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Friday 16 August 2013

Culinary Pleasures: Manuela’s Triple Deadly Sinfully Sultry Chocolate Truffles



I’m a food fetishist.
Some people love shoes, I love food.
Making it, inventing it.
Not eating it as such.

I love the slow sensuous rituals of creating something delicious and irresistible; the blending of aromas, colours and flavours. It feels wonderful, that whole process of creation.

I propose to take you travelling through tastes and scents and textures.
Some will seem odd, some you will love, others not so much.


Step outside the box, live a little.
I throw down the glove. Come with me, do the recipes. If you don’t fall in love with the magical alchemical world of cooking, I’ll eat my hat! (marinated in lime juice, cilantro, garlic and green chilies you can eat practically anything)

Let’s start with something easy, something most people love: Chocolate.
Dark, silky, sultry chocolate.


Manuela’s Triple Deadly Sinfully Sultry Chocolate Truffles

250g Cooking Chocolate – Noir, 75% pure for best results
1 Tin common or garden-variety Condensed Milk – If it will help your guilt, go low fat
2 Soup-spoons milk
1 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
½ teaspoon Ground Ginger
½ teaspoon Chillie Powder

½ Cup dark Cocoa Powder or if you feel exotic, very finely ground coffee.


***


Ready?
Lets begin: in a small saucepan melt the Cooking Chocolate in the 2 soup-spoons of milk, then add your Condensed Milk. With a wooden spoon slowly stir the Chocolate and the Condensed Milk together over a low heat. The mixture will slowly thicken. Stir constantly, with slow smooth movements.


When the spoon leaves a “trail” through which you glimpse the bottom of the sauce-pan – the chocolate should flow back slowly- remove from the heat and stir vigorously. The chocolate will acquire a lustrous gloss. Return it to the heat and (still stirring) add the spices. Blend carefully and set the Truffle mix out to cool in the refrigerator.

Once it is firm, oil your hands and scoop out small portions to roll into truffles between your palms.
Toss them in either the Cocoa powder or the ground coffee, or even do 50/50.
Set them out on small paper frills, and serve with caution…


***


These are delicious as an after-dinner treat with coffee or a liquor, or just because you feel like it.
This is a basic recipe, of course. You can add ground almonds, grated orange rind, cloves or even a dash of curry. Go mad, use your imagination, explore your senses, enjoy.

Remember, in all things, balance is the key to wisdom, only excess is harmful.

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