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Christmas 2010 sweets


Darienne

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Mjx -- I'm intrigued by tobacco truffles. Can you elaborate on that one?

I'll do pralines, fudge, chocolate covered cherries, spiced and candied pecans. And then I'll do savories -- cheddar cheese shortbreads (they do better than biscuits in gift tins) and crocks of bacon jam; blue cheese savories with fig jam (think savory thumbprint cookies). Maybe spiced and toasted chickpeas.

Don't ask. Eat it.

www.kayatthekeyboard.wordpress.com

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Mjx -- I'm intrigued by tobacco truffles. Can you elaborate on that one?. . . .

Certainly, it's very simple to do: I used a standard cream and bittersweet chocolate truffle recipe, but added a pinch of organically grown tobacco shreds to the cream before heating it over an extremely low flame in a very heavy pot (it took about half an hour for bubbles to start appearing around the edges of the pot). Once I took the pot off the heat, I let the tobacco steep for about 2 minutes longer in the hot cream, then strained the cream to remove the tobacco shreds, and proceeded as usual for truffles.

The tobacco was noticeable, but very subtle; I feel that it enahanced a note which is present in some chocolates. The effect was very elegant and smooth, not at all harsh.

My research on tobaccos's toxicity, in case you're interested:

I found this monograph: Smoking and Tobacco Control Monograph No. 9: Chemistry and Toxicology (see chart, p 61 [7th page of .pdf file]). Nicotine was my primary concern, owing to its immediate toxicity (as opposed to the cumulative/long-term effects of other compounds), but nicotine appears to comprise between 0.6 and 2.9% of the dry weight of tobacco (p. 7 of the monograph), which means that an entire 40g (1.4 oz) packet of the brand of tobacco I used would contain between 0.24g and 1.16g nicotine, well below the median lethal dose, even for children (no children ate these, but it seemed a good idea to use as stringent a standard as possible: IPCS: Nicotine).

I'm not certain how much the pinch weighed--my scale doesn't measure under a gram/fractions of grams--but it was certainly under a gram, meaning that, on the outside, there were 0.03g of nicotine present in the entire batch of truffles.

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Michaela, aka "Mjx"
Manager, eG Forums
mscioscia@egstaff.org

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Mjx -- I'm intrigued by tobacco truffles. Can you elaborate on that one?. . . .

Certainly, it's very simple to do: I used a standard cream and bittersweet chocolate truffle recipe, but added a pinch of organically grown tobacco shreds to the cream before heating it over an extremely low flame in a very heavy pot (it took about half an hour for bubbles to start appearing around the edges of the pot). Once I took the pot off the heat, I let the tobacco steep for about 2 minutes longer in the hot cream, then strained the cream to remove the tobacco shreds, and proceeded as usual for truffles.

The tobacco was noticeable, but very subtle; I feel that it enahanced a note which is present in some chocolates. The effect was very elegant and smooth, not at all harsh.

My research on tobaccos's toxicity, in case you're interested:

I found this monograph: Smoking and Tobacco Control Monograph No. 9: Chemistry and Toxicology. Nicotine was my primary concern, owing to its immediate toxicity (as opposed to the cumulative/long-term effects of other compounds), but nicotine appears to comprise between 0.6 and 2.9% of the dry weight of tobacco (p. 7 of the monograph), which means that an entire 40g (1.4 oz) packet of the brand of tobacco I used would contain between 0.24g and 1.16g nicotine, well below the median lethal dose, even for children (that would be 10g; no children ate these, but it seemed a good idea to use as stringent a standard as possible: (IPCS: Nicotine).

I'm not certain how much the pinch weighed--my scale doesn't measure under a gram/fractions of grams--but it was certainly under a gram, meaning that, on the outside, there were 0.03g of nicotine present in the entire batch of truffles.

Fascinating! What kind of tobacco did you use? I would guess a pipe tobacco?

Don't ask. Eat it.

www.kayatthekeyboard.wordpress.com

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. . . . What kind of tobacco did you use? I would guess a pipe tobacco?

I used a brand called American Spirit; I don't smoke, so I don't know much about tobacco, and I don't know whether pipe tobacco would be safe to use in food.

Incidentally, you can grow tobacco yourself; apparently, during WWII, many Danes did so in their backyards, so it must be fairly hardy/have a short growing season.

Michaela, aka "Mjx"
Manager, eG Forums
mscioscia@egstaff.org

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. . . . What kind of tobacco did you use? I would guess a pipe tobacco?

I used a brand called American Spirit; I don't smoke, so I don't know much about tobacco, and I don't know whether pipe tobacco would be safe to use in food.

Incidentally, you can grow tobacco yourself; apparently, during WWII, many Danes did so in their backyards, so it must be fairly hardy/have a short growing season.

The times that I've made a tobacco ganache - I've gone in to the grocery store locally that has a high end smoke shop and the fellow there has given me a couple of otherwise very expensive cigars that have been broken. He can't sell them - and I'm going to break them anyway. I just smell the cigars to decide which one I like.

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I'm doing a gift assortment for a lot of folks on my list, consisting of:

-Peppermint bark (dark, milk, and white)

-Dark chocolate pb cups

-Sugar cutouts w/ Royal icing

-Chocolate, white chocolate, and maple walnut fudge

-Jam ribbons (a lazy linzer)

And then I'm copying something I saw (and tasted!) in Belgium--small blocks of chocolate (1 inch cubes) with a pipette of liqueur in them for dropping in hot chocolate/hot milk. I'm going with Irish cream, Grand Marnier, and probably blackberry brandy. Thinking of making homemade marshmallows to complement this but we'll see how energetic I'm feeling!

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And then I'm copying something I saw (and tasted!) in Belgium--small blocks of chocolate (1 inch cubes) with a pipette of liqueur in them for dropping in hot chocolate/hot milk. I'm going with Irish cream, Grand Marnier, and probably blackberry brandy. T

would like to see a photo of the completed confection, please.

Darienne

 

learn, learn, learn...

 

We live in hope. 

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-Jam ribbons (a lazy linzer)

Love the "Lazy Linzer" name. I do what I consider the same and had been calling them Linzer bars but will borrow your idea :smile:

The line up for the cookie plates is:

-Lazy Linzers

-Baklava using Chef Crash's method for the first time (Clicky)

-Spiced chocolate chip crisps

-Pumpkin bread

They are all requests from long time recipients and much appreciated. Hope to deliver by Wednesday.

baklava.JPG

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DSCN2277.jpg

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! Pusateri's in Toronto was selling this for $66/lb. Layers of gianduja in white, milk and dark.

Exquisite.

Darienne

 

learn, learn, learn...

 

We live in hope. 

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Well, I rolled out 1800 linzer cookies yesterday to make 900 sandwiched cookies. Today begins the baking and packing of 6000 cookies for a huge banquet tomorrow in San Jose. If I get a chance, I'll take pictures of the chaos :).

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The fruitcakes for work now look like this:

IMAG0066.jpg

The marcipan and freeze dried raspberry are very easy to make:

A small, slightly flattened ball of marcipan (60 % almonds). Dip the top in tempered choc and immediately n freeze dried raspberries. Wait for it to set and dip the whole thing in more tempered choc. Enjoy - and another one, and another one and......arghhhh, keep off, those are mine, all mine, my precious :-)

IMAG0069.jpg

Edited by Mette (log)
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I always bring stuff to whatever is my last class of the semester; usually I cook dinner but this year I didn't have time/couldn't figure out the logistics so brought just sweets:

--Lemon cake from first Roux Brothers cookbook

--orange olive oil cake from David Leite

--chocolate Domingo cake from Rose

--pear custard tart

--assorted cookies, including Florentines, cherry-pistachio, poppy seed, soft ginger, etc.

Forgot to take photos.

For myself and family, will make:

Biscotti di prato for dipping in Vin Santo

my favorite caraway cookies

ginger shortbread

cranberry macarons (will be an experiment)

lotsa pies

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Just made some holiday spice florentines (molasses, ginger, cinnamon) and pistachio cherry cardamom florentines.

Also made two batches of granola for gifts - one for the kiddos friends with peanuts, mini choco chips, coconut and dried bananas and one tropical with mango, pineapple, macadamia nuts, pecans, coconut.

Will be making a GF stollen, and also working on GF laminated dough - haven't decided what to make with it.

Kids want a gingerbread house, and they want ice cream coconut snowmen for dessert on Christmas. I have decide about that.

Sheryl Davies

www.breakingbreadblog.com

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And then I'm copying something I saw (and tasted!) in Belgium--small blocks of chocolate (1 inch cubes) with a pipette of liqueur in them for dropping in hot chocolate/hot milk. I'm going with Irish cream, Grand Marnier, and probably blackberry brandy.

would like to see a photo of the completed confection, please.

Well, a few lessons learned, first--pipettes leak, and chocolate and liqueurs, which obviously have some water content, do not get along well. So my first milk/dark batches were a little streaky from oozing booze. But here's a photo of the white chocolate with peppermint schnapps, which fared a bit better (though not the photo, in my attempt to reduce its size):

white mint.jpg

Still trying to figure out the best strategy for decorating...the pipette in the middle makes the chocolate drizzle a bit tough. I have a bit of green and red colored vanilla wafers that I could use, though I wasn't sure if that might be too hokey. Love to hear your thoughts!

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Well, sir, perfect or not, they do look mighty fine and delicious too. I am not a decorator sort of confectioner so I think someone else could comment better on your wafers. One thing for sure, I do love hokey!

Darienne

 

learn, learn, learn...

 

We live in hope. 

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Cookies for the staff at work:

Almond thumbprints (green frosting)

Santa's Whiskers (pink ones)

Clementine Shortbread (orange sprinkles)

Mexican chocolate chip sandwiches w/chipotle ganache

Chocolate Drops w/Andes mints (in the Middle of the plate)

All were highly appreciated...I was planning on doing truffles but didn't have the mental bandwidth to temper chocolate, luckily my staff are all non-bakers so anything I make is impressive to them

christmas cookies.jpg

If you ate pasta and antipasto, would you still be hungry? ~Author Unknown

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I am rather envious of all the candy makers. Mel Z the hot chocolate filled liquor sounds marvelous! I want to make them too! Don't know why candy making makes me nervous :unsure: Anyways it took a while for my generators to start up and warm up. I am nursing a pesky broken thumb but managed to make some stuff. So far,

Pecan Butter Rum Balls

Ginger Crispies

Lime cookies ( recipe from here )

Peppermint Pixies ( Mint up and boozed up crinkles)

Herme's chocolate chocolate chip aka Korova ( zested it with orange oil did the lazy thing and used Lindt's orange choc bars)

Jam thumbprints

Almost forgot - just made Chrabelis (Malgieri recipe) tonight! First time making them and I really like them. Super easy to boot. Was nervous at first because the dough was really sticky after mixing but it rose and baked up well and correctly but it's not "white" enough. I think I didn't whisk the egg sugar mixture enough. Anyone here made them before? What should the consistency of the dough be.

There's a few more on my list which requires a bit more dexterity and helpful to have all digits able to work! so let's see if I have the energy and motivation to tackle them. I have posted most recipes online if anyone is interested.

.........................................

http://petitateliercuisine.blogspot.com/

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More Chocolate coated toffee for friends, acquaintances and people who help us. Spiced pecans. Raspberry truffles with the most amazing booze-filled ganache I have ever run across. Coconut-peanut butter truffles (not my favorite, but I tried 'em and, as they say, someone will eat them). They'll go to the Christmas Eve party along with Ed's Tortiere. Chocolate-dipped orange marshmallows for a dear friend who LOVES them. Dipped orange peels.

At least I don't have to make any more toffee for now. I simply cannot discipline myself not to snack on it. :raz:

Darienne

 

learn, learn, learn...

 

We live in hope. 

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