Monthly Archives: January 2011

Chocolate Nutella Fudge with Sprinkles

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Nutella fudge with sprinkles

Today is five weeks plus two days since Christmas. You know what that means, don’t you?

Yes! Exactly! Five weeks plus two days since Christmas is the traditional day to blog about presents made and given to fathers and paternal grandmothers!

What, you didn’t know that?

For shame.

Nutella fudge with sprinkles

Now, the best thing to do when you’re making an edible gift for your father and paternal grandmother is this:

1. Think about how your father and paternal grandmother each have a sweet tooth,

then

2. Build each of them a model aircraft!

Wait, no. That’s not right. Let’s try again.

Nutella fudge with sprinkles

1. Think about how your father and paternal grandmother each have a sweet tooth,

then

2. Take several ingredients that are rather delicious on their own, melt ‘em together, and

voila!

3. Homemade Chocolate Nutella Fudge with Sprinkles.

Nutella fudge with sprinkles

The original recipe, by Cookin’ Canuck, was for Nutella fudge topped with sea salt. However, I decided to switch the sea salt for the prettier and more generically-approachable sprinkles. Why, you might ask? Because, I might answer, my grandma is 96 years old. As much as I’d love to foist the world of Spectacularly Symbiotic Sweet and Salty upon her, I thought I’d better stick with the world of Tried And True Sweet And Sweet at Christmas-time.

After all, it was more important to me that she liked her present than I aligned myself with contemporary cooking fads.

(Um, raw vegan dabbling aside, that is…)

Nutella Fudge with sprinkles

Chocolate Nutella Fudge with Sprinkles

Recipe from Cookin’ Canuck, originally based on a Giada De Laurentiis recipe

  • Butter to grease pan
  • 1 (400g/14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 230g (8 oz) dark chocolate chips, or dark chocolate, chopped. Chips chopped chips chopped! (Ahem.)
  • 1 cup Nutella
  • 50g butter, room temperature, cut into small cubes
  • Sprinkles, to sprinkle (ingenious!)

1. Grease the bottom and sides of a 20cm (8-inch) square pan with butter. Line with baking paper, leaving an overlap on the sides (this makes it easier to remove the fudge from the pan once it’s set).

2. In a medium glass or stainless steel bowl, stir together (insofar as you’re able) the sweetened condensed milk, vanilla, chocolate, Nutella, and butter.

3. Make a double-boiler by placing this bowl over a medium pot of just-simmering water (making sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water). Stir until everything has melted together and the mixture is smooth, about 5-7 minutes.

4. Pour/scrape the mixture into the prepared pan, smooth the top with a spatula, and sprinkle with sprinkles (ingenious!). Refrigerate until the fudge is firm, at least two hours.

5. Remove the fudge from the pan and cut into little squares, using a knife (you might need to run the knife under hot water and dry it off before cutting). Place in little patty-pan cases, if desired, and store in the fridge in an airtight container.

 

As well as a Christmas present, this Nutella recipe is also my [early] contribution to World Nutella Day, as hosted by Ms Adventures in Italy and Bleeding Espresso. Hurrah!

My Apartment Is Trying To Kill Me

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My apartment is trying to kill me.

No, seriously. Stop laughing. This isn’t one of my light-hearted-romp-of-a-post stories about me acting like a nincompoop.

My apartment is trying to kill me.

It’s tried to do so in various ways over recent months, but seems to have settled on the Oldie But A Goodie tactic of scaring me to death. Initally, my apartment tried to finish me off via dehydration. Another time, it aimed for something both more banal and more devious: I almost died of frustration whilst spending five hours putting Skank Bed together.

After that came the fear. My apartment played on my arachnophobia and my overactive imagination with Mr. Sock Spider, and I barely lived to tell the tale.

It’s now time to tell you my apartment’s most recent attempt to put me in my grave.

It Was A Dark And [not] Stormy Night…

… and I had stayed up late because it was swelteringly hot and I couldn’t sleep under such conditions. I frou-froued around, then wandered into my bedroom at 2am. All seemed fine, but then I saw something out of the corner of my eye.

I froze.

Wayfaring Chocolate Poe Nightmare

Have you ever had the feeling that you’re being watched?

Wayfaring Chocolate Poe NightmareAnd you feel all the hairs stand up on the back of your neck?

Wayfaring Chocolate Poe Nightmare

And prickles burst across your forehead like fireworks?

Wayfaring Chocolate Poe Nightmare

And you suddenly can’t breathe, because this is what happens in horror movies, not in real life?

And you can’t quite believe what’s going on, even when a clear light is shone on the reality of the quaking-in-your-boots situation?

Wayfaring Chocolate Poe Nightmare

THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE.

Wayfaring Chocolate Poe Nightmare

I honestly believe my heart stopped beating for two minutes straight.

Two minutes that shaved at least two years off my life.

Wayfaring Chocolate Poe Nightmare

I want those two years back.

Wayfaring Chocolate Poe Nightmare

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore”.

Ani Phyo’s Coconut Breakfast Cakes: More Raw Vegan Fun!

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Ani Phyo's Raw Vegan Coconut Breakfast Cakes

I’m going to admit something right now, and I want you to promise not to hate me, harangue me, hold it against me, or do anything else to me that starts with the letter “h”. (Apart from humouring me. You can definitely humour me.)

Promise? Okay. Here goes: I haven’t eaten pancakes in about a billion years.

I simply (gasp) have never really liked them. No matter what kind of pancakes I ate as a child, they always seemed to explode in my tummy until I felt like I’d swallowed a doona. In fact, I remember once going to The Pancake Parlour after a Bell Shakespeare production and asking for a scoop of ice cream with pancake toppings but no pancake (from memory, I got ice cream with stewed apples, walnuts, and maple syrup. Just try and tell me that wasn’t a good plan).

Ani Phyo's Raw Vegan Coconut Breakfast Cakes

Therefore when I saw Ani Phyo’s recipe for Coconut Breakfast Cakes, which she likens to pancakes, I thought I might be able to teach myself that pancakes aren’t just heavy and boring. I thought wrong. You see, while I quite liked these creations, they were nothing, nothing, nothing like pancakes.

I endeavour to be totally honest on this blog. My raw vegan brownies? They really do taste like proper brownies. The raw vegan nacho cheeze? Oddly enough, it is vaguely cheese-like. These flaxmeal coconut cakes? Saying they’re akin to pancakes is like saying Rupert Everett still looks human after his plastic surgery, or saying that Sex and the City 2 is good film-making. It’s just a lie.

So no, this isn’t a dessert or snack that I would push onto raw food newbies. The flaxmeal has a rather intense earthiness bordering on bitterness that takes some getting used to (I love it), but the coconut oil does provide an easily-likable, gorgeous and seductive aroma while the dark agave contributes a caramel sweetness.

Ani Phyo's Raw Vegan Coconut Breakfast Cakes

Serving these coconut-agave-cinnamon-flaxmeal breakfast cakes with my rosewater and vanilla poached apricots didn’t hurt the tasting experience, either.

Do you know what does hurt, though?

My head after my housemate and I sprayed our apartment with insane amounts of insect repellent in an effort to fight off the swarms of red and black scary wiggly-tailed ant-like creatures that appeared on our ceiling last night.

I think the chemical insect-be-gone fumes might be making me babble.

Pumpkin kelpie daffodil horn of silver odalisque croquet!

Nah. I’m clearly making complete sense.

Ani Phyo's Raw Vegan Coconut Breakfast Cakes

Coconut Breakfast Cakes

Adapted from Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen. This is the halved recipe, and I made six little cakes from it. You can shape them into whatever size you’d like, though. Last but not least, this is my contribution to the January SOS Kitchen Challenge, the theme of which is coconut oil.

  • 1 1/2 cups flaxmeal
  • 1 tb coconut butter/oil
  • 1/4 cup agave syrup
  • 1/4 tsp sea salt
  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (my addition; may not be strictly raw)
  • 2 tb water

1. Put flaxmeal, coconut oil, agave, salt, cinnamon and water into a large bowl and mix well. Form into balls the size of your choosing and flatten into a “pancake” shape. I had to keep wetting my hands as the mixture wanted to stick to me rather than itself, but it all worked out fine in the end. There’s nothing wrong with having to lick one’s fingers at the end of a [not-]cooking experiment, in my opinion.

2. Serve with more agave or maple syrup, with a berry coulis, or with poached rosewater apricot compote, as I did.

 

El Rey Apamate 73.5% Chocolate Oscuro

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One of the best things about having an awesome, intelligent, enthusiastic, supportive, and generous PhD supervisor who knows you really well is that you have a PhD supervisor who is awesome, intelligent, enthusiastic, supportive, generous and knows you really well.

How do I know this?

I know this because my PhD supervisor not only encourages my academic work and tells me to have faith in myself, but brings me chocolate from his travels.

It’s kind of wonderful. The following is one of my supervisor-given lovely chocolates.

El Rey Apamate 73.5% Chocolate Oscuro

El Rey Apamate 73.5% Chocolate Oscuro

When I was in America in 2007-8, I was blown away by El Rey’s Icoa white chocolate. El Rey’s Icoa is one of the only white chocolates in the world that uses undeoderised cocoa butter. This means that the bar actually tastes like chocolate, unlike most white chocolate which taste of naught but milk, vanilla, and sugar.

I was rather keen to find out whether El Rey’s dark chocolate would be equally impressive in its own right.

El Rey Apamate 73.5% Chocolate Oscuro

The three words that best describe this chocolate (if I had to pick only three) are fruity, subtle, and light. Even at 73.5% cacao, this dark chocolate is not at all bitter, acrid, or sour. In fact, if El Rey’s Apamate was a fictional character at a party, it would be the unassuming and demurely-dressed girl in the background who smiles at everyone, has a couple of dances with relatively attractive men, never puts a foot wrong, and probably irons her nightgown before she goes to bed.

El Rey Apamate 73.5% Chocolate Oscuro

The aroma of this chocolate is predominately sweet cocoa but also has hints of caramel, muscovado sugar and, surprisingly, charcoal. The fruitiness isn’t immediately apparent in the aroma but comes through strongly in the taste, as lychee, white peach and sweet pineapple intermingle with subtle notes of butterscotch caramel.

El Rey Apamate 73.5% Chocolate Oscuro

Each time I tasted this chocolate, I was pleasantly surprised by its ability to blend complexity with subtlety. The light fruitiness and sweetness of the cacao, combined with the chocolate’s overall lack of acid or bitterness, makes for an easily-likeable chocolate that I’m sure would suit people who like dark, but not super-dark, chocolate.

Thanks Ally!

And now I should probably go work on that “PhD” thing…

Cookbook Challenge Citrus: Raw Vegan Nacho Cheeze

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Raw vegan nacho cheeze

Theme: Citrus
Recipe: Nacho Cheeze
Book: Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen

Look, I know what you’re thinking.

“Nacho Cheeze? How does this fit into a Citrus theme? I smell deception and lies! Deception and lies!”

Wait, no. That’s not quite right. This is probably what you’re thinking:

“Raw vegan Nacho Cheeze? Cheese with a Z? Cheese that is neither dairy nor heated? What the what? I smell deception and lies! Deception and lies!”

Of course, I’m sure there’s also a few of you who are simply thinking this:

“Raw vegan Nacho Cheeze? Bring. It. On.”

Let’s address the second issue first.  Raw vegan Nacho Cheeze… what be it? How goes it? Wherefore art it?

Raw vegan nacho cheeze ingredients

Behold! Macadamias, lemon juice, tamari (or nama shoyu), turmeric, and cayenne. All the ingredients for cheese, right? Exactly! Cheese! Cheese-y cheese!

Some of you still aren’t with me, I can tell.

It’d be wrong of me to tell you that this tastes exactly like cheese, or like nacho cheese. Heck, I don’t even know what real “nacho cheese” is, let alone tastes like. But I can tell you that there really is something cheese-like about the flavour of this dip/spread/sauce and that, more importantly, it’s highly addictive.

Raw vegan nacho cheeze on zucchini pasta

The reason I picked this recipe for the Citrus week of the Cookbook Challenge is that the lemon juice is integral to recreating the cheese-ish flavour. The lemon is what provides the tang reminiscent of real cheese. The turmeric and cayenne provide colour and flavour, and the macadamias are just… divine.

Raw vegan nacho cheeze

Last night, I ate half the batch. There’s nothing wrong with eating 100g of macadamias in the space of a few hours, right? Not when you’ve also eaten two sunflower butter and jam sandwiches, and some smoked almonds too, right?

Nuts = happy, right?

‘Specially when the nuts are in the form of a creamy, spicy, tangy, nuanced, creamy, rich raw Nacho Cheeze, right?

Right?

Raw vegan nacho cheeze on zucchini pasta

Raw Vegan Nacho Cheeze from Spicy Spicy Amazingtown

From Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen
See others’ Cookbook Challenge recipes, or sign up yourself, here

  • 2 cups (240g) macadamias
  • 1/4 cup (60ml) fresh lemon juice
  • 1 tb (15ml) tamari (use Nama Shoyu or Bragg Liquid Aminos to be completely raw)
  • 1 tb (15ml) turmeric
  • 1 – 2 tsps cayenne, to taste (if you’re sensitive to heat, be careful with the cayenne. I used about 1 1/2 tsp and the cheese has serious, serious heat. I adore spice, so I don’t mind the burning sensation, but you might want to err on the side of caution)
  • 1 cup water, as needed (I used about 3/4 of this to reach a dip-like consistency, but you could use more if you’d like it more saucy.)

1. Process nuts, lemon juice, tamari (or other option), turmeric, and cayenne and slowly add just enough water for your desired consistency.

2. Serve as a dip, as a raw pasta sauce over raw zucchini pasta, as a body mask that will give you a lovely yellow jaundice-esque tan, or as something that you get caught eating with a spoon in the middle of the night*.

*Not Ani Phyo’s directions. Just so you know.