Don't you just love Christmas goodies? I'm working on mine the earliest I ever have, because I lose my kitchen stuff on Monday! Aack! I'm also not doing my usual bake-a-thon this year, as I just can't deal with the mess and the time commitment said annual bake-a-thon creates. This year I'm doing candy. Simple, easy candy, with some store-bought things thrown in like the candy canes (of course) and the peppermint bark from Costco. I haven't even started really packing anything in my house, because I'm in a mad dash to get everything made, sewn, and painted before Monday when the packers come. Don't even get me started on all the things I still have to sew; this is a post about food....more specifically, CHOCOLATE!
These are my new favorite candy to make, because they are so EASY! I got this truffle recipe from, of all things, a food magazine put out by Kraft. I wasn't expecting to find anything too impressive in there because, no offense to all the Velveeta lovers in the world, super-processed Kraft products are usually not on my list of favorite foods.
HOWEVER, these truffles taste quite incredible considering how easy they were to make.
All you do is cream an 8 oz block of cream cheese until light and fluffy (KitchenAid or equivalent recommended), then add 8 oz of melted semisweet chocolate. (you can use the blocks sold in the little boxes, or just use chocolate chips, weighing them on a little kitchen scale like I did. Or just melt about a cup and a half of chocolate chips and call it good. This recipe is not rocket science).
Chill the mixture in the fridge for at least an hour. Roll spoonfuls of the truffles into balls (watch out, this is very messy because the heat of your hands melts the cream cheese mixture immediately, so it gets a little gooey. I ended up just sort of pressing the mixture into balls instead of rolling it), place on waxed paper-lined tray, and refrigerate again.
Meanwhile, over double boiler (or pyrex measuring cup resting in about 2 inches of water in a saucepan) gently melt 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips with 2 Tbls shortening (NOT butter, like I did the first time and it totally "seized" on me, the same thing that will happen when you get even 1 drop of water into the chocolate. Seized means that the chocolate gets all grainy and clumpy instead of smooth). This will be what you will dip the balls into. The Kraft recipe said nothing about the shortening, I added that because the pure chocolate was just too thick and wasn't cooperating.
Take a little cocktail fork or two-pronged fork, poke a chilled truffle ball, then dip it completely into melted chocolate. Place back on waxed paper, sprinkle with finely chopped nuts, sprinkles, etc (I used peppermint flavored sprinkles) and chill. These get soft really quickly when warm, they should be stored in the fridge.
And there you go! Homemade, heavenly balls of calories...I mean chocolate. They really are incredibly smooth and luscious - you need to try this recipe!
With the leftover chocolate, I made these simple pretzels. Hyrum had a great time helping me with this one. He also had a great time eating the inventory, but who can blame him? The crunchy, salty pretzel juxtaposed with the sweet, delectable chocolate is quite tempting. I melted some white chocolate and made some with white chocolate too, then put the extra white chocolate in a ziploc baggie, snipped a tiny hole in one corner, and drizzled white chocolate over some of the dark chocolate pretzels.
I STILL had some leftover melted chocolate, so I tossed some of those nugget pretzels into the melted chocolate until coated, laid them out on waxed paper, and did the white chocolate drizzle action on them as well. They look like solid chocolate nuggets, but the pretzel interior keeps the guilt (and calorie count) down a little bit. Unless you eat twice as many as you would have otherwise. :-)
I packaged up several little boxes and tins with the goodies, which will have to do for the kids' gifts to their teachers this year, as well as treats for the neighbors. Except for the bag I have yet to make for Hyrum's preschool teacher, who also happens to be a good friend of mine. Guess I better stop blogging and start sewing, eh?
Here are the cute little goodie boxes, all packaged up and ready to go. Now that I look at this photo, I'm thinking some extra ribbon embellishment is in order....well, maybe next year. Time to get back to that sewing machine.
Shelly, you really crack me up. You say that you aren't doing much but did you look at what you did do? More than most of us do at all...you are amazing. Good luck on the move.
Posted by: Joy | December 12, 2008 at 09:49 AM