November: Rony – Golden Snitch Truffles

With a simple Revelio charm, I uncovered this “month’s” recipe: A (chocolate) Golden Snitch. A common treat sold in most concession stands of the Quidditch World Cup. If you want to make your own, you can find the muggle recipe here.

This one also included a message from 2016 Noga about the ability to find some ingredients in Israel. Little did she know that I would travel through time and space with this recipe (with a plane and by just waiting for the years to pass) to where it won’t be an issue.

The body

One thing I did wrong off the bat was use all the chocolate listed in the recipe in making the truffles when I was only supposed to use the semisweet. Oops.

Be careful with the Incendio spell when you melt the chocolate. 30 second hear, mix, repeat until melted is a safer way to go so you don’t burn the chocolate.

The second part of the truffle mixture is another chance to flavor. The original recipe calls for alcohol or vanilla extract mixed with heavy cream. I chose a more wizardry (or available) option and added a healthy dash of pumpkin spice, vanilla extract, and a pinch of grounded coffee (is it possible I made a pumpkin-spice latter truffle? Perhaps). Mobililact until you get nice stiff peaks.

And after the chocolate has cooled, add it to the fun. I wonder what would it have looked like if I used less chocolate (or- the actual amount the recipe called for) but at this point in time that mixture tastes amazing and, in my opinion, better than the final product. I might try this again as a mouse in the future .

But enough reminiscing on mouses of recipes past, it’s time to let it cool (in a fridge or with Glacius based on where you stand in the muggle-wizard spectrum).

Let us remember, once more, that I added too much chocolate to the truffle mixture. That’s maybe why they were too hard to handle after being in the freezer, or maybe the fridge is just a better option.

Rolling the balls was a mess and I couldn’t find a way to not be covered in chocolate by the end of it. I let the balls cool in the freezer, before rolling them again to smooth them out.

The Wings

After I melted more chocolate, I used a glass to hold my piping bag as I poured it in, and surprisingly it didn’t go all over the place.

I think the two most important things I’ve learned from wings piping are:

1. I don’t have the space for all the wings that the recipe called for. It’s a crazy amount of wings.
2. I should have tried to make them more symmetrical. Or at least the same type of shape instead of a variety. You will lose some wings when you assemble. You don’t want to toss a wing just because its partner broke and it was a unique pair.

After the wings had enough time to freeze and harden, I tried several “gilding” options:

• Colovaria, of course
• Edible golden spray – sprayed on the bottom before piping
• Edible golden powder – which provided the most coverage
• And a mix fo powder and spray – had meh results but better than just spray. I can’t say the spray was useful besides spraying on the piping surface (that way the bottom side picks up that color as well).

For the truffles themselves, I placed them in a measuring tablespoon, that held them in place and allowed them to be moved about without melting, as I powdered them.

Epoximise!

(or leftover melted chocolate on every wing before attaching them to the truffle).

I present to you – A Golden Snitch

Open at the close

You can definitely taste the pumpkin spice and it works! There was something about the truffles that wasn’t “chocolaty” enough. I’m not sure what. The recipe itself includes a disclaimer that if you have a better recipe for truffles then use that one. However, in it’s mouse form, I would revisit that… one day…

November: Noga – (FREAKIN’ WORTH IT) APPLE CRUMB PIE

it is geek week!

Time to see if our geekness has aged well. I’m actually much less into Supernatural than I was back in 2016 (I ended up dropping off in the gazillionth season), but it does still have a place in my heart.

Yes, we are entering the world of Supernatural gifs. We may never leave!

I love the quote the recipe refers to, even though the episode itself is meh, and I love and empathize with Dean’s love for pies.

Ok lets get down to business. Or as Cas put it:

The recipe Rony gave me is this one and she also kindly provided me with a link for a vegan pie crust, which is this one. TBH I majorly suck at dough. But I started out hopeful. First I mixed the dough in a food processor – it contained white spelt flour, coconut oil, ice water and some sugar and salt.

Because I suck at dough, I can’t gauge right when the dough consistency (is that the word?) is good enough. I may have needed more ice water. I thought I ended up with a nice enough ball of dough but then came the part I hate the most – rolling thinly and transferring to the tin. I never never never do this cleanly. So, this is the result of that:

The positive: I rolled it out very thinly which was good. The negative: of course it was a mess to transfer, tore away at various parts, and I ended up sort of giving up, throwing everything in there and just pressing with my fingers. This is why I hate dough. It’s just not for me.

While the failed crust chilled in the fridge, I moved on to filling. This is much easier obviously, but I did take some liberties here based on what I already had in the kitchen and because of my laziness to go out.

First of all, I didn’t have any vanilla whiskey (who does?). Rony wrote I could sub with apple cider, so that’s what I did. I swapped with apple cider vinegar the white wine vinegar I didn’t have (weirdly, listed in the ingredients but missing in the recipe itself), and I didn’t have cornstarch so I just didn’t use any. You toss the apples with these, plus lemon juice, vanilla, and a mix of sugar, flour and spices.

The topping is also easy enough: oats, flour, sugar, (supposed to include ground ginger but yuck), and coconut oil instead of the original recipe’s butter.

I would say this is an ok crumble topping, but it didn’t knock my socks off like the crumble I made back when I made this apple crumble cake.  That one is definitely the victor of vegan crumble, and it’s just flour, pecan and maple syrup.

And this is after baking. I love that the apples peek out from between the crumble bits.

It came out bubbling and I was worried it was going to be too wet and I was going to have a soggy bottom (oh no!), but somehow the thin dough held really well. It even cut alright:

All in all, a nice recipe. I won’t blame the dough recipe for my lack of dough competence, and may use it in the future. The filling as well was great, and very yummy, and in the future I might sub the topping for the one of the apple tea cake.

On to December, the last month of the bake-off (!!!)