White Chocolate Coconut Truffles

toasted almonds + shredded coconut

coconut oil + white chocolate

mixing 

ball-ing the chocolate mix

ready to go in the freezer

ready to go back into the freezer

all ready to be packaged

"Am I beautiful?"

ready for some L-O-V-E

These truffles are a winner.  They really are amazing, if I say so myself.  Apparently they are a Raffaello copycat - a little sister of the famous and oh-so-delicious Ferrero Rocher.  But, no store-bought candy can beat a home-made truffle.  These are not intensely sweet but just sweet enough for you to keep going back for more.  If you love coconuts in your sweets (like moi!)  these are the best ever truffles for you.  The coconut coat adds a little fancy-ness to them and you can easily dupe people into thinking you are a truffle-making fairy.

The Recipe:
White Chocolate Coconut Truffle by Let the Baking Begin

Changes I made:

• The original recipe inserts whole almonds into each truffle (like the original Raffaello).  I opted to add in 1 cup of silvered almonds into the chocolate + coconut mix instead.  This allows for almonds to be in every bite which I absolutely love.
• I toasted the silvered almonds before adding them to the coconut mix.  Here's a link to toasting nuts.  I usually dry roast them on a skillet.  Let the almonds cool a bit before you add it into the shredded coconut.  Add the melted chocolate + coconut oil after this step is completed. 
• The recipe gives two options to choose from.  You can roll the coconut balls directly in shredded coconut or you can dip them in white chocolate and then roll them in coconut.  I opted for the extra white chocolate.
• For the 'dipping' white chocolate, I only put in 2 Tbsp of coconut oil instead of 3 like the recipe says to.  I wanted the chocolate to be a bit thicker.  

Tips & Reminders:

• Ensure you use unsweetened coconut.  The white chocolate is already intensely sweet so it will tone down the sweetness of each truffle.  
• I used Ghirardelli's white chocolate chips. 
• Next time, I'll make the balls a little smaller so that they are bite-size.
• I put the coconut+almond+chocolate balls in the freezer as they were too soft to roll in melted chocolate.  They firm up pretty quick and it is much easier to dip them in melted chocolate if you add this step. 
• I put the finished truffles back in the freezer and this sped up the process.  
• The recipe already tells you this but if I may repeat this great tip, coconut oil is a better option than butter as they remain solid in room temp.  The flavor also works awesome with coconut oil.

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

Do you ever have this dilemma?  You bake something amazing.  People compliment.  (Big sheepish but proud smiles for that!)  And then people creep up to you and ask for the recipe.  I'm gonna be super honest here because apparently that is the best policy.  I deliberate whether to give out that recipe or to keep it to myself.  Do you think I'm being selfish?  But shouldn't I be able to keep some recipes so that I (I!) can be the special person who brings joy to people with my bakings?  What do y'all think?

Anyhoo....
I made these.  I love these.  I love strawberries.  Strawberries are like those rare breeds:  gorgeous to look at and equally gorgeous on the inside.

Here's what I did:
(I used milk chocolate but I do prefer them with white or dark chocolate.)  I melted the chocolate over simmering water and dipped the strawberries.  Then I put the chocolate dipped strawberries on pans lined with cooking paper and put'em in the refrigerator until the chocolates hardened.  And voila~!  You have the best looking, best tasting snack in the world.  Big smiles. 

Question:  Anyone know the solution to the bottom of the pan chocolates?  They either hardened up quickly or have cooked but they refused to be melted when I reheated them.  So my last few strawberries got lumpy chocolates.

Apple Bake

Ah..the fun of enduring the fickle weather of this great metropolis. To be warm or not to be...to bucket down on thee or to shine down on thee...

Nevertheless, nothing's gonna snuff out my burning fire for baking yummy goodies. Not the cold nor the rain. No sirree~

And so, I present to you, my first apple bake. It all started with me buying a whole bunch of scrumptious lookin' apples. I had been enjoying the beautiful NZ apples the last month and was looking forward to these to be just as beautiful. But the batch I bought this time weren't nearly as sweet or scrumptious as its predecessors. So they've been sitting in my fridge for a couple of weeks and finally I found a fabulous recipe to rescue my apples: Smitten Kitchen's Breakfast Apple Granola Crisp.

As you can see in my pix that I skipped the granola because this was another spur of the moment baking. It was a 'let's use what I have' baking. So, I used orange mango lemonade instead of lemon juice and flour instead of cornstarch. They still turned out fabulous. I did use only half of the apples suggested by Smitten Kitchen (because that's what I had) but I didn't change the portions of any of the other ingredients.

These will be fantastic with yogurt for breakfast or just for snacking between meals. :)






















Apple BakeAdapted from Smitten Kitchen

• 1.8lb apples, peeled, cored and cut into medium chunks
• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice (I used mango orange lemonade)
• 3 tablespoons sugar (I used granulated)
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch (I used a Korean brand flour which is used for coating tempuras - these are slightly seasoned flours with a bit of breadcrumbs)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (or 200 degrees C).
2. Mix apple chunks with all the ingredients in a 8X8 inch baking dish until evenly coated.
3. Bake for 45-55 minutes or until the apples are softened and bubbly.

Coconut Rice Pudding

I am on a rice pudding roll.
Today, I made coconut rice pudding. yea yea yeah~ :D
Me love coconut in curry, cupcakes, cakes, chocolate (The Whittaker brand is amazing!), cookies, cold fabulous drinks and now in rice. The below recipe is adapted from allrecipes.com. I used the vanilla rice pudding recipe and made replacements with coconut cream instead of whole milk and shredded coconut instead of raisins (which I don't use in the vanilla pudding, anyway). I used 'light' coconut milk. I swear I bought this unintentionally. There are just too many of those low-fat and light stuff, I reached for this one by accident. I'm not against light or low-fat though. No No. I need to make sure the world knows this. My cereal is always served in super trim milk. I just prefer my sweet indulgences to be nice and sweet and fatty to compensate for all my healthy choices. With all that said the 'light' coconut milk worked like magic~ They were delicious.




Coconut Rice PuddingAdapted from allrecipes.com

• 140 g uncooked white rice
• 475 ml (2C) coconut milk or cream, divided
• 65g (1/3C)white sugar
• 2g (1/2 tsp) salt
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/3 shreded sweetened coconut
• 15 g (1 Tbsp) butter

1. In a medium saucepan, bring 1 1/2 C water to boil. Add rice and stir. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. (You can also use a rice cooker to cook the rice if you have that luxury)
2. In another saucepan, combine 1 1/2 C cooked rice, 1 1/2 coconut cream/milk, sugar and salt. Cook over medium heat until thick and creamy (15-20min). Stir in remaining 1/2 C coconut milk/cream*, beaten egg and dessicated coconut. Cook 2 minutes more, stirring constantly (very important). Remove from heat and stir in butter. Serve warm or chilled.

*You can skip adding the extra coconut milk here if you like your rice pudding to be thick. I've tried it both ways and I prefer mine to be creamy.

Chocolate Rice Pudding

Rice pudding ranks near the top of my comfort food totem pole. They are gentle on the sweet. They satisfy my carbohydrate cravings. They're filling. And, of course, they're just delish. So when I had some left-over rice, I was more than ready to make my friend, rice pudding again. Despite my love for rice pudding, I've only managed to make one kind of rice pudding - vanilla. This will always remain my favourite kind of rice pudding, but I decided that today would be the day I'd make chocolate rice pudding.

So, away I went on my beautiful mac. I browsed a few recipes online and found a gazillion different variations. Excellent for my indecisive self. After much deliberation and mental simulations of the different recipes, I decided to go with cocoa powder. I used this recipe from allrecipes.com and then added one heaped tablespoon of cocoa powder when I added the butter and vanilla essence.

I was confident about this rice pudding cuz I was using some rockin' cocoa powder - which I've learned is paramount in any chocolate recipe - to use a rockin' cocoa powder.

The result: Yum-Yummidy-Dum~

I thought I'd give the tablespoon shot, a shot. :)

Hello, chocolate rice pudding! :D

Can you see the shadow of my camera? :-)

These can be enjoyed chilled or heated. So versatile, aren't they?

Creamy Rice Pudding Recipe! Mmmmmm......

This recipe was trialed TODAY and OMG, OMG totally awesome! I looooove rice pudding and used to live on rice pudding in the summer in LA - they had great choices of rice pudding in the LA mega supermarkets... In New Zealand, they don't seem to be very popular as the only ones I could find were canned rice pudding. Yuck~! And they taste as bad as they sound, too.
Anyhoo, homemade ones are far superior to any of the supermarket puddings so here's the recipe I tried out today!

***This recipe is from allrecipe.com***
Ingredients:

• 140g uncooked white rice
• 475ml (2 Cups) of milk
• 65g white sugar
• 2g (about 1/2 tsp) of salt
• 1 egg, beaten
• (optional) 110g golden raisins
• 15g (about 1 Tbsp) of butter
• about 1/2 Tbsp of vanilla extract

Directions:

1. In a medium saucepan, bring 1 1/2 cups of water to boil. Add rice and stir. When the water boils let it boil for a couple of minutes than reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes occasionally stirring so the rice doesn't stick too much to the pot. (You can cook the rice in a rice cooker if you have it. But make sure it is freshly cooked rice.)
2. In a new saucepan, combine the cooked rice, 1 1/2 cup of milk, sugar and salt. Cook over medium heat until thick and creamy, constantly stirring so the rice doesn't stick. This should take about 15-20 minutes.
3. Stir in the remaining milk and beaten egg and raisins(optional). Cook for 2 more minutes, stirring constantly.
4. Remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla.
5. Serve warm or chilled.

*Substitutes for low calorie pudding: Skim milk instead of whole milk (the taste quality does go down quite a bit); Splenda instead of sugar (you'd have to use 1/3 of the amount); margarine instead of butter or eliminate butter entirely