Tag: milk chocolate

Pretzel Turtles

Pretzel Turtles

by Pam on December 19, 2013

When I saw the pretzel turtles on The Pioneer Woman’s[1] site I knew I had to make them! Who can resist salty pretzels with caramel and milk chocolate? My kids were having a couple pals over for a play date after school so I surprised them with these tasty and fun snacks. Needless to say, they all loved them! I think they thought I was pretty cool for a few minutes… maybe.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a silpat mat.

Place the pretzels evenly on the silpat mat lined baking sheet. Top each pretzel with a piece of unwrapped caramel.

Place into the oven and bake for 4-5 minutes, or until the caramel is just starting to melt. Watch carefully! Side Note: See what the caramel should look like in the picture below before you add the pecans). Remove from the oven and carefully place a pecan on the center of each caramel, pushing lightly.

Place into the refrigerator to set. While they are in the refrigerator, place the milk chocolate chips in a glass bowl and place into a pan of water over medium low heat. Stir often until melted. Turn the stove off.

Remove the tray from the refrigerator then remove the pretzels from the tray to a plate. Spoon 1/2 tablespoon of the melted milk chocolate onto the silpat mat then place the pretzel on top and push lightly. Repeat.

Once they are all done, place the rest of the melted milk chocolate in a small ziplock bag. Cut a super small hole in the corner of the bag and drizzle the chocolate back and forth over each turtle.

Place the tray back into the refrigerator for 15-20 minutes to set. Remove from the refrigerator and let them sit at room temperature for 20-30 minutes. Side Note: If you try to eat them right out of the refrigerator the caramel will be really hard and it will be difficult/painful to eat. Trust me. Enjoy!



Print[2]

Save[3]



Pretzel Turtles




Yield: 20+



Ingredients:

Mini pretzels
Caramels, unwrapped
Pecan halves
1 bag of milk chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a silpat mat.

Place the pretzels evenly on the silpat mat lined baking sheet. Top each pretzel with a piece of unwrapped caramel.

Place into the oven and bake for 4-5 minutes, or until the caramel is just starting to melt. Watch carefully! Side Note: See what the caramel should look like in the picture below before you add the pecans). Remove from the oven and carefully place a pecan on the center of each caramel, pushing lightly.

Place into the refrigerator to set. While they are in the refrigerator, place the milk chocolate chips in a glass bowl and place into a pan of water over medium low heat. Stir often until melted. Turn the stove off.

Remove the tray from the refrigerator then remove the pretzels from the tray to a plate. Spoon 1/2 tablespoon of the melted milk chocolate onto the silpat mat then place the pretzel on top and push lightly. Repeat.

Once they are all done, place the rest of the melted milk chocolate in a small ziplock bag. Cut a super small hole in the corner of the bag and drizzle the chocolate back and forth over each turtle.

Place the tray back into the refrigerator for 15-20 minutes to set. Remove from the refrigerator and let them sit at room temperature for 20-30 minutes. Side Note: If you try to eat them right out of the refrigerator the caramel will be really hard and it will be difficult/painful to eat. Trust me. Enjoy!



References

  1. ^ The Pioneer Woman’s (thepioneerwoman.com)
  2. ^ Print Recipe (www.gordon-ramsay-recipe.com)
  3. ^ Save to ZipList Recipe Box (www.gordon-ramsay-recipe.com)

Chocolate ganache

Esther Walker is unwell. It doesn’t have the same ring to it, I know – but it’s true. I’ve had bronchitis. Okay not actually confirmed bronchitis, but that’s what I’ve been saying. In fact it was just a non-specific chest infection but when I say that it sounds like there’s something wrong with my bosoms. I reckon it was pneumonia, just between you and me. I don’t know how much worse you’d have to feel than I felt for it to be pneumonia. I’ve had a pain, you see, a pain in my lungs.

Anyway it’s taken ages to get better. Usually you get the antibiotics and 24 hours later you’re springing about going shopping. But I went to bed on Sunday night and only really got out of bed again on Thursday morning. It was enjoyable in a way – an uncomplicated, straightforward illness: chills, fever, head-to-toe aches, sweats, pain in the chest, dizziness, delirium, all of that. Not just tired, fed-up, run-down, burnt-out. Actually like fucking dying.

I lay in bed inert and unresponsive as other people looked after my children. Occasionally I would try to focus my hot, blurred eyes on my phone and would wonder why no-one was asking me any questions, how life in the house was carrying on quite so merrily without me. But I didn’t get too upset about it, just slipped back into a semi-coma gratefully.

And what I’ve got for you now I’m back from the dead is a thing that’s going to annoy you because I know you don’t want me to write about cakes and sweeties anymore. But the thing is that those are the NEW things that I am cooking.

I am indeed cooking savoury things like a motherfucker at the moment, but it’s all for Sam who has in the last three weeks started raging through food like a starving wolf.

I always used to find people who talked about how much their children (usually their sons) ate quite annoying, as I sat in front of Kitty coaxing her for hours to eat one more tiny weeny thingy of lamb stew. “Oh was Kitty fussy? We’re lucky,” they would say. “He just ate everything from the start.” And they say “lucky” but what they meant was “it’s because we’re such fantastic parents”. I mean, that’s probably what they meant. THEY SAID IT WITH THEIR EYES.

But now we all stand about and marvel at the food disappearing into Sam’s gob. It’s like a sideshow at a circus. Watch the enormous monster baby eat! Down goes a massive spoonful, and another, and another, and another! Like a waste disposal unit. I have decided that in order to fit it all in, the first bit of food must start to be digested and be making its was out of his tummy before he’s finished the bowl of whatever.

But it’s nothing I’ve done, you understand? Just like it was nothing I did that made Kitty able to exist for weeks at a time on nothing but air, sunlight and three bottles of milk a day. And it’s not because he’s a boy, because I know plenty of baby boys who hardly eat anything – because they don’t need to right now. Because they’ll do more growing later, thanks.

It’s just because Sam is massive and getting massiver by the day – he’s six months old and wearing Kitty’s old blue dungarees that she wore when she was over a year – and he will probably go on to be massiver. (Or maybe he will halt at five feet nine inches when he is twelve years old.)

People always act like it’s such a bloody marvellous thing to have a big baby who will eat the world and that having some strapping six footer son is just the gold standard. Whatever Sam ends up being is fine by me, but I don’t mind men under six foot. My husband is five feet nine inches tall and I think he is the perfect height. I can look him in the eye. When we embrace I don’t end up with my head under his armpit. At parties when I want to say something mean about someone I don’t have to climb a ladder to whisper it in his ear. He doesn’t constantly bump his head on things and complain about legroom on airplanes.

My point is that a consequence of Sam eating so much right now is that getting together enough food for him is an issue. (Don’t get me started on clothes!) If Kitty’s hungry I can make her a make her a sandwich. If Sam is hungry he needs something to be cooked and blended. HE WON’T EAT THOSE STUPID ELLA’S POUCHES. Every time I turn around it’s time to make another enormous stew, or enough cheese sauce for 8 pots of macaroni cheese. I think of life with Sam when he is a teenager (Insha’Allah) and really hungry and see entire loaves of bread and pints of milk disappearing in minutes before my eyes.

But I can’t think that you are interested in my recipe for lentil puree. And the new thing I made recently, as I slowly crept out of my bronchial hell, was a chocolate ganache.

I made one of these before and it wasn’t very good. But I have subsequently realised that the recipe was a bummer. So I made it again on the instruction of Paul Hollywood himself (I texted a question into a radio show! I KNOW!!) and it came out just absolutely perfect.

So this is what you do. To cover 12 fairy cakes you need:

100g best chocolate (for kids, milk chocolate probably best – Waitrose do one called Menier, very nice)
100ml double cream
1 knob of butter

(NB – chocolate ganache is always just equal quantities of chocolate and cream – mls to grams.)

1 Chop the chocolate into reasonably small bits and put in a bowl.

2 Put the cream in a small saucepan and heat until it is nearly boiling. Pour over the chocolate and stir until the chocolate has melted. This takes a while, you need to stir all the time. You can bung it in the microwave for a few seconds towards the end if the chocolate has really stopped melting in. Don’t whisk it!! Because you will get unattractive bubbles, as I did.

3 When it has all melted in, add a knob of butter, for sheen.

4 Pour over your fairy cakes and decorate. This doesn’t actually set firm, like an icing, it’s always a bit gooey and sticky. And hurrah for that.

Have a great weekend.

Love
Esther x

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Chocolate orange Easter cake

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Ingredients

  • 275g plain chocolate
  • 175g butter, softened
  • 225g caster sugar
  • 4 medium eggs
  • 200g self-raising flour
  • 1tbsp cocoa powder
  • 175g ground almonds
  • Grated zest of I orange
  • 2 tbsp Cointreau or orange liqueur
  • A few chocolate mini eggs, for decoration
  • Chocolate ganache:
  • 300g milk chocolate
  • 150ml double cream

That’s goodtoknow

If you prefer, you can top this cake with a simple chocolate butter cream; just beat 50g softened butter with 2tsp boiling water, 175g icing sugar and 25g cocoa powder until creamy.

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C Fan/ Gas Mark 4. Grease and line the base of a 20cm round, deep cake tin.
  2. Break up 175g of the plain chocolate and place in a bowl over gently simmering water until melted (or microwave for 1-2 mins until melted). Allow to cool for 5 mins.
  3. Place the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat with a wooden spoon or electric whisk until light and creamy in texture. Separate the eggs and beat the yolks into the butter mixture. Beat in the melted, cooled chocolate. Fold in the flour, cocoa powder, ground almonds, orange zest and liqueur.
  4. In a clean grease-free bowl, whisk the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Add a quarter of the egg whites to the chocolate mixture to help loosen it, mix in gently then fold in the remaining egg whites.
  5. Spread the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 50 mins-1 hour until firm to the touch and a skewer comes out cleanly.
  6. Cool in the tin for 5 mins then turn out and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.
  7. To make the chocolate ganache; break the chocolate up into pieces and place in a pan with the cream, warm over a very low heat, stirring all the time until melted and smooth then pour into a bowl and chill until thick enough to spread. Whisk lightly until thickened.
  8. To make the chocolate curls, melt the remaining plain chocolate in a bowl over gently simmering water until melted (or microwave for 1-2 mins until melted) then spread thinly on a marble board or the back of a cool metal baking tray. Allow to set without putting the chocolate in the fridge. Scrape a sharp knife at a 45 degree angle over the chocolate to make long curls
  9. Spread the top of the cake with the ganache, then arrange chocolate curls and Easter eggs on top.

By Nichola Palmer

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