look even more special - place in Christmas themed mini cup cases
 | |
| Christmas truffle - not a bad first effort after a poor start |
| Copied off the web to show what they should look like |
No comments:
Post a Comment