Archive for November, 2006
Mmm, I just made the most delicious ‘milkshake’ ever. The ingredients were:
First I chopped the coconut meat up and put it into the blender with the soak water from the dates and more water to cover the coconut. I blended this up and then squeezed through a sprout bag to get a nice ‘milk’.
I then put this ‘milk’ back into the blender with the dates and cacao powder and whizzed it up. The lucuma was an unplanned addition, it wasn’t quite sweet enough so I added the lucuma which was perfect. Another option would be to add one more date, and something I’m going to try soon, no dates and more lucuma.
I made this last night with 4 tablespoons of cacao nibs instead of cacao powder. I put the nibs in the blender before the ‘milk’ and ground them up first, which resulted in an intensely delicious chocolate flavour, but it was very ‘bitty’ as the ground nibs were not fine enough to disolve into the ‘milk’.
November 27th, 2006
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been experimenting with making raw chocolates, today I actually measured the ingredients so I could tell you what I did and can improve for next time.
Ingredients for the chocolate:
Flavourings:
- Currants
- Hazelnuts
- Cacao nibs
- Pollen grains
Method:
First I melted the cacao butter. I grated it to make it easier to melt, placed in in a dish and then placed this dish in a larger bowl of nearly boiling water. I had to change the hot water several times as it cooled. (Another way of doing this is with a double boiler on a stove, but I don’t have one of those yet.) When the cacao butter had completely liquefied I added the cacao powder and lucuma, a tablespoon at a time, stirring it in until dissolved.
I then poured the liquid chocolate into moulds and then added the flavourings. I’m guessing that there is an optimal time to wait before adding stuff, otherwise it all sinks to the bottom. I ground the hazelnuts up first and did a hazelnut and current flavour. Once the chocs were made, I put them in the fridge to set before eating.
Next time I will try using more cacao powder, and probably more lucuma also. The chocolates with currents were great because the currents were an additional sweetener, the others could have been a little sweeter.
I also tried making a chocolate coated brazil nut, but will have to work on a method of getting an even coat!
November 21st, 2006
We have a pear tree in the garden so I’ve had lots of ripe pears recently. Yesterday I made a pear crumble:
For the topping I used hazelnuts, soaked sunflower seeds, soaked pumpkin seeds, soaked sesame seeds, dates and a few cacao nibs. I put everything into a food processor and processed until a good crumble topping formed.
For the filling, I chopped the pears and put in to the food processor with a few tablespoons of lucuma powder. I processed on pulse briefly so that the mixture was still a little chunky.
November 20th, 2006
I’ve been on holiday to Spain and France for a couple of weeks. I was half planning to do a bit of a photo blog as I travelled, but I forgot the lead for my camera so couldn’t do that, but it migth have been for the best so I didn’t spend the whole of my holiday on the computer! So here are a few of the best shots from my trip.
I started out in Orgiva where I used to live but didn’t really take many photos, so the first couple are in Zaragoza, northern Spain:
This is near Jaca, Spain, which is on the edge of the Pyrenees, I went on a couple of good walks around here:
And this is near where my parents live in south west France:
November 14th, 2006
