Lorin's Truffles

One of my children got these as a gift for his birthday. I'm pretty sure that child was sorry he shared with me.

Truffles

1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup butter
1 pkg chocolate chips (12oz)
3 Tbls vanilla or flavored liqueur
dash of salt


Gently heat cream and butter until the butter melts. Then stir in the chocolate until melted and add the flavor and salt.

Pour into a lined casserole and chill until firm. When it's firm cut into small (<3/4") squares and roll in cocoa powder. You can roll them into balls if you like. Store in a closed container, keep chilled until ready to gift or eat.


Notes:

You can use all sorts of flavors with this. I used a little orange oil in this and it was lovely. Lorin has used instant coffee granules - Mmmm.

Christmas Recipes

Now I usually like our family to eat healthy, but at the holidays I make a pretty major exception. I'm in the midst of Christmas baking. I've got little scraps of paper, and even the odd email, with my favorite recipes. I'd like to have them all in one place, so here's a list of what I'll be trying to get posted here.

Candy:
Lorin's Truffles
Chocolate dipped pecan fudge
Peanut butter cream cheese fudge
Grandma's Fudge
Divinity


Cookies:
Simple Sesame Cookies
Pfeffernusse
Pizzelles
Bell Cookies
Russian Teacakes/Mexican Wedding Cake

Panettone bread

Our Daily Bread

For the last couple of years I've been making bread regularly. It's gotten to the point where, except for sour dough bread, my kids prefer homemade bread to store bought. That's mostly ok. Sure, it's a pain to hear them complain if I need to serve store bread, but when we eat homemade I know exactly what's in the bread, and more importantly what's not. Here's the recipe I fall back on for our every day bread.

Maple buttermilk Bread
(modified from Bread Machine Baking, by Lora Brody and Millie Apter)

1 Tbsp butter or oil
3 Tbsp real maple syrup or honey
1 cup buttermilk or 1 cup water plus 4 Tbsp powdered buttermilk
3 Tbsp gluten
3 cups whole white wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp yeast

Mix and knead in bread machine dough cycle or by hand
Let rise in loaf pan on 2nd rising
Bake 350 F for ~25 min.


Notes:

I didn't put in rise times because around here that varies with the house temperature and me remembering I was making bread. Whole wheat generally takes longer to rise than refined flour, and a dry loaf can take a bit more time than a wetter loaf. I'd give at least 2 hours to each rising.

Yes. I'm still making my own buttermilk and sour cream. It's that easy, and that good.

I've used the powered buttermilk in this and it turns out fine.

I've used regular whole wheat flour, and white flour in this. They're both fine, although regular white flour is a bit pasty after you get used to whole wheat.

This is a nice dough to use to make cinnamon raisin bread, or pecan rolls, or monkey bread.