By the bittersweet goodness of Cocoa Butter the God of Chocolate (whether or not the photo illustrates his worldly visage is not for me to say *wink*)...Obviously I invoked Cocoa Butter's wrath at some point during the annual Making of the Goodies today, because while we seemed to be kicking along like crazy during the first part of today, the second part kind of fell on it's head from a very great height...
I was down at Ma's by the proverbial Crack of Sparrow's Fart, but of course then there was the breakfasting and the reading of the paper and the random chatter (even though we only saw each other the day before), but we still started on the "cooking" reasonably early, and we divided and conquered all of the different truffles and whatnot (yeah, I'm trying to avoid using the word "balls", but the harder I try the weirder it's going to get, so "balls, balls, balls, balls, balls"... there)... Ma prepped XYZ, I took care of ABC... we were a truffle and ball making MACHINE!
Sure we had a couple of mixtures that were a little "sloppy", and I realised that I really should just stick to the pink and white marshmallows in my Rocky Road (the banana and apricot flavoured/coloured marshmallows just look WRONG once it's cut)... plus I forgot to take one of my "Rocky Road trays" up to Ma's with me... but mostly we were powering along.
Then we had to head over to the shops to pick up a little "sumtin sumtin" for lunch as well as a couple of bits and pieces we didn't really know we were going to need until we needed them (if that makes any kind of sense). And it was after we got back, and we'd had lunch and we started working on the chocolate end of things that everything got a little "funky", and not in the good way...
Just a second while I offer up a little prayer to Cocoa Butter...
Praise to you, oh lustrous Cocoa Butter, for the wrongs we may have done you during the holy works done today in your name, and please bless our future chocolate related endeavours!And here we have the final results... they look great, but they were a little traumatic in the making...
From the top, going clockwise... Rum Balls, Peppermint Ice Balls, Chocolate Balls, Sherry Truffles, Brandy Apricot Truffles, Hazelnut Delight and in the centre, Chocolate Puddings!
Like I said, it was when we started on the chocolate, that's when the wheels fell off our little red wagon...
First off we were going to cover the Hazelnut Delights in milk chocolate and the Chocolate Puddings (which are the easiest of all, since they're just Christmas Pudding rolled into tiny balls) in dark... but for whatever reason neither Ma nor I twigged to the fact that what we THOUGHT were the Puddings were actually the Delights... so that plan fell over (and then we had to go back and stick the hazelnuts on the top with extra chocolate, because you're supposed to stick them onto the wet chocolate after you coat them, but we didn't).
Then we couldn't get "the drizzle" working on the Peppermint Ice (although I did flavour the chocolate with peppermint) so they came out a little wacky overall. And we'd improvised a couple of "truffle spoons" out of some wire... and that kept digging into the truffles and leaving marks after they'd been covered in chocolate.
Add to all of that that the day turned out pretty damn warm... I'm not sure what the forecast temperature was, but in the afternoon it was getting up around 33°C (not the best temperature for dealing with warm chocolate and whatnot)... and it's still pretty warm now (even though there was a thunderstorm in front of the car most of the way home... which was AWESOME).
So basically there was no one big reason why everything fell over, but lots and lots of little minor and annoying ones...
All in all we did good work though... we made one extra kind of "ball" over last year, we were actually finished before 6pm (although considering that I got there some time around 8am, that fact in itself is a little scary), I don't seem to have chocolate and general gook under my fingernails (which is something of a first... although I did notice that I have chocolate in the L of my Livestrong bracelet) and I didn't consume my weight in chocolate.
I also have what seems like a metric ton of Goodies to give to the crew at work tomorrow... between all the balls and my Rocky Road and some Mince Tarts and a few of the Ham Hearts (actually I'm not sure that I've mentioned those before... they're a recipe I got from the Delia Smith teevee Christmas special years and years and years and years ago... and they're a favourite every year... I may have to blog the recipe, as I remember it anyway, sometime)... so the work folks are going to be making out like the bandits I so often refer to tomorrow. I just need to work out the best way to actually carry it all in to work...
Anyway, after watching America's Next Top Model and the Spicks and Specks Christmas Special I loaded up the car (then had a somewhat prolonged freak-out when I couldn't find my Buffy musical episode CD) and headed home complete with accompanying thunderstorm...
Now I'm just plain old knackered... and there's still a bunch of stuff I need to do before I go to bed...
Current Mood:
3 comments:
You are wicked making us drool over those photos - chocolate boy and your fantastic looking products.
Your chocolates look and sound yummy.
Don't know where you got the patience to make these. I would have thrown in the towel half way through. They look very very good though - you should mass manufacture and sell them. :)
It's not quite as complex as it might seem Sunshine... none of them are one big long process, they're all lots of little processes, so you do a bit, put them in the fridge for a bit, work on something else, come back to them... but yeah, it is a hell of a thing. And obviously I got some of the patience from Ma (not that I don't run out of it way before her when we're doing it).
And no, after yesterday's insanity I don't think I'll be stepping up for the mass manufacture thing any time soon... hehehe
And Victor, yes, indeed I am wicked, thanks! :P
Post a Comment