Almond Chocolates
Happy Valentine's Day! In honor of that, as well as my first sporadic post on this account on Dreamwidth, I've decided to post the results of my latest dessert making experiment. For Valentine's Day this year, I originally wanted to try making red velvet cupcakes and experiment with coloring the frosting. However, while on Tumblr earlier scrolling down the Kimi ni Todoke tag (I still need to get around to a review of that manga), I came upon this recipe from a fairly new blog focusing on anime inspired recipes. Since I had just about everything it called for (with a few substitutions), I decided to try these instead.
Ingredients
1 12oz. package of dark chocolate chips 1
3/4 cup whole almonds 2
1 tablespoon vegetable oil 3
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 package small foil (or paper) cups for candy 4
Double boiler. If you don’t have one, you can fashion one using a deep pan full of water and a glass or aluminum bowl. Just fill up the pan 3/4 of the way with water, put the bowl in the middle, and keep the water hot, but not boiling.
Notes
1 Instead of dark chocolate chips, I used semi-sweet chocolate chips because Mom bought a HUGE bag for the purposes of brownie making (To be shared in a future post, hopefully).
2 You know what else Mom bought a huge bag of? Sliced almonds. Doubled the amount used as a result, which is 1 1/2 cups of sliced almonds. From there, I put half that amount into the food processor.
3 According to Google, I can use canola oil as a substitute for vegetable oil. Good thing too, because we have plenty of the latter at home.
4 While I would have preferred small cups, we only have the larger muffin cups that we never use at home. I had no desire to go out and by small foil/paper cups, so... yeah.
Directions
1. Spread all the almonds out on a pan and place in a warm (170°F to 200°F) oven. Let them toast in there until they become aromatic.
Yes, yes, it's not in a pan in the oven. But after what happened when I toasted nuts for truffles, I've gotten into the habit of toasting them on the stovetop. Works just as well, and I'm less likely to burn things. And after everything else I changed, I figured what the heck.
2. Pour all the chocolate chips into the bowl of the double boiler. Add the oil, salt, and vanilla, and let the chocolate begin to melt. Stir it occasionally.
It's pretty much melted at this point.
3. Take 1/4 cup of the almonds and chop them finely. Once the chocolate has melted all the way, add the chopped almonds, and mix it together.
Mmmmmmm, almonds. (See Note #2 above for why I put 3/4 cup of chopped almonds instead)
4. Set out all the wrappers you’ll need, and slowly begin spooning the chocolate into each wrapper. It can be a little messy until you get the hang of it. After filling each wrapper with chocolate, add one or two of the whole almonds on top. You can also add sprinkles instead, if you would like.
This was before I topped them with the almonds in the first picture.
5.Once all the wrappers are full, place them all in the fridge to cool and solidify.
It set faster than I thought it would. Yay for pleasant surprises!
The final result, unwrapped:
Sorry, this really could be a better picture. But see, it kinda looks like a peanut butter cup.
Final verdict: Not bad. Not sure if being able to taste the salt is a deal breaker, but I like it. It made the chocolate less sweet than I thought it would be. And almonds make everything better. =D
This entry was originally posted at http://rfmadison.dreamwidth.org/11370.html. No need to comment over there; I can respond to comments here, too.
Ingredients
1 12oz. package of dark chocolate chips 1
3/4 cup whole almonds 2
1 tablespoon vegetable oil 3
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 package small foil (or paper) cups for candy 4
Double boiler. If you don’t have one, you can fashion one using a deep pan full of water and a glass or aluminum bowl. Just fill up the pan 3/4 of the way with water, put the bowl in the middle, and keep the water hot, but not boiling.
Notes
1 Instead of dark chocolate chips, I used semi-sweet chocolate chips because Mom bought a HUGE bag for the purposes of brownie making (To be shared in a future post, hopefully).
2 You know what else Mom bought a huge bag of? Sliced almonds. Doubled the amount used as a result, which is 1 1/2 cups of sliced almonds. From there, I put half that amount into the food processor.
3 According to Google, I can use canola oil as a substitute for vegetable oil. Good thing too, because we have plenty of the latter at home.
4 While I would have preferred small cups, we only have the larger muffin cups that we never use at home. I had no desire to go out and by small foil/paper cups, so... yeah.
Directions
1. Spread all the almonds out on a pan and place in a warm (170°F to 200°F) oven. Let them toast in there until they become aromatic.
Yes, yes, it's not in a pan in the oven. But after what happened when I toasted nuts for truffles, I've gotten into the habit of toasting them on the stovetop. Works just as well, and I'm less likely to burn things. And after everything else I changed, I figured what the heck.
2. Pour all the chocolate chips into the bowl of the double boiler. Add the oil, salt, and vanilla, and let the chocolate begin to melt. Stir it occasionally.
It's pretty much melted at this point.
3. Take 1/4 cup of the almonds and chop them finely. Once the chocolate has melted all the way, add the chopped almonds, and mix it together.
Mmmmmmm, almonds. (See Note #2 above for why I put 3/4 cup of chopped almonds instead)
4. Set out all the wrappers you’ll need, and slowly begin spooning the chocolate into each wrapper. It can be a little messy until you get the hang of it. After filling each wrapper with chocolate, add one or two of the whole almonds on top. You can also add sprinkles instead, if you would like.
This was before I topped them with the almonds in the first picture.
5.Once all the wrappers are full, place them all in the fridge to cool and solidify.
It set faster than I thought it would. Yay for pleasant surprises!
The final result, unwrapped:
Sorry, this really could be a better picture. But see, it kinda looks like a peanut butter cup.
Final verdict: Not bad. Not sure if being able to taste the salt is a deal breaker, but I like it. It made the chocolate less sweet than I thought it would be. And almonds make everything better. =D
This entry was originally posted at http://rfmadison.dreamwidth.org/11370.html. No need to comment over there; I can respond to comments here, too.