Monday, December 10, 2007

Christmas Goodies

At work it's somewhat obligatory to give Christmas gifts. I never seem to have enough time to do anything of note, but this year I have a plan. It all came together when December's Gourmet came in the mail. I saw a recipe for homemade peppermint patties and knew what I needed to do. This Christmas will be the Christmas of homemade chocolates and candies.

Besides the peppermint patties, I'm planning on making some homemade gelees, sort of gourmet Crush candies. I remember having some blackberry gelees at the Culinary Institute of America that were simply fantastic. There's a recipe for passion fruit gelees in the Gourmet magazine, but I plan on altering that and making several kinds, including one using black raspberries from my garden that I froze last summer. I'm planning on making several citrus varieties too, along with pomegranate. It sounds like they're the easiest thing in the world to make, which is a bonus.

It's not Christmas without chocolates, so I'm planning on making some truffles and some filled chocolates. I think one will be white chocolate filled with Nutella, a pre-made and tasty filling all ready to go. I'm thinking of a raspberry ganache, and perhaps a caramel filled chocolate surrounded by milk chocolate. I think dark chocolate and orange/Grand Marnier could be nice too. We'll see how ambitious I get. The process of making filled chocolates has several steps, but they're not really all that time consuming or complicated. A bit messy, perhaps, but satisfying. I may make some simple barks too, with peppermint candies or nuts of some sort.

I'll post some pictures of the progress.

1 comment:

Montana Sherry C said...

Sounds tasty. I'm so wishing I was one of your colleagues right about now!

White chocoalte with Nutella? Love Nutella.

Can't wait for photos.