I am heading off to France today, but I want to leave you a special treat on the blog.
These cute heart-shaped chocolates are filled with a refreshing berry cream. They will be melting on your tongue!
I know this is not the easiest recipe and it takes quite some time to make, but you will recieve quite few chocolates when ready (about 60). And when you have a bite, you will know that it was worth the stress.
You had better put these babies in the refridgerator to keep the chocolate chunky or, if you want to the consistency of the filling to be similar to ice cream, in the freezer. During summer, I prefer the second option.
Tiny Berry Chocolates:
60 semi-sweet chocolate hollow spheres
250 g (8 oz.) mixed berries, frozen
200 g (7 oz.) white chocolate
50 ml (1/8 cup) heavy cream
30 g (1 oz.) butter
300 g chocolate for coating
Put the frozen berries in a small saucepan and heat them until they start to boil. Let the fruit simmer for about 30 minutes.
Blend the berries until there are no big pieces of fruit in the mass. You can run them through a sieve to remove the seeds.
Break the chocolate down into pieces and put it in the still hot berry mixture, as well as the butter and heavy cream. The berries are usually still hot enough to melt all of the ingredients, so you just have to stir until everything is smooth. But if the berries have become colder, you might heat the mass up a little.
Let the filling cool for a while at room temperature, then place for at least 1 hour in the freezer, so it becomes easier to fill it in the hollow spheres. It should be quite thick when you take it out.
Fill the cream in a piping bag with a rather small tip, fitting into the hole of your hollow spheres. Fill the chocolate spheres up to the rim of the hole.
Chop the chocolate and melt it in your microwave, not heating for more than 30 seconds at a time, or using the water bath method. Dip the filled spheres in the chocolate until they are completely coated. I find it easier to use 2 small forks for that part.
Let them cool on a sheet of baking parchment. And don’t forget to enjoy!
Ahoy y’all, another eternity since my last post has passed, I know, I know.
But I am not dead or something. Just had a tough time getting through my finals and guess what? I survived.
Yeah, I was quite busy but now I kind of have my life back – or should I rather say: ‘my life has just started’?
So, to get down a little between the exams, I travelled around quite a bit. Just a little. Okay, I pretty much ate my way through the heart of Europe.
First stop: Heidelberg. Heidelberg is a really beautiful town near the German-French border. You can see a lot of the French and Italian influence – gelato, chocolaterie, épicerie… yes, it is a really romantic and very yummy place to be!
This spice shop is a really fancy little place you find quite hidden in the main shopping street if you go through one of the passages. If there is a place in Germany where you can get every kind of pepper in the world – this is it. There was a really great variety of oils, spices and salt there.
They even had grilled grasshoppers there! Argh!
I did some turbo sightseeing that day since I was on my own and undisturbed, so there was also plenty of time to chill out in cafés. I sat down in the neat chocolaterie YilliY in a tiny street near the main tourist track (it was not that crowded, mind you), where you can enjoy the best hot chocolate and listen to live piano music. The paintings are worth a look, too.
To cool down, you should not miss trying a homemade ice tea from The Fresh Tea Shop or some freshly squeezed juice at a Chiquita stall.
Second stop: Berlin. Well, I was not in Berlin to report what I am eating, so not on the hunt for fancy food, either. But if you come near Wonder Waffle or the sweet crêperie which says ‘Eat Crêpes, No Crap’, make sure you don’t miss these mouthwatering sweets.
I was on a tour through Italy. Yeah, I was, no kidding. (Milan – Sirmione – Verona – Venice) So besides the typical ‘pizza and pasta’, which is of course fantastic, we had some fancier stuff, as well.
Pizza ROLL, anyone?
Or some rick dark choc muffin, or a zabaione mountain tart?
Or crispy cannoli with the creamiest cream?
Hang on, I have one more for you:
Perfect ice cream! It is atually so popular that you have to take a number to order it.
And the last one (for now) is Prague. My most recent trip gave me the opportunity to experience the delight of eating trdelnik, a thin sugared roll of dough – you can’t miss it, its delicious aroma is carried down all the streets!
And finally, some more ice cream – Absinth is a Czech specialty and there are plenty Absinth-flavoured things to buy. Go for the ice cream, it is sweet and creamy. I do not even know if there was actually alcohol inside – but if there was, it must have been quite little.
So that’s it for now. But I shall post more often from now on. I have a neat truffle recipe waiting for you and I will travel some more in less than a fortnight – Berlin, Leipzig and several cities at the Côte d’Azur are waiting to be visited!
Hey there! I know it has been a while, but final exams are so exhausting, they rarely left any space in my brain for something that is not Biology, Mathematics, English or Philosophy. While I am waiting for my last exam (Philosophy) to come, I am trying to enjoy the warm weather outside at least a bit. It has been REALLY hot a few days ago – well, at least very hot for Germany – and the quick change from ‘I’ll just continue to wear my winter jacket’ to ‘holy freaking hell, I am wearing a summer dress today!’ has done quite something to me.
So I loked for a way to cool down a bit in a healthy way an this is what my dehydrated brain produced: Juice pops. Actually, thi is the easiest thing ever, if you own a mold for ice popsicles.
And the best thing is: you need no more than 4 ingredients. I just love the way the grapefruit juice adds freshness to the whole popsicle and eating the berries out of the ice is fun, too.
So if you need a deliciuos cool down, throw that few things together and get outside again.
Iced Juice Pops
(makes 8 popsicles of about 90ml/ 1/3 cup)
100 ml grapefruit juice
500 ml peach juice
1 cup mixed berries, frozen
Combine the juices in a bowl or measuring cup. Divide the berries equally between the molds. Pour the juice over the berries until the molds are full. Freeze for at least 4 hours.
Cool down!