Scotch Bacon Truffles

These are the truffles that that Andy and I made a little film about. I had originally wanted to make Bacon and Bourbon truffles, but we didn't have bourbon, so scotch would suffice. The scotch was gifted to Andy by a coworker and was some pretty good stuff. He was reluctant to let me use some, but finally gave into the cause.

In the end these turned out well, but somewhere in the ganache process my chocolate did not want to mix. I'll have to look into the science of it, but I am thinking the scotch was the culprit. Chocolate and water do NOT mix and because liquor has water in it that may have been it. This is exactly why I like to experiment though. Sometimes I make great breakthroughs, and other times I fail miserably. These truffles were not a complete fail, as they did finally work out, but I don't know how much I'll be working with scotch in chocolate again.

The final truffle came out quite nice. I think I put too many bacon pieces into the ganache, but that can easily be fixed. Otherwise, it had a great bacon flavor with a nice aftertaste of scotch. The scotch aftertaste was very faint, but it was there and it created a nice finish to the flavors. This is my second try at a bacon truffle and I like it. I think it works!

Pumpkin Spice Truffles

These are the pumpkin spice truffles that I made for Thanksgiving. I have been meaning to post about these since, well...Thanksgiving. I am way behind as you can see! I apologize for this picture as I just grabbed the nearest camera to snap a picture. The truffles do kind of sparkle in the picture though. I enjoy that.

So, pumpkin spice truffles. I am pleased with how these came out. I used pumpkin pie mix in the ganache along with pumpkin pie spices like cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg. I pretty much mixed up a pumpkin pie and then dumped it into my chocolate ganache. I dipped them and topped them with some more nutmeg. The tastes shined through perfectly. I think the pumpkin could have been stronger, but otherwise they were great! These will be a seasonal favorite.

Vegan Brownies

I am not vegan or even vegetarian. I am however, curious! When Andy and I lived in Columbia Heights, DC (we recently moved neighborhoods) there was a vegan restaurant/coffee shop called Sticky Fingers. I loved the name and every time we walked by, the place was packed out. Something good was happening there. Finally one day we stopped in for breakfast. I ordered the tofu scrambler, and a blueberry muffin. I was curious about the tastes since there would be no eggs, butter, milk, or cream in anything.

When my food came I was immediately surprised. It looked normal and delicious! When I dug in the taste was fantastic. The tofu scrambler tasted like tofu, obviously, but it also tasted like scrambled eggs with curry. Yum! There were no eggs though.

The blueberry muffin that I had ordered was surprisingly delicious as well. The outside was crispy and the inside was moist. So I became a vegan believer. I still love my meat and animal products, but now I know that it is possible to cook without eggs, milk, butter, and cream. This could just make my baking a LOT healthier!

So only now have I finally gotten around to trying my first vegan recipe. I wanted to make brownies to I figured I would veganize them for the healthier aspect, along with curiosity as to how they would taste. I looked up quite a few recipes and ended up creating my own with pieces and ideas from other recipes...yes, ballsy move for my first attempt at vegan cooking! I am SO happy with how they turned out though! I couldn't be more impressed with myself! These brownies are moist and solid, yet not too rich. I also sprinkled the tops of them with cayenne pepper, which gave them a wonderful kick. They are definitely a keeper!

Using a Chocolate Mold

We got a mold! I have been wanting to try a mold for some time now, but just have not put the time into it. Finally I sat down to research and order a heavy duty mold. I'll admit, this was last fall though. The mold came, we admired it, and that was it for a while. Making chocolate truffles takes a lot of time and space, which we didn't have much of, so the mold got put on hold.

After looking at the mold for a few months I decided it was time that I test it out once and for all. I watched a few youtube videos on how to use aa mold and then went about making my ganache and melting/tempering the chocolate. Then let me tell you, it got messy! I had to fill the mold first with melted chocolate, then tip it over to let the chocolate drip out leaving a nice hollow chocolate coated mold to be filled. I do not work with a large chocolate pot or any special melting devices, so pouring chocolate into the mold and letting it drip out was a messy affair. I had chocolate everywhere!! At that point I almost threw in the towel to never use a mold again.

Despite the mess, I stuck with the molding process. Mostly out of curiosity. I wanted to see how the truffles would turn out. Next, I piped the ganache into the mold. That was the easy part. Then came another mess. To top of the molds I had to pour more chocolate onto the top of the mold to seal off the truffle. Once again, chocolate was everywhere! I've never made such a huge mess! I scraped off the excess chocolate, stepped back, and was actually pretty impressed with my handiwork.

I gave the truffles about an hour to harden and set...although, I'm sure they are supposed to set for much longer. Finally I couldn't take the suspense anymore. I took the mold of truffles and like youtube showed me, I smacked it face down on the counter. About half of the molded truffles came out and I was ecstatic with joy! It worked!! Despite the horrible mess, I had successfully molded truffles.

I'm sure with practice I could have this method down in no time. Then I could be turning out truffles by the hundreds with no problem...if I needed a hundred truffles. Andy is not a fan though. He likes the hand dipped truffles, both for the look and for the personal attention. It is also nice to be able to garnish the top of each chocolate. You can't do that as easily with a mold. So we'll see how often the mold gets used It was fun to try and is a quick and easy way to make many at once. I may have to invest in a larger chocolate melting pot though.

New blog look!

I have so many blog posts piling up about new flavor experiments, but figured I would update the blog first. I am so excited to share an "about" page along with a "short film" page that Andy and I created. We have been having so much creative fun these days. I think the holidays helped to inspire us because of all the gatherings and parties where we needed to bring a food item. It is fun to put in the extra hour here and there into make something a little different.

A little about the new blog look. I created the background look myself. It is actually a flowering cacao tree, which I thought was fitting. The name is still Zest, but I added the Boutique part just for fun. I am a lover of certain words and one of them is boutique.

More posts to come! But for now I'll leave you with this...