Tag Archives: truffles

The Simplest Truffle

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It’s been a week since we moved into our new (lovely) little house, which means it’s also been a week since we’ve had a fully functioning oven! Luckily it’s proving nice and easy to get by, with the frying pan becoming our best friend and the BBQ getting a work out on sunny evenings.

More importantly though, the fickle oven hasn’t got in the way of baking either! ‘No bake’ treats are top of mind, and I have a few ideas I’m working through at the moment to give a go over the next week or so… though hopefully the oven is all sorted long before then!

Today’s bakeless treat is a super simple one that you’ve likely seen (and tasted) before… Oreo truffles! Kevin’s mum made these for our engagement party last year and they flew off the dessert table like hot cakes – so much so that neither of us actually got the chance to try one! So I decided being ovenless was the perfect opportunity to give them a go.

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Oreo Truffles

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Makes approx. 30 truffles

Ingredients

  • 450g Oreos (3 packets)
  • 250g cream cheese, cubed
  • 375g milk chocolate melts
  • Sprinkles (optional)

Method

  1. Place Oreos in food processor and blend until ground to a fine crumb. Add cream cheese and pulse until well combined and mixture clumps together.
  2. Roll mixture into small balls and place on lined baking tray. Place in fridge to firm for approx 15 minutes.
  3. Melt milk chocolate melts in microwave in 30 second bursts, mixing between each. Dip each truffle in chocolate using a fork, tapping off excess before replacing on lined baking tray. Finish with sprinkles.
  4. Place in fridge to set completely.

Five Favourite: Bakeless Recipes

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It’s official – I have the worst luck with ovens! Every single property we’ve lived in over the past few years has had an un-bakeable oven when we first move in – the first one didn’t seal, the second had a blown thermostat and the one in our new little place doesn’t seal! Luckily the house itself is nice enough to make the shonky oven forgivable.

Kevin’s busy arranging for someone to come by and fix the oven, but until then I’ll be ovenless – not ideal when you have a baking blog, right? Then I realised I could use it as an opportunity to get into more bakeless baking – chilled slices, fudges, truffles and sweets… the list of possibilities has actually got me pretty excited!

To kick things off I thought I’d do a bit of a round-up of some of my favourite bakeless recipes already on High Tea with Dragons – you won’t find anything that requires an oven in this list! Not only are these treats perfect for others with fickle ovens, but they’re great recipes to have on hand now the weather’s beginning to warm up.

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Dad, Volcanoes & Chocolate

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Fact: I have an amazing Dad.

There are tons of reasons why – he’s smart, funny, kind and can always be relied on to see the value of a good sloth photo. He’s always been there for me, supported me and has obviously had a huge impact on my life.

Case in point: Dad’s a geography teacher, so the road trips of my childhood were punctuated with ‘did you know’ facts and explanations about how the world around us worked – why the cliffs had layers in them, why Lake Taupo exists, what the sea does to the coastline.

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Chocolate & Beer Truffles

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Ingredients

  • 250g dark chocolate, broken
  • ½ cup cream
  • 3 Tbsp beer
  • ½ cup cocoa, to dust

Method

  1. Place chocolate and cream in a small heatproof bowl and warm gently over simmering water for 3-4 minutes without stirring
  2. Remove from heat and whisk until completely combined and no lumps remain. Cool to room temperature, approx. 20 minutes
  3. Add beer and carefully stir until well incorporated. Pour chocolate mixture into a small casserole or pie dish and refrigerate until set (approx. 2 hours)
  4. Scoop teaspoonfuls of chocolate mixture and shape into balls with damp hands. Coat in cocoa and place on baking tray to firm up.

Fast Friday: Peanut Butter & Jam Bites

Happy Friday!

I’m totally in love with today’s Fast Friday recipe – peanut butter & jam bites! Similar to my peanut butter bites, these are fudgey peanut butter flavoured balls filled with a little dollop of raspberry jam and rolled in chocolate hail.

The twist? There are rice bubbles in the peanut butter mixture, giving the treats a little bit more crunch than you can get from crunchy peanut butter alone. Rich, flavoursome and fun, this is definitely a recipe to add to your collection!

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Pretzel & Peanut Butter Bites

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Recipe adapted from Fit, Fun & Delish

Ingredients

  • 113g peanut butter, smooth
  • 14g butter, softened
  • 2 Tbsp light brown sugar
  • 1 ½ cups pretzels
  • 3 Tbsp icing sugar
  • 250g high quality milk chocolate, chopped

Method

  1. Place pretzels in a food processor and crush into very small pieces
  2. Place peanut butter, butter and light brown sugar in a bowl and mix until smooth
  3. Add crushed pretzels and mix well
  4. Add icing sugar and stir until well combined
  5. Line a baking tray with baking paper. Roll small, teaspoon sized balls of mixture and place on lined tray. Place in fridge for 30 minutes or until firm.
  6. Place chocolate in microwave safe bowl and microwave in 30 second bursts, mixing well between each, until smooth
  7. Sit ball on a fork and dip in chocolate, rolling so completely coated. Tap off excess chocolate and place on lined tray.
  8. Repeat until all truffles are covered then place in the fridge to set

Optional: Once chocolate has set, warm two tablespoons of smooth peanut butter in the microwave for 30 seconds. Scoop into a snaplock bag and snip off the corner. Pipe a squiggle of peanut butter atop each ball, then place in the fridge to set.

As seen on nzgirl.co.nz

A Taste of Malibu

With just over three months left until Christmas rolls around we’re officially entering what I consider the most exciting part of the year. Obviously there’s the countdown to Christmas (and our trip!), but there’s a lot of exciting things creeping up over the next few months. The final quarter of 2012 will see us:

  • Venturing south to meet Sirocco Kakapo
  • Celebrating our anniversary
  • Seeing Ellie Goulding perform live in Auckland (swoon)
  • Making the most of the upcoming holidays – Halloween, Guy Fawkes and Thanksgiving
  • Making a fuss of Kevin on his birthday
  • Celebrating a New Zealand Christmas a little early
  • Jetting off to New York City for a (hopefully) white Christmas

It’s all very exciting! But it also means we’re coming into the busiest part of the year – and things are already becoming more hectic. The weekends are whizzing by in a flash, with little time to get all our errands knocked off, let alone spending hours baking treats for the week ahead. Instead, I’m making it my mission to hunt down delicious – but incredibly quick – recipes to give a go.

These chocolate-Malibu truffles are one such recipe. Not only are truffles amazing, but these ones are amazingly quick and simple to make – all up they took less than 30 minutes to prepare – including heating and rolling all the little balls!

I found the base recipe after trawling through the Edmond’s cookbook last weekend for something I could making using things we already had in the cupboard. The original recipe calls a tablespoon of plain rum, but we didn’t have any of that on hand. Instead I decided to use Malibu (coconut rum) and coat them in shredded coconut, giving them a bit of a tropical flavour. Click here for the full recipe.

Like all chocolate recipes you should use good quality chocolate to make these – but that doesn’t mean it has to be expensive, a Whittaker’s block with high-cocoa content will be perfect.

And don’t worry if you’re not a big fan of coconut (I’m not!), these truffles are more chocolately than they are coconutty! And don’t forget you can always coat the truffles in something other than coconut – chocolate hail would look gorgeous!

Please let me know if you have any fail-proof, delicious recipes you’d like to share – I’d love to try them!

Kirsten
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