Easter treats

So this year I decided to change things up a bit and make some Easter gifts for my family. I've been keen to try out some chocolate truffle recipes' and when better to try them than the most chocolaty time of the year!!

Like most of my baking endeavours, I tend to underestimate the amount of work that I have let myself in for but after a week of furious chocolate truffle, square and egg making the results were worth the effort.

I made:

• Healthier Chocolate Truffles (The Happy Pear)

• Vegan Dark Chocolate and Lemon Truffles (The Everyday Veggie)

• Guinness Truffles (Guinness Storehouse)

• Hazelnut Praline Chocolate Squares (Food.com)

• Chocolate Orange Eggs

• Honeycomb Eggs (Honeycomb recipe - BBC Good Food)

• Lemon and Ginger Eggs

Healthier Chocolate Truffles

These lovely truffles are made from cashew nuts, walnuts and dates, blended up together with some coconut oil, vanilla extract and a pinch of salt. I was a bit afraid I was a bit over zealous with the salt but they tasted grand in the end and were my mam's favourite!

The key to making these truffles is to have a pretty good blender/food processor. I don't. Mine is a pretty cheap blender and a process that was supposed to take only a few minutes ended up taking close to an hour, as the machine couldn't handle the amount of nuts and once the dates were added, it just gave up. I ended up having to take everything out and put it in a little bit at a time, blending, then taking that bit out and adding the next. When it was all done I mixed everything together as best I could and rolled it into little truffle shapes.

I made 30 truffles from the mixture, so plenty to go around!

Next came the fun part! I melted and tempered some dark chocolate (Melted 2/3s or the chocolate in a Bain Marie and then took it off the heat and stirred in the rest until it all melted and was completely smooth). I believe this is supposed to bring the temperature of the chocolate down, strengthening the chocolate and create a better shine when it dries. I dipped each truffle in the chocolate, put it on some greaseproof paper and really quickly sprinkled on the toppings.

For the toppings I used:

• Freeze dried red berries (Stolen from the Special K box)

• Desiccated Coconut

• Honeycomb (Homemade)

• Cocoa Powder

The results were pretty as a picture and very yummy!!

Vegan Dark Chocolate and Lemon Truffles

These lemony delights were made particularly for my brother who can't get enough of my lemon tarts and lemon and ginger macarons. They're made with Coconut milk, dark chocolate, lemon juice and zest and dusted with desiccated coconut and cocoa powder.

This recipe makes exactly 12 truffles, no more, no less - unless you want giant truffles, then you would probably only get 6. To make these truffles bring the coconut milk to just boiling in a Bain Marie (a heatproof bowl sitting over simmering water, making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water) and then pour over the chopped dark chocolate and mix until completely melted, creating a smooth ganache. Then add in the the zest and lemon juice, mix until smooth and put in the fridge for about an hour until it has set enough to roll into balls. I found when trying to cover the balls with the desiccated coconut that they were a bit too dry to hold it so I rolled them around a bit on the baking paper until they heated up enough for the coconut to stick to.

Warning - these truffles may look innocent but they are SUPER lemony, I mean you really really have to like lemon to like these. Luckily, I love lemon and so does my brother and my mam so we were happy out but even my brother said he could only eat one at a time, they were THAT lemony!! Consider yourselves warned!!

Guinness Truffles

I was wracking my brain trying to think of the best flavour chocolates for my dad when I though - Wouldn't it be great if there was a recipe for Guinness Truffles?! - Turns out, there is! On the Guinness Storehouse website!! Genius!!!

The recipe pairs Guinness and Orange zest and like the Vegan Lemon Truffles, they are made from a chocolate ganache. The recipe says it makes 25 truffles and requires 1KG of chocolate!!!!! This wasn't going to happen as I had to buy so much chocolate to make all the different types of truffles, 1kg of chocolate for one type would cost a fortune! I halved the recipe and still managed to make 28 quite large truffles.

To make these truffles, chop/break up the chocolate in a heatproof bowl, add the orange zest and set aside. Put the cream and Guinness in a small saucepan and bring to just boiling over a low heat, then pour the cream mixture over the chocolate and orange zest and mix until combined. For me it works best to start with tiny circles, just in the middle of the mixture until the chocolate starts to melt and mix with the cream, then gradually make the circles bigger as the chocolate melts more, until it is completely smooth and combined. Then, pop the bowl in the fridge (or freezer if you're in a hurry) until set enough to scoop out and roll in to balls. The recipe says to dust in coconut or cocoa powder. I went with the coconut for half of them and decided to mix it up by covering the others in white chocolate and dusting the top with cocoa powder.

These actually tasted really nice! (I admit I was a bit sceptical) . As I had halved the recipe, the guinness didn't come across very strongly and they were more orange flavoured. I think in future I would add a bit more Guinness to bring out that flavour.

I brought a box of the assorted truffles over to France after Easter to my almost-Mother-in-Law and the Guinness ones were a hit!! Who knew?!

Bon appetit!!

Hazelnut Praline Chocolate Squares

Oh dear God, these are incredible!!! I know, I know, I made them but seriously, these turned out so delicious my mouth is watering just looking at the photos!! (Lucky for me I have an extra batch sitting in the freezer just waiting for tea time).

These chocolate squares are based on a recipe from Food.com for Hazelnut Praline Truffles. At this stage I had had enough of making truffles (round is so two hours ago!), so I decided to change it up a bit and make Praline Squares instead.

Firstly, I made the praline. I started by toasting and shelling some hazelnuts (by hand!..I call that dedication!). Next I made a caramel by putting 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of water on the hob on low until the sugar dissolved, then turned up the heat to medium high and allowed to bubble away until it turned a golden caramel colour. I Whipped it off the heat and super quickly poured in 1/2 cup of the toasted hazelnuts and mixed around to coat. Then I Immediately poured it into a cake pan that had been sprayed with oil (sunflower oil is good) and allowed to cool for 30 mins. Once it had set, I smashed it up into pieces (the fun part!!) and put it in a blender/food processor to blend until fairly fine.

Once the praline was done, it was time to move onto the chocolate ganache. This is made the same way as in the other recipe's, by heating the cream to boiling point and pouring it over the cream and mixing until combined and completely smooth. Mix in 3/4 of the ground praline and reserve the rest for decoration.

This is the point where I moved away from the Food.com recipe. I had prepared a high-sided baking tray by covering it with clingfilm, making sure to leave plenty of extra overhanging. I then poured the praline ganache into the tray, smoothed it out with a palette knife, covered it with the overhanging clingfilm and popped it in the freezer to set.

Meanwhile, I started to melt some Milk Chocolate in a Bain Marie. When the ganache slab was set I took it out of the freezer and unwrapped the top, placing it clingfilm side down on a chopping board. Then I poured half the milk chocolate over the slab, sprinkled it with cocoa powder and let it set for a minute. Once set I put down some greaseproof paper and flipped the slab onto it, milk chocolate side down. I then poured the other half of the milk chocolate over the top, smoothed it out and sprinkled the reserved praline, as evenly as possible, over the top. I finished it off by dipping a spoon in the milk chocolate and flicking it across the top of the praline (and also, all over my countertop and bread bin!) The result: This lovely great slab of chocolaty, nutty goodness! I then, simply chopped it up into fairly even squares and voilà!

Easter Eggs

What would Easter be without chocolate eggs so each of my little boxes of chocolates came with it's own Easter Egg. The flavours I went with were:

• Chocolate Orange

• Honeycomb

• Lemon and Ginger

The Easter Eggs were definitely the easiest of all the chocolate treats to make. All that's required is an Easter Egg mould (I got mine in Dunnes Stores for €5) and melting and tempering some chocolate - 200g dark chocolate made two easter Eggs.

I tempered the chocolate, as above, by melting 2/3s of the chocolate in a Bain Marie and then adding in the remaining chocolate and flavouring ingredients and mixing until smooth. I sprayed the egg moulds with a thin layer of sunflower oil (1 calorie sunflower spray), this helps the chocolate to come out easily when set and adds to the shine. I then brushed in a layer of the tempered chocolate and popped it in the freezer for a minute to set. I added two more layers of the chocolate, freezing after each layer, before smoothing off the edges with a sharp knife and gently removing them from the mould.

To stick the two sides together I put a pan on the hob, once it was hot I placed the flat side of the egg down on it for a few seconds to melt the edges and then stuck them together. Easy!

Finally, to make the Eggs a little more fancy, and mainly so I could tell which was which, I used some food paint to colour in the lines.

For the flavours I used candied ginger and lemon zest, orange zest and honeycomb that I had made during the week.

For the honeycomb, you mix caster sugar and golden syrup in a saucepan and heat on the hob until it turns into a caramel. Then, taking it off the heat, quickly add in two teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda and beat with a wooden spoon until it is completely combined and the mixture is foaming. Tip into a greased baking tin and leave to set for about an hour. It's supposed to be hard and ready to crumble or snap into pieces. Mine wasn't. It was more like a pliable toffee that needed to be chopped into pieces. It still tasted really good and went really well in the Easter Egg.

So that's it! Once all the chocolates were made, all that was left to do was parcel them up. I picked up some cute paper boxes in TK Maxx and Plastic Wrap in Hallmark and raided my Christmas wrapping box for some nice ribbon or string and I have to say the effect was lovely. All my family were delighted with the handmade gifts and there's no doubt I'll be doing it again. The one exception to the homemade treats was for my lovely niece Alice, who at almost 4 years old wouldn't be too impressed if her Easter egg wasn't wrapped in sparkly paper and a nice box so I got her a Frozen one instead. Happy faces all around!!