Craft Shows

I am just back from my third holiday show in 10 days. It was fun and I enjoy meeting the other vendors and finding out what people are doing to be creative and give a piece of themselves to the world. The world of craft shows is for those of us who create and for the world around us that wants to be a part of this and support our talent. This is a beautiful thing to watch. This is why I go to the Farmer's Market regularly and why I buy from other local vendors. Without sounding preachy, I will say that it feels like a win-win situation.

This blog post is dedicated to Jessica, who I met today. She reminded me of why I like to/need to blog. Sometimes I think that no one reads this, but she set me straight today. Thank you!

Yours in chocolate!

The Truffle Lady
Emily

Food Passion

After a full and amazing summer, I'm now getting back into the kitchen. Being at "my kitchen", the commercial kitchen that I rent, has a very comforting feeling for me. As I make a batch of ganache and smell the melted chocolate, I am instantly reminded of why I do this. I love good chocolate and I want to share my creations with the world!

Seeing Julie and Julia was a great time for me. I thought that I would just relate to the Julia character in some way, but I found myself relating to Julie, too! I guess it is the blogger in me.

Cheers to all the foodies out there that have a passion for food and want to share it with the world.

Yours in chocolate,

Emily
The Truffle Lady

Learning the Art of Truffle Making

On Monday, April 20, 2009, I will be demonstrating and teaching the art of making Raspberry Truffles. Everyone participating will have a hands on experience in making ganache, rolling truffle balls, dipping into melted chocolate and decorating the truffles to give them your our unique style.

I will also be teaching how to make hand dipped cookies. All participants will leave with a box of truffles and an assortment of hand dipped cookies.

This workshop will be held at the Westwood Breezeway, 13554 Triadelphia Road in Ellicott City, MD, 21042. 7-9 pm. Total cost is $45 which includes all material fees.

Please, contact Emily for more details: Emily@TrufflesbyEmily.com

Yours in Chocolate,

Emily
The Truffle Lady

Playing with Chocolate

Last week I had the opportunity to play with chocolate with a new friend, Shari. I am working on a new flavor, lavender, and Shari had some ideas for me. To make my lavender truffle, I have infused the dried lavender flowers into the cream. This is done by steeping the cream with the flowers and letting it sit for about 10 minutes. The flowers are then strained out and the cream is added to the chocolate. The whole beautiful combination is stirred until all of the chocolate is melted. Then a bit of butter is added to enhance the smoothness of the truffle. Shari thought that this would be a good time to add lavender essence to boost the flavor. It was a strong addition.

It made me think about my taste palette. I have always worked at making my truffles delicious, but I have steered away from flavors that will be so strong that the chocolate gets lost in the flavor. My chocolate philosophy is to enhance the flavor of the chocolate and not overpower it. Sometimes, it's a very subtle difference.

While we were playing with flavor combinations, we also tried adding blood orange essense to bittersweet chocolate. This was a great combination. The orange could be tasted and smelled, but it didn't overpower.

I am thinking about creating a dairy free truffle and we played with different ways of substituting for both the cream and the butter. We used a nut based product called Mimiccream and coconut oil to replace the butter. I was curious about adding saffron to the dark chocolate. This was a very complex truffle flavor combination. Our flavors weren't quite right, but we felt like we were on to something and I will definately be playing with those flavors more.

What a wonderful time. Thanks, Shari!

Yours in chocolate,

Emily
The Truffle Lady

Chocolate Covered stawberries

Chocolate covered strawberries are a great way to say thank you or I love you to a special someone. If you don't have time to make a batch of truffles, try making some chocolate covered strawberries. It's easy! This is what you need:

about 8 oz. of melting chocolate (I suggest Bakers semi sweet chocolate baking bars), a box of large strawberries cleaned and patted dry (pull out any soft strawberries and use for another dish), a cookie sheet lined with wax paper, and an microwave safe medium bowl.

Break up the chocolate and put it into a clean microwave safe bowl. Put it into the microwave on power 8 for 1 minute. Stir. Repeat for 30 second intervals at power 5 until the chocolate is fully melted.

Take the strawberries and holding them delicately at the top (not by the greens) dip them into the chocolate about 3/4 of the way in. The idea is to leave some of the red from the strawberry show. Let the extra chocolate drip back into the bowl and place very delicately onto the wax paper lined cookie sheet. Continue until all of the strawberries are dipped!

If you have left over chocolate, find some yummies from your pantry that you might like to dip into the chocolate. Here are some examples: graham crackers or your favorite cookies, pretzels, potato chips, marshmallows, dried apricots. The list can go on and on so be creative and have fun!!

And of course, let me know if you have any questions.

Yours in chocolate!

Emily Marcovitz
The Truffle Lady

Put some "sin" in your truffle

The winner of the most recent truffle naming contest is Sharon of Reisterstown. Her winning name is Almond Sin-amon! We thought it was to the point while adding some fun to the title. Let me know if you would like to try this new flavor, maybe a nice early summer gift just for you!

Order your Almond Sin-amon truffles by visiting the website at Emily.

Yours in chocolate,

Emily
The Truffle Lady

Cinnamon Almond Truffle Naming Contest

It's time for another truffle naming contest. This new flavor is made with bittersweet chocolate, almond paste and cinnamon in the ganache. On the outside is more bittersweet chocolate and chopped almonds on top. It is not a very sweet truffle, but a very rich truffle that will be enjoyed by those that love dark chocolate.

Now is the fun part for you!

To enter the truffle contest, send an email with your truffle flavor name to yummy@TrufflesByEmily.com Make sure to include your name. Please, limit your entries to 2 per person. I will be taking truffle flavor names until 8pm Wednesday, June 4th.

The contest will be judged by a select group of truffle eaters. The names of the submitters will be kept anonymous to them. I will post the winning entry here on my blog by Friday, June 6th.

The winner of the contest will receive a FREE 10 piece box of this new flavor delivered (if local.) If the winning entry comes from someone out of the local delivery area, that person will be shipped a 10 piece box at the earliest time that shipping is resumed. (Truffles by Emily does not ship in warm weather months.) In the event of multiple entries of a winning flavor, the prize will go to the first person to submit the entry.

One note of advice, the name should give some indication of what flavors the person is about to eat.

Email any questions to emily@trufflesbyemily.com.

Have fun and good luck!

Emily
The Truffle Lady