The Sugar Bar

You know, ninjas are like fairies. You don’t see them. But they exist, mostly in the shadows and the cracks between their underworld and ours. Somewhere between my bed and the wall that its pressed up against, a ninja lives in that shadowy crack. No idea why he/she’s spying on me but I’m happy tucking myself deep under the duvet, watching Gordon Ramsay’s Great Escape in India and feeding this ninja of the dark (who’s tucked in somewhere as well under my bed probably) some of these truffles. My alter ego? A figment of my imagination? Or just plain excuse to make these black/white babies for me to eat? The latter seems most likely and I totally agree. I am a bit of nutter and I love chatting crap like this. Call me overworked, imaginative or plain crazy. I really don’t mind. I’ve got truffles.

The week has passed quite slow with horrible weather for most of it. Although today’s ridiculously sunny, bright and worm it feels like the world’s played a hoax upon us. But I’m not complaining. In fact, I totally rejoiced, ditched the essay that is begging to be written before I get chucked out of college, and ventured into the kitchen to make these.

I blame Catty. Oh my dear, in a good way. She made the scrummiest matcha & lemon truffles for Easter and was so generous to pass me some to taste. I was really stingy with myself, rationing it carefully and only caring to nibble it. Talk about waste of effort. They were gone by the next morning. I found myself mourning its bittersweet flavours so quick, I might’ve given myself heartburn (heartache?) pining away for it.

So of course I had to have more truffles about the house.

Now I’m wondering why I didn’t just begin the post that way. More respectable and, sane of course. Why on earth did I resort to pseudo mythmaking and one about a non-existence ninja-who-lives-in-the-shadows-of-my-bedroom? Not so sure. I think I munched on one too many squares of chocolate whilst waiting for these to set. The caffeine fried away my logic and the cocoa butter greased everything up in my brain, it turned to a squishy mess. No use to me at all.

I was inspired mostly by Japanese wagashi and more specifically, Minamoto Kitchoan’s Miyabiguruma. Of course, mine is nothing close and hardly as refined. Geez, it’s got Shreddies in there for crying out loud! But you can’t blame me for trying to recreate those flavours at home with what I had on hand. Not sure they looked very pretty but they were good. It really helps that I’m on a Shreddies craze as well. In my breakfast cereal, having it dry as a snack and now in chocolate truffles. I think I’m going slightly overboard. Who knows what I’ll be adding it to next. I fear to think it.

The concept to these truffles is similar to these Oreo truffles or Lemon Lime cream ones. Yes so they’re supposed to be pretty sweets. Pre-dipping in candy coating, however, my flatmate very eagerly exclaimed, ‘Oh you’re making meatballs!’. Uh oh. They really do look like meatballs, don’t they.

Types of anko:
(to make things easy, this is taken from Wikipedia)

Tsubuan (粒餡), whole red beans boiled with sugar but otherwise untreated
Tsubushian (潰し餡), where the beans are mashed after boiling
Koshian (漉し餡), which has been passed through a sieve to remove bean skins; the most common type
Sarashian (晒し餡), which has been dried and reconstituted with water

If you prefer to make your own anko, you can use this recipe here. I’ve never been too successful making my own because I’m too impatient to wait for it to soak overnight, and cook for hours til it’s soft enough to mash or pass through a sieve. So feel free to use canned anko. I’ve chosen a half mashed half whole bean anko from Meiji.

When it comes to truffles, I always use candy melts or coating chocolate, aka confectioner’s coating or bark. If you’re wondering whether this is chocolate, yes it is! But it’s chocolate for lazy bums like me. No tempering – only melt, mix, use, set. Its easier to control than regular chocolate, sets quick streak-free at room temperature, tastes great and doesn’t melt upon touching which I find happens a lot when using regular chocolate (which requires you sometimes to cool it in the fridge and then you get nasty sweating after when you take them out). Candy melts come in many colours. No fuss over what kind of colours to use (if you decide to use them) and whether oil, paste or powder or au naturel vegetable/fruit juice/dyes will affect it. I’ve used candy melts in Midnight Black and because I ran out of white melts, I’ve used Green & Blacks vanilla white chocolate.

I’m feeling a bit zen with the black and white colour combination. Time to whip out my teapot, sencha and ponder over something deep. Who knows, my shadow ninja might decide to join me for a cuppa.

Makes about 12-15 eyeball-sized truffles. (I would’ve said ping pong-sized but aren’t eyeballs a little smaller and heck, sounds more fun. No?)

Chestnut & Adzuki Bean Black/White Chocolate Truffles
Ingredients

1 can/210g anko (adzuki bean paste)
10-12 small cooked chestnuts, depending on how many you end up making
about 1/2 cup Shreddies, finely crushed
about 1/2 cup black chocolate candy melts
about 1/2 cup white chocolate candy melts
black sesame seeds, for garnish (optional)
white sesame seeds, for garnish (optional)

There isn’t really a recipe for this is there? It’s just banging ingredients together.

In a bowl, mash together crushed Shreddies and enough anko to get a cement-like consistency. You don’t want it too dry or it won’t hold together. But you need it wet enough to be able to seal itself around the chestnut. Play around with it until you feel confident of it holding up.

Take a chestnut and about 1/2 to 1 tbs of crushed Shreddies and anko mixture, press into it and start to carefully seal the chestnut into it. Gently press to smoothen out the surface like you would a rice ball, then lightly roll between palms to form balls. If the surface starts to gloss and smoothen itself out, that’s perfect. Repeat for the other chestnuts. Place on a plate covered with grease-proof parchment. Place in refrigerator to let the chestnut balls set a bit for about 3-4 minutes.

In small bowls, melt candy coating separately, following the directions written on the bag (it will differ slightly depending on their make but will normally require a 1 minute melt-time in microwave; mix; 10 second blasts and mixing until the coating is completely melted and smooth).

Drop chestnut balls in candy coating, coat and drop onto flat surface lined with grease-proof parchment. Garnish with a tiny sprinkling of sesame seeds of the opposite colour. Allow to set for about 2 minutes or so. Done.

I haven’t eaten a piece of cow meat for a long time. Translated: I haven’t had beef for months. Yes. It’s madness. Think of that as a teaser, ponder upon that ridiculousness for a bit whilst I beat around the bush…and no, I’m hardly the vegetarian.

The past week’s weather has been drop dead gorgeous and hopefully mentioning that hasn’t jinxed it for this week (probably has by now). Sunny and beautiful as it was, however, I got deceived by it all a couple of times thinking a lighter jacket was more than warm enough for me to step out into the sun. Mistake. More often than not, that first step out into the cold, similar to a newborn baby’s noisy entrance into the world, was followed by general shrieking, long strings of cussing and unattractive groans and grrrs from me. Chanting ‘suck it up’ in my head, I spend about 5 mins racing through the cold to warm up and literally walking only in the sunny areas, avoiding all shadowy spots at all costs to get as much warmth as possible. Through the day, I’ll catch myself jerking uncontrollably when a big cold gust of wind comes a-blowing. Travelling between uni, work and home then, I find myself constantly thinking of warm, comfort foods as a way to encourage myself and as incentive to get those icy feet moving quickly to take me home. It certainly is most effective and definitely keeps the strangers from talking to you (I’m that engrossed in my thoughts you see).

I am happy nonetheless with this generous amount of sun we’ve got the past week and it has made the week so much bearable despite the looming deadlines and the awful stack of readings to do. And as the saying goes, good things come in pairs, so did a nice surprise come along with this beautiful sun – some very high (for The Sugar Bar at least) views for 4th March. Because they exceeded my expectations, I rewarded myself with some lovely fresh and tender stewing beef from Waitrose and got set to working on a nice hot stew to keep that bone-chilling cold away as well. In Chinese culture, having meat on the table is representative of how fortunate a family is and is partially reflective of the wealth of that family. In Korea, beef is quite a luxury and eating it becomes an occasion. So I suppose, it wasn’t such a strange thing to reward myself with beef after all! Especially since I hardly ever buy red meats in my weekly shop, finally buying some made it feel all that more special. It’s not that I don’t eat red meat. I actually love a good medium rare steak and other red meats like pork and veal. It’s just that I think cooking red meats require more effort and so never really bother to get them since I can never be sure when I have the time to cook a meal or not and dare not risk having nice meat go bad in the fridge.

I did think at first that a 22 year old like me should probably be buying nail lacquers and pretty notebooks as a reward not packets of bloody red meat from the delicatessen. It just didn’t quite fit the bill but then again, I doubt that ever bothers me; and I’m quite happy to say foodbloggers are a unique species of their own with priorities set right to a tee, fine senses highly tuned and dedicated to the arts of eating, cooking and food-shopping. So why not the beef?! Just chuck it in the shopping basket already now! By the time I’d finished my shopping and was eagerly waiting to pay at the check-outs, so hungry I was all bloodshot eyes and nearly frothing at the mouth, the basket was exploding with root vegetables, baguettes, bitter chocolate, beer and herbs, etc. I didn’t need a sign on my forehead to alert the passersby and fellow Waitrose shoppers that this Diva here was as dangerous as a rabid dog and as ravenous. Minimal chit chat with the lovely lady at the checkout till, quick goodbye and outta there like a flash. Then home, out comes the chopping board. Bang bang chop chop chop and turn on the hob.

Then here comes the biggest joke of my life. Check recipe – stew needs to cook for at least 6 hours. Ok, put lid on and move on to ‘light’ snacking. Had to reprimand myself for not putting the stew on earlier. Panic not though as here’s when I whack out another saying: Good things come to those who wait.

I waited.

And when I was done waiting, it was good. Thoroughly impressed with this recipe which is such a great find from The Parsley Thief blog. Definitely one of those that I’ve saved for future use, especially for meal times with the family. I think Dad will be very happy to find a stew like this at the dinner table. What a meat man. Not really a Guinness man but he’ll appreciate the blokish-ness of this dish. Plus bitter chocolate sure gives it such a cool edginess I think the rest of the girlies in my house will adore it. Mum may find that addition dubious – she’s the only woman I know who doesn’t like chocolate. Real tough to please when it comes to homemade birthday cakes I tell you – but this isn’t a chocolatey stew and it’s not so strong like a Mole Poblano. I don’t think I could really taste the chocolate but I bet I would taste a real difference and have seen a big difference in colour if I hadn’t added it.

Something I discovered when making this, Green & Black’s Cook’s 72% dark chocolate is heaven. It’s even better than the dark chocolate from their regular range, in my opinion. It might be because it’s a lot richer and more bitter for cooking purposes than the eating chocolate which is totally up my alley. It was good. I might just stick to buying Cook’s chocolate from now on to satiate my dark chocolate cravings.

Just sent this in to Daily Spud‘s Paddy’s Day Food Parade event too in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day on March 17th. I can’t wait to see the round-up. Yum yum Irishness.

In the last post, I made it clear that I wasn’t a fan of Valentine’s Day (other than the fact that feasting for moi-self is allowed) and the most ironic thing was, the couples I knew weren’t even doing anything to celebrate it. It is totally agreed upon that the whole (I won’t even call it a festival) ‘event’ is simply a construction of contrived social imagination. As much as I dislike the fuss and the hype, the commercial exploitation of it all, I do love the fact that it’s a day where I can eat pretty things (like the cupcakes aforementioned) and not feel guilty about it at all.

Chocolates are so clichéd. At least for Valentine’s day.

But when would I ever make chocolates anyway? Might as well just put all my whining in a bag and throw it away, enjoy myself making them instead, no? And if I was envious of anybody about anything, it wouldn’t over my dead body be the fact that these smug couples were coupled up at all. Really,the issue lies in what they were cooking and eating to celebrate the day. So here, I messed about to make these chocolates for myself, friends and colleagues. Not beautiful. Not perfect. But you don’t gotta be with someone to be able to feast! And eat chocolates. And if you’re single, you don’t have to settle for a giant Cadbury’s bar that’s selling for a quid from Tesco. Honestly, I’m quite glad I attempted chocolates and de-virgined my new silicone chocolate mould.

I had fun making these, with a couple of heart attacks from failed samples and broken chocolates. Whilst photographing this in a hurry before rushing to work, I dropped my chocolates and broke quite a few of the good ones. Scared the daylights out of me, got depressed about the ones that died on the kitchen floor but very pleased that the ones which made it into the mouths of friends were finely appreciated.

The last time I made chocolates, I was a kid. My elder sis A and I had been given little plastic moulds, brushes and edible paints one Christmas I think. Our chocolates were pretty crude and garishly painted but we were so proud of them. Thinking back on those proud chocolates, I wish my sis and I (this time with C my younger sis) will make chocolates soon together some time. Hopefully when I’m a little more skilled and have completely mastered the art of chocolate-making (she says. pffft).

I had quite a few failures. Having 5 researches going on at once, CNY dim sum lunch planned, work at AA and this dumb romance drama I was all worked up about really had my head going full speed at all directions. Confused and totally not with it was moi this weekend. That really showed up in my chocolates. I also needed a brush to paint the chocolate mould, about 2 layers after setting each in the freezer for a minute or two to get the chocolate casing even but all my paint brushes (used to paint back in the days) were at home. I was slightly unprepared but made do with my MAC lipbrush. Probably the funniest thing I’ve done all week but it sorta worked. In addition to that, I had a bit of a problem with my chocolate candy melts solidifying too quick in my icy cold kitchen. So some came out with uneven surfaces, air pockets, cracked surfaces which were too thinly painted. But soon realized that a 10 sec microwave blast of my candy melts before each use made for a smooth, glossy and easy-to-work-with chocolate candy.

Gotta say these may not look like much, but they tasted pretty good. I’d probably swap milk chocolate candy melt for dark chocolate in the future. I’m just not that big a fan of milk chocolate and I’d probably have my rhubarb ganache a little more tart since I love sour flavours. But that’s just me. The taste testers thought the ganache was just right and luckily enough, they only got to see the good chocolates. You guys unfortunately get to see the rough ones that didn’t make it into the pretty box photographed in a hurry before rushing to work. Oops. Nevertheless, hope the weekend went by beautifully for everyone! More feasting on its way as it’s still Chinese lunar new year for another 14 days and Shrove’s Tuesday tomorrow. Hip hip hurray.

How to make these chocolates:
Ingredients

milk chocolate candy melts
chocolate mould
paintbrush
filling of choice

Depending on how many chocolates you’ll be making, the amount of candy melts needed will differ. I purchased a 300g bag of candy melts and found I used about 1/3 for 20 chocolates.

Follow directions for melting the chocolate (normally a 1 minute full power blast, followed by a quick mix with small whisk or fork. Then series of 10 second blasts followed by mixing until completely melted and smooth).

Wash and clean chocolate mould. Ensure the mould is completely dry and dust-free before using. Some recommend cleaning it til glossy to get the professional smooth finish. I was too lazy to and so suffered the consequences!

Fill 1/4 of each mould with melted chocolates and working quickly, paint the sides up with chocolate. Place in freezer for about a minute or two to set. Then paint one more time thinly with chocolate so the insides are smoothly covered. Some of mine weren’t properly coated which meant ganache filling oozing out in strange places. Place in fridge to set the 2nd wet layer.

Remove from fridge. Add ganache to fill about 3/4 of the way and then pour melted chocolate over to seal the chocolate completely. Ensure that the sides are sealed and wipe off any excess that spills over onto the mould surface. Leave in fridge to set for 30mins or more.

If using a silicone mould, gently press out the formed chocolates. Successful ones should have no cracks, oozing ganache filling and visible air pockets on candy surface.

White Chocolate & Rhubarb Ganache
Ingredients

255g white couverture
1/2 cup extra thick double cream
1/2 cup rhubarb sauce (see below for recipe)

Break up white chocolate in bowl.

In a small saucepan or milkpan, heat the cream until small bubbles begin to form. Remove from heat and pour over broken chocolate. Leave for 5 mins then mix with a rubber spatula until melted. Add the rhubarb sauce and gently fold in.

Leave in refrigerator for about 1-2 hours until well set. Remove, mix again before using.

Rhubarb Sauce
Ingredients

1 package fresh rhubarb, washed and chopped
2 tbs butter
1 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of ground ginger
2-3 tbs caster sugar, or to taste

In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter then add the rhubarb to sauté. Once it softens, add the sugar and spices. Mix with wooden spoon and lower heat to simmer until it attains a sauce-like consistency.

If sauce is still too tart, sweeten to taste. Serve with pancakes, in pancake batter, with toast, etc. There are so many ways to serve this. Reserve sauce can be stored in jam jars in the fridge for about a week.