Chictastic goes to America!

Howdy, I have some news for you chicsters! This is going to be my last post from Finland..

On this Sunday I'm leaving to spend 2 awesome months in Florida. It'll bring some changes to my blog and hopefully it's something refreshing for you guys. :) I'm not going to give out recipes like I usually do but visit in a different kind of dessert stores and whatnot. Hopefully you will enjoy these 2 months as much as I will!

PS.I hope you guys had amazing Christmas! :))

Easiest and the yummiest dessert for busy chicsters!

Hi folks!

Today's post is going to be short since I've been very busy with my Christmas cakes and chocolate boxes. Don't mind about the shortness because this is one of my personal favorites and doesn't even need too much preparations!

Chocolate fondant (3 pieces)

50g (1,8oz) Butter

50g (1,8 oz) Dark chocolate

1/2dl (0,2 cup) Flours

2 Eggs

3/4 dl (0,3 cup) Sugar

Start by greasing up 3 small cups. My tip is to cut little squares of greaseproof paper to put in the bottom so the fondant comes off easier. Go ahead and melt the chocolate and the butter together in a microwave or on the stove. In the meanwhile, whisk the eggs and sugar together into a fluffy foam. Carefully add the flours and mix it by lifting the batter back and forth, not too much of stirring! Then add the chocolate mix into the batter and mix it in a same way as earlier. Pour the batter into the cups and leave about 1cm (0,5 inch) empty so the fondant doesn't overflow when in the oven. Bake fondants for 10 mins, 185°C (365 F) with a convection mode or 190-195°C (374-383 F) with a normal oven mode. You can eat the fondant straight from the cup or pop it on the plate. Run a knife around the edges oft the cup to make sure the fondant doesn't stick to the cup when flipping it on the plate. Remove the little square from the bottom , add some whipped cream or vanilla ice cream to the side and enjoy! :)

After a long day, this really cheers me up and hopefully it does the same to your day! Till next time chicsters!

Ps. If you wanna make some extras and save them for later, just go ahead and put them into the fridge or freezer. When in the fridge, just add 2 more minutes for the baking time (=12 mins). If in the freezer, add 2 more on the fridge time (=14 mins). :)

Mix 'n' match!

What's up my chicsters!

Lately I've been working on lots of different kind of chocolates and whatnot. So here's a bunch of recipes for different kind of trearts..

Marmelade chocolates

So basically what I did  here was the same recipe as the Fox Candies and then just dipped them into the tempered dark chocolate. I used my chocolate mold when getting the marmelade into a shape and it worked just fine! Just dry those marmelades for 2 days so the chocolate sticks to them and don't roll them in sugar before dipping into the chocolate! ;)

Next up some Choco cones, you'll need:

Greaseproof paper

75g (2,6 oz)Dark chocolate

1dl (0,4 cup) Whipping cream

1 Tbsp Icing Sugar

1 Tbsp Mint liqueur

The trickiest part was definitely the cones. Cut 10 circles out of greaseproof paper (ø 8cm; 3,2 inch) and roll them into the cone shape. I had some troubles with this because no tape would hold on to the paper since the grease. So I took a big piece of tape and kind of just wrapped it around the cone and tried to get to stick to the other end of that same piece of tape. (I know this might sound very unclear to you but just go ahead and try what works for you best! :))

When you have conquered the cones it's time to move on to the actual cooking. Tempere the chocolate and use a smal brush to "paint" the cones from inside. When the chocolate has settled, do it again and put them into the fridge for 2h. Then you can carefully detach  the paper around the cones and you're ready to make the filling!

Whip the cream, icing sugar and the liqueur into a firm foam. Fill the piping bag with it and use a star shaped nozzle. Then just fill the cones and your'e done. How easy was that!?

Okay let's move on to the.. 

..Champagne truffles, you'll need for 10 pieces:

50g (1,8 oz) Dark chocolate

40g (1,4 oz) Milk Chocolate

0,3dl (0,13 cup) Whipping Cream

10g (0,35 oz) Butter

0,2 dl (0,08 cup) Champagne

140g (5 oz) Dark tempered chocolate

Some icing sugar

(The recipe was originally for 50 pieces so go ahead and multiply those ingredient measurements by 5 to get the 50/ more reasonable amounts ;)) 

Grease a small pan and put some plastic wrap on it. Put also a greaseproof paper on a baking tray. Put the dark and milk chocolates in a bowl which can be heated. In the meantime, mix the cream and butter in a thick bottom pan and make sure that it won't burn! Heat it up almost to the boiling point and then pour it on the chocolates. Wait 1 min and then add the champagne in it. Mix it by had or with a blender to get some smooth ganache.

Pour the ganache into the plastic wrap pan and let it cool down there until it starts to settle. When it's still soft, scrape it up into a piping bag with a normal round nozzle and create little drops on the baking tray. Put the tray into the fridge for 20min so the ganache drops set.

When 20 mins are up, get some icing sugar on your hands and roll those drops into a little balls. Put the tray back into the fridge for 10 mins. 

At this point, you should tempere the chocolate and get a some kind of grid with a greaseproof paper underneath it on the table.

Dip the ganache balls into the chocolate and lift them onto the grid to cool down. I sprinkled some icing powder on them so there would be some kind of decoration. :)

Alright, huff.. puff.. you guys still with me?

The last but not the least we have Coconut Ice! 

Some butter for greasing

250g (9 oz) Fine sugar

1dl (0,4 cup) Coconut milk or whole milk (coconut milk just brings up the coconut flavor in them)

a pinch of salt

95g (3,3 oz) Coconut flakes

Start by greasing up a small pan and put a greaseproof paper to cover it. Throw the sugar, milk and salt into a thick bottom pan and heat it up until the sugar had dissolved. The increase the heat and let it boil until it reaches the "soft ball" (116°C, 241 F) level. Add the flakes in it and stir it thoroughly. Be fast since the mixture hardens pretty fast (at least with me) and pour it into the covered pan. Smoothen it out with a palette knife and let it cool down for a couple of hours. The you can chop it into the pieces and serve it. :)

Hopefully today was as enjoyable to you as it has been to me and I'll bring you some more chictastic treats on next week! :)

We're going nuts here!

Hello my friends!

It's first day of December and the snow we got yesterday, got me straight into the Christmas mood. :) We still keep the candy mode on and today we're making some macadamia chocolate caramel. So get your sugar and thermometers ready since it's about the get hot and sticky!

Dig from your cupboards:

200g (7 oz) Macadamia nuts

4 Tbsp Water

350g (12 oz) Sugar

125g (4,4 oz) Butter

1 Tbsp Molasses or Dark Syrup

1/4 Tsp Sea salt

1 Tsp Vanilla extract

1/4 Tsp Baking Soda

150g (5 oz) Dark Chocolate (60-70%)

So begin  by heating up the oven to 160°C (320 F). You need to get some tan on those macadamias but be careful! These nuts are very greasy so they burn easily if you don't keep an eye on them. Roast them for 5 mins and check up on them if they're golden brown. If not, giva a couple more minutes for them. Spread those golden goodies in a tin where they pretty much cover up the whole bottom. Then we move on to the caramel.

Measure the water, sugar, butter, syrup/ molasses and salt into a pan with a thick bottom. Heat it up with a low temperature so everything dissolves and mixes up together. Then bring the heat up and let it boil until the sugar reaches the 'hard crack' level (154°C). You see how the sugar cooks and get darker colored. At this point, remember that the sugar is EXTREMELY HOT! If you get that on you, it doesn't come off by wiping but put the part under some cold water so the sugar hardens.

When the caramel is cooked, take it aside and mix the vanilla extract and baking soda in it. Stir the mixture but not too much! Pour the caramel quickly on to the nuts and try to get it settled by shaking and tapping the sides a bit.

Chop the chocolate and sprinkle it evenly on top of the caramel. The caramel is still so hot that the chocolate simply just melt on it and you can smoothen it out with a palette knife. Let the treat cool down for a good while before cutting it roughly into the pieces. You can store it in a air tight box but don't put it into a fridge or a freezer.

In my opinion, it was fun to see a different side of the sugar. Earlier I have made fluffy marshmallows and smooth fudge but this time the texture was harder. There was some serious cooking and watching not to burn the sugar but I think I passed this one honorably. This combination was very neat with the sweet chocolate combined to a bit salty caramel. The macadamias gave their own texture for the treat so I'd give 8/10 for this. :)

See you next time!