Black on Black Pierre Herme Truffles

 

I made a vow to myself to start baking from the books I currently have till I have mastered the recipes and techniques before buying another. There’s still that voice in me that’s screaming “I need another cookbook!!” But lucky for H, I surpress that monster. Though it still comes out once in a while especially when I feel the need of some cheering up. Cookbooks have it all, beautiful words that read like a novel, pretty photos, glossy pages, excellent design, hard covers, slippery jackets, big and heavy, and everything else I love in a book.

So anyway I am going to cook my way thru my cookbooks and what better way to begin than with the pastry master himself. I had some cream that was going to expire soon so these truffles were perfect. You need just 4 ingredients: chocolate, cream, butter and cocoa powder. I used Valrhona Equitoriale 55% which was S$9.50 for 300g at Sia Lik. I used only one container for the whole recipe so its quick and easy and not much cleaning is involved in making the ganache. The cocoa powder part is a little tricky though.

Black-on Black Truffles

Adapted from Chocolate Desserts By Pierre Herme

260g bittersweet chocolate

1 cup heavy cream (I used Bulla’s Pure Cream)

31/2 tablespoons butter

cocoa powder for dusting

How I did it:

Melt the chocolate in microwave on high for 40-60 seconds in a plastic container with a cover like an old plastic ice cream tub or tupperware, timing may vary according to your microwave. My chocolate was at room temperature and my microwave is quick so I had to watch it to make sure the chocolate didn’t burn. It took slightly under a minute. Add in the cream and stir to blend, then the butter a tablespoon at a time. Stir to melt. You may need another zap in the microwave if your cream was very cold to start with and the chocolate and cream mixture has become too cold to melt the butter. Leave the ganache to cool at room temperature for a couple of minutes. Cover the container with the lid and leave in the fridge to set(now u can make sense of the tupperware bit right, less washing up and the ganache is in an airtight container), about 3 hours or overnight if its convenient for you. Put your cocoa powder into a bowl and dust your hands with the powder. Scoop a tablespoon of the cold ganache onto your palm and roll to form a ball, this can get a little messy. Toss it back into the cocoa powder and gingerly toss it around to coat. Put straight onto serving plate or in a covered parchment lined airtight container and kept in the fridge for consumption later.The ganache itself is very yummy. But please let it set to let it live to its full potential as a fat round truffle.

Addition: I think the cream wasn’t such a good idea because of the high fat content (read:45% milk fat) the ganache ended up solidifying to quite a hard block,  akin butter. And I had one hell of a time rolling it into balls. In the end my truffles looked like chocolate rocks. Ugly chocolate rocks. I have to be brutally honest. I found it easier to roll when it rested a mere 2 hours in the fridge than when it rested overnight.

For help always turn to Martha. All photos courtesy of MarthaStewart, I gave away all the truffles before having the time to photograph them. And yes, they were VERY ugly.

 On a separate note, I have so many photos from the bolywood veggies outing, here’s a sneak:

Somehow snails move seem to move very fast when you’re trying to squat, adjust your manual focus, hold your umbrella and try not to get the camera wet.

Erm Shafia (my cousin), somehow your umbrella followed me to Kranji. I think you left it at my mom’s house and I somehow picked it up and brought it home with me then its sort of found its way to my car. I only looked at it at bollywood veggies and somehow figured out it belonged to you. Let me make it clear here: when I went to medical school, it WAS NOT called Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, it was called Faculty of Medicine.

Because wordpress doesn’t allow me to shrink my vertical photos without blurring it, here’s a gigantic photo of the kuih bingka. Oh the kuih bingka. If I can create an idiom today, it would be: “never trust a bingka with a flat top” Bingka is a Malay cake made of grated tapioca, coconut milk and sugar and it should definitely have a craggy crispy top! I also had a delicious, small overpriced loaf of banana cake that was oh so delicious, I’ll share my favourite recipe soon and more photos, including the “warriors” that run Bollywood veggies.

I spent today moping bout my too short a weekend like a love lost.

And more coming soon..

Its Saturday and its amazing what you can do with a “kuih rose” or homemade rose biscuit and a green Ikea napkin.

moments of eid

Eid started with an Arabic 101 lesson by H so that I could speak to his grandmother. It lasted a few seconds and I was taught two words: “wala?” meaning “really?” and “alhamdulillah” meaning “all praise to God”. Needless to say the conversation was short.  But still its amazing how far those two words got me.

What did you wear for Eid? I have worn shades of purple and pink for the last 5 years.

This isn’t a bad outfit either. Complete with little towel hung at neck. Man making thosai at a open house I went to.

White hari raya outfit worn by cousin Isa who spent the whole day with us visiting my side of the family and often mistaken as H.

Not traditional Eid food but by 11 am on the day of Eid I had 4 ketupat meals at 4 different houses (my mom’s, Mel’s, home and home again), so I had my fill.

Someone spotted sneaking around thosai corner in traditional garb

Tiny cups of sweet arabic tea with a teaspoon that has holes. I don’t know about you but all these photos taken on my Samsung (except the first) look a little bit too 2 dimensional for me.

Isa’s welcome tea at his new workplace, congratulations on your new job!

Thank you Brenda for this award!

By accepting this award, I’d have to..
Put the logo on my blog.
Add a link to the person who gave me the award.
Nominate 7 other blogs.
Add links to the blogs I nominate.
Leave a message for my nominees on their blogs.

So here goes..

Mel of Mel’s Inc for her creativity

Arfi of homemades for beautiful photography in New Zealand

Angela of sweetrosie for her multicultural insights in an Australian kitchen

Laureen of eatandbehappy for experimenting in the kitchen from all the books that are sitting on my shelf!

Tommy of notesbynaive because I just love her and she’s making me love everything English (except the weather)

Quizas of grubliving (our co-owned blog) because I love knowing all that she’s up too

And Zhullie of ovenhaven who is the sweetest girl blogger I know

Day #3

 Day #3 (Friday) started yesterday and ended at 2 am this morning. I have too many photos so here’s a sneak preview and I will post more in the next few days.

A beautiful Eid care package. It included handmade chocolates, various bottled sauces, chocolate sables, chocolate chip cookies shaped like bricks, organic chocolate blocks and pineapple tarts.

The picnic basket Quizas bought me isn’t useful for picnics only, its great for lugging ingredients over to my mom’s while I cooked 8 dishes for a full Indian meal.

My first briyani, thanks to Sheerin for the cooking lesson. My friend Razlyn came by to break the fast with us and pick up a couple of things before she leaves for KL. Hope you’re home safe Raz!

The butter paneer was the favorite dish, among other dishes were meat samosas with a mint chutney, tandoori chicken, masala prawns, chapatis, raita, canna dhal, a potato and long bean curry and the briyani above. It was an 8 hour cooking marathon with 2 other hands (thanks mama and Kak Sal!). I managed to make chocolate chip cookies too, with my tweaked famos amos cookie recipe. I used 1.5 kg of flour and 1 kg of chocolate chips. It was crazy.

I spent today recuperating from the cooking marathon, with a facial from Wayan, greatly recommded. Then something less glamourous, vacuuming and cleaning windows. I sorted out all the Eid packages of money today (remember? I have over 40 cousins and multiple sets of grandparents, grandaunts and granduncles uncles).

  

The young and the elderly receive these gifts from the economically productive generation. I always enjoy this. I’ve spent so many years receiving during Eid, its nice to be on the other end. The cycle of life is such that when I grow old, it will be time to receive again.

I’ve also fulfilled my obligation of zakat or alms, its also great to know that its tax deductable and is automatically included in your annual income tax. I received these lovely empty money packets after making the payment.

Seth, my new love.

I’m really been doing much cooking recently. And when it somes to local flavors, who best to do it that the elders? My grandma’s malay cake called kuih kasui. This is a cake that is made of a mixture of rice flour, plain flour and gluitinous flour. Its mixed with a palm sugar mixture then steamed. Its eaten topped with freshly grated coconut usually lightly seasoned with a pinch of salt. The result is a silky smooth bouncy palm sugar cake with creamy coconut flakes. Its really good. I’ve seen her do it in her kitchen as seen here and here’s a recipe which is similar to the one my grandma uses only she doesn’t measure her ingredients so I really have no idea how much of each ingredient goes in.

Speaking of grandmas, this is her sewing machine, pulled out of the shed after a really long time. It was whirling while I was cooking a couple of days ago.

More shots of this classic machine

The lastest edition to the Musa (My grandfather) clan. Remember my granddad had 10 kids and 40+ grandkids, well here’s the newest, Seth! Welcome to the family! More photos of our weekly family breaking fast session soon.

I didn’t take much photos of the food during the gathering as I was distracted by all these expressions Seth was making. And he babbles so much, at 6 weeks!

I like having conversations.

All babies are fascinated by fans. And not the football crazy kind but the rotating ceiling kind.

Now which is the thunb..

Stinky durian pufffs..

Now a question, does Farhan love or does Farhan not love durian, anyone can guess??

More soon!