A Box Of Chocolates

 

I forgot to show off the adorable box Woodhouse Chocolate's come in. I love the elephant ribbon, but I wonder if it's a warning? Today's chocolates were Sur del Lago and Passion Fruit.

Out of my box of 24 chocolates 12 of them are Sur del Lago. They are the best. I could order an entire box of just Sur del Lago, if it went for those other pesky delicious chocolates tempting me. The Sur del Lago description is "Dark chocolate surrounds a dark chocolate ganache. Made exclusively of chocolate from Western Venezuela." Do you know what that means? It means we need to start planing our next vacation to South America. :) Honestly it doesn't get better than these little nuggets of joy. They have the best chocolate flavor I have ever tasted.

This is a first for me, Passion Fruit. I recently discovered passion fruit desserts through Bouchon Bakery in the Napa Valley, with their passion fruit macaroons and donuts. The Passion Fruit chocolate tastes a lot like the passion fruit donut, a mix of creamy and slightly tart. The Woodhouse description is "A white chocolate ganache exploding with passion fruit, covered in white chocolate."(They didn't mention it has a pretty pink shimmer on it too.)  Considering I don't like fruit this was pretty good, I couldn't eat a bunch of them but thrown in every once in a while it's refreshing.

Raspberry Chambord

Woodhouse Chocolate's are my favorite chocolates in the world. Today's treat was their Raspberry Chambord chocolate. The description they give is "a Chambord scented fresh cream sweetened with raspberry puree, in a white chocolate shell." It is yummy and cute,  but one of my least favorite out of all of their chocolates. I think it's the raspberry I am not fond of, but I wouldn't turn one down.

Congo Bars

 

Congo Bars are basically Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars. I am not a fan of chocolate chip cookies other than cookies and pie, but the pictures I saw of these looked so yummy I had to try them. 

 

 

The only real difference I found with the Congo Bars and regular Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars is the sugar. Congo Bars use all brown sugar instead of a mix of brown and white sugars

    

So the verdict is... edible but not so great. Remember, I don't like Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars and that is exactly what these tasted like. If you like cookie bars than by all means try these. The recipe is easy and it doesn't take much time, but Chocolate Chip Pie is even easier and tastes soooo much better.

Shhh

I'm so excited. Yesterday when I came home there was a package on my front door step. I had no idea what it could be, and when I saw it was addressed to me I was even more excited. What could it be? Then as I opened it I saw the cute little bags inside and I realized it was something that I just ordered on Wednesday. (She must have the best postal service in the US.)  Unfortunately I can't say what's in the bag until June. :)

Alfajores

My daughter had a school project on Peru, and needed to bring in Peruvian food. She searched the Internet and found Alfajores. Alfajores are made with two cookies filled with dulce de leche and covered in powdered sugar. (I covered my own in coconut.)

My daughter choose a recipe from Martha Stewart's website http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/alfajores. The cookies have a consistency more of cake than of a cookie. Even the batter is thin like cake batter. It reminds me of the tops of cupcakes. They were good by themselves, but I think they would be delicious with butter cream frosting sandwiched in between.

The filling of dulce de leche was a little strange to me. It is very similar to caramel but sweeter. The  recipe I used was from my new cookbook Chocolates & Confections, and it was ridiculously easy. Basically you use a can of Sweetened Condensed Milk and poke holes in the top with a can opener. Then you cook the can in water for a few hours. After the cans have cooled you open them and... Ta Da, you have dulce de leche. Next time I try this I am going to add a little salt and maybe some vanilla when I scoop it out into a bow,l to give it more of a caramel flavor.

Chocolate And More Chocolate

Today my afternoon snack was a small box of Woodhouse chocolates from mothers day. Woodhouse Chocolate's have to be the best chocolates ever, and this box was no exception. The letters are dark chocolate ganache and the heart was white chocolate with a silky smooth citrus filling that I couldn't exactly make out. It definitely had a lemon taste but it was subtle and there was a hint of something I couldn't put my finger on. So after further investigating it turns out it was a lavender lemon infusion. It was absolutely decadent. There chocolates are perfection. I am so glad I still have a box of 24 chocolates still left.

My other snack was a peanut butter cup from Bouchon. These things are huge, about 3 inches in diameter, 1 inch thick and weights 3.6 oz. They are more of a hockey puck than a cup. It takes me a few days to eat one, as I savor every morsel. These aren't your average peanut butter cups. They have a nice chocolate shell filled with a soft, not necessarily peanut butter filling. I just can't figure it out. Its not the dry chalky peanut butter, no not these. These have smooth creamy adult flavored filling with a slight crunch coming from a mystery source. I can't try to hard to find the secret to these monsters, or I will be making them everyday. The price for these peanut butter paperweights are somewhere between $6-$10 (As a frequent visitor to this bakery it's best not to know prices.), and worth every penny.

 

Sweet Dreams,

Jamie

Sugartarian

A sugartarian is a person who follows a strict sugar based diet.

I was brought up sugartarian by my parents starting at a young age. Our kitchen had a junk drawer which unlike other houses was actually full of junk food. As a child I wasn't really over indulgent, my parents made me eat "regular" food and my dad even made me eat "irregular" food. (Aligator, wild boar, rattlesnake, bear, deer, elk and who knows what else.) My diet changed drastically around high school. My dad would take me to school and we would have breakfast together, a Coke and a Snickers. (He use to make me waffles, 2 Eggos, 1 scoop ice cream, & chocolate syrup.) At school I would eat candy from some fundraiser or another and a Sprite, or when we would sneak out for Chinese food and I would order a BAG of fortune cookies. Then my mom would make dinner and after dinner was dessert.

My strict diet is very easy for me to follow because I am a very picky eater. I don't like fruit. The only vegatables I would think of eating are carrots, peas, corn and potatoes. I don't eat meat in the shape of an animal.(Ground beef is ok, but not steak, ribs, or chicken legs.) Although I am trying to eat better now, I think I will always be a sugartarian.