Tag: homemade

December 8, 2014

Little pudding

This week two celebrations collided when my lovely teacher at college had a special birthday and we crept ever closer to the 25th December. Thankfully, teach didn’t mind the seasonally confused gift – Happy Birthday Lana!

This week it’s Christmas pudding truffles, surprisingly easy to make, and with a large yield they are perfect for last minute gifts on a budget.

You will need

300g/10.5 oz Dark chocolate

100g/3.5 oz White chocolate

300ml/10.5 fl oz Double cream

30g/1 oz Unsalted butter

Red sprinkles

Cocoa and caster sugar for dusting

(Makes 60-70)

Step one

Chop the dark chocolate finely using a bread knife. Resist the urge to eat it all.

Step two

Heat the cream and butter gently in a saucepan. Wait until it starts to bubble and steam dances across the surface. There is no need to let it boil, as Mary Berry always says – chocolate melts in a child’s pocket.

Step three

Take the cream off the heat and whisk into the chocolate until fully melted. Place in the fridge to speed up the setting process.

Step four

Check regularly on the truffle mix, don’t let it harden fully. Once a spoonful holds its shape when dropped onto the rest of the mixture it’s pipe-able.

Place into a piping bag, and, holding it perpendicular to the greaseproof paper (which you have put down as instructed, um, nowhere in this post) squeeze downwards. Don’t worry if these are a bit misshapen, it’s just to make sure they’re roughly the same size.

Step five

Pipe pipe pipe.

Leave to set a bit longer, preferably with a window open to cool the truffle down quickly. The truffles won’t thank your winter central heating.

Step six

When the truffles are set roll them into balls. You will need fairly cold hands for this, so rinse them in cold water.

Step seven

Dust the truffles in cocoa and caster sugar. I mixed these at random so I’m not sure on quantities, but I used about two thirds caster sugar to a third cocoa powder.

I dusted as I rolled, as hands warm the outside of the truffles so the caster sugar will stick.

Step eight

Melt the white chocolate slowly in the microwave, pipe little splodges and drop some red sprinkles on top. I got these from Sainsbury’s, so not too hard to track down.

Leave the white chocolate to set and pack away your truffles into little bags or boxes and spread the Christmas (or Birthday) cheer!

December 1, 2014

Santa’s print shop

On the first day of December it feels a little rude to not present you with a Christmas post. I’m a huge fan of the festive season, so you’re lucky I held back as long as I did.

Last year I was meandering around a craft fair and spotted a lino print stall. Now I tried lino printing at secondary school, and it made me a bit cross. I am a big fan of precision and this craft definitely comes with a dollop of ‘rustic handmade’.

This was my first bash at lino cutting and printing since the age of 14 I figure the extra years of ‘get over yourself’ and the added dexterity contributed significantly to making this a very satisfying little project.

You do need a little more ‘specialist’ equipment this time than usual, but you can set yourself up relatively cheaply with the kit. I used a combo of Amazon and Handprinted.

You will need

Ink tray

Ink brayer

Ink

Lino cutter (preferably with a choice of blades)

Greeting card blanks

Soft cut lino sheets (the size of your card blanks)

Tracing paper or greaseproof

Step one

Draw around the outside of your sheet of lino so you don’t make your design too big.

Sketch out a word/picture. For your first cut I would avoid anything too intricate or with lots of corners. I went with letters in the end so I could cover up mistakes if I went wrong… I figured a lopsided squinty eyed penguin might just look a bit sad.

Step two

This is not essential but I outlined the design to make it easier to trace. This also helps neaten out/correct any mistakes.

Step three

Tape a piece of tracing paper or greaseproof to your design and draw over quite firmly in pencil.

Step four

Place the traced image upside-down on your lino tile, so that the pencil marks you just made are touching the surface, not facing out.

Scribble over the top to transfer the image to the tile. Be careful to use pressure without being too forceful otherwise you might make an indent on the lino that you don’t want.

NB: As an alternative to steps 1-4 you might prefer to draw straight onto the tile. However, again, be careful not to press too hard with the pencil and remember that your design will be reversed when printed, so any lettering needs to be back to front.

Step five

Place the lino in the middle of a chopping board. Nobody needs to go gouging any holes in their dining room table under my instruction thank you very much.

Using one of the wide cutters (labelled #10 in my pack) remove as much background space as you can. I started by making a gutter around my letters to avoid accidentally slipping into them.

My lino cutting skills leave a lot to be desired, but I’ll get better and so will you. Try not to worry too much if you accidentally cut something you’re not meant to.

Step six

Using a blade with a deeper and narrower u shape (I think this was #9) refine the edges around your design, ensuring there’s a fair bit of depth around them.

Step seven

Using an even finer, deeper v shaped blade (#2 was my choice) cut out any details. Doing things in this order enables you to practice a bit before working on the finer aspects of your design.

Step eight

Ink up your tray using a small splodge of ink and your brayer. You need less than you’d think so don’t over do it.

Roll the brayer back and forth until the ink looks like a smooth velvet. You’ll know it when you get there.

Step nine

Ink up your stamp by rolling the brayer back and forth. This took a bit more encouragement first time when the block was dry.

You can use the cutting tool to go back into the design where there’s ink and there’s not meant to be. I did that, and also lazily chopped a few corners off with scissors. Alternatively you can wipe excess ink with kitchen towel or even leave it there for that handmade look (which is pretty much unavoidable anyway).

Step ten

Firmly press your stamp onto the surface of a blank greetings card or your chosen back drop. I paid particular attention to pushing down the areas I knew there was design. You can always peel it back to take a peek or put a book on top and push on that to ensure an even press.

You could do some prints and frame them as gifts if you don’t fancy cards.

Step eleven

Ink back up and print away to your heart’s content.

Welcome to December everyone!

November 17, 2014

Drip drop

A couple of months ago my lovely housemate got engaged. A couple of weeks ago we celebrated that fact.

I decided I wanted to make some party food. Given that we’re fast approaching Christmas (I mean, it’s the 17th November already, what?) this little series of posts should furnish your party season with delightful nibbles and may double as last minute Christmas present/hostess gifts.

This one falls into the second category, so get online and buy yourself some cellophane bags and a roll of ribbon, your colleagues and your milk man will never have been happier. Well, I hope their lives are better than that, but either way, there won’t be any disappointment, and that’s all anyone’s looking for at Christmas.

Things you need

200g/7 oz White chocolate

200g/7 oz Milk chocolate

200g/7 oz Dark chocolate

Decorations (I used freeze dried raspberries, fudge pieces and pecans)

Cocktail sticks

Piping bags or strong sandwich bags.

Cellophane (from a florist or a craft shop, or you can use greaseproof but the bottoms won’t be shiny)

Food thermometer (ideally)

Step 0.5

Prepare your toppings if they need preparing. I wanted my drops to be quite small so I chopped up my fudge and pecans.

Step one

Now. This is the first time I have actually tempered chocolate. It was easier than I expected and well worth it for the shiny finish. I encourage it. I also encourage the purchase of a thermospatula. I’m not being paid to say that, it’s changed my life (in a small but significant way).

If you’re joining me on the tempering train you need to split the chocolate into a third/two thirds split. Ignore the photo above and just chop it all into big chunks. I learned as I went with this one.

Step two

Place a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water; make sure the water isn’t touching the pan.

Add two thirds of the chocolate and allow to melt slowly. Stir occasionally. Mainly so you can feel like you’re doing something productive.

Bring to 45 degrees C and remove from the heat.

Step three

Add the rest of the chocolate and stir until its melted in. Keep stirring until the whole lot has cooled to 28 degrees C.

Step four

Place back on the heat and bring to 32 degree C.

Step five

Take back off the heat and dry the bottom of the bowl with a tea towel. Trust me, you don’t want water in your chocolate.

Step six

Pour into a piping bag.

Don’t trim the end yet. In fact, once you have twisted the opening to close it you should push any chocolate in the tip end back towards the rest, otherwise it will cool and solidify there while you’re tempering the rest.

Step seven

Repeat with the rest of the chocolate.

Step eight

Lay down the cellophane and start piping.

You want to hold the piping bag at a 90 degree angle to the table and squeeze. The chocolate will flood into a lovely little pool.

Add a small blob of another colour on top and swirl about with a cocktail stick to create a marbled effect.

Step nine

Sprinkle your decorations on top.

Some cranberries would go down well for christmas drops, but I was explicitly instructed not to buy any. These freeze dried raspberries looked rather pretty and tasted good too. See children? Compromise isn’t always bad.

Step ten

Keep going until you run out of chocolate/the will to live. But look…so shiny. You did well to temper it, it was worth it after all.

Step eleven

Go forth and make someone’s day.