The best mistakes...

Every once in a while I will try my hand at something I have never done before. Or I return to something I haven't made in a long time. That this doesn't always work out right was proven to me over Christmas. To be honest, I wasn't going to write this post; I would like you to believe that I do not make mistakes, that I am the perfect kitchen goddess. But, I can't. Because I do mess up from time to time.

It was decided that I was going to make truffles. Chocolate truffles that is. Because it's Christmas. And because we had a surplus of chocolate. Now, I have made plenty of dark-chocolate truffles in my time; at least 20 years ago. It's a lot of hassle and usually the chocolate goes before I even have the chance of saying "Let's make truffles". We only had a little dark chocolate but we had plenty of white chocolate. And so, white-chocolate truffles it was going to be. With apricots and walnuts and marbled with dark chocolate. They were fantastic. Or, at least, they would have been if I had remembered how to make truffles...

I didn't... I forgot that the easiest way is to heat cream and let the chocolate slowly dissolve into it... And I had forgotten that white chocolate has such a high fat content that when you melt the chocolate and add in the cold cream it splits. No matter how much you stir, it splits!

What I was left with was a bowl of a semi-set, glue-y, sticky mess (lumpy because of the walnuts and pieces of dried apricot) in the middle of a pool of oil. Now, if warm eggs split you can bring them back together again by whisking in a tablespoon of ice-cold water. I knew that this wouldn't work with chocolate but I hoped that vigorous whisking with an electric hand whisk would do the job. It didn't. It was fast turning into a day of 'it didn'ts'. Leaving me feeling rather miserable. And then I remembered; heat cream, equivalent to half the content of chocolate, and - once warm - stir in the chocolate until fully incorporated. It worked... And the truffles were beautiful. Or, they would have been if I hadn't incorporated all the oil in as well.

I did... I forgot that it was the fat that had caused it to split in the first place. I didn't remember to just incorporate the solids... Although it didn't split again, I was now left with something the consistency of icing (runny-ish icing, to say the least)... My husband had a brainwave: "Stick it in the fridge and see if it will set solid". I did. It didn't... I was left with... well... with this:

It tastes great. Scratch that, it taste sublime. But it isn't set into something I can turn into truffles. It is sticky, lumpy (still the walnuts and apricots), and the consistency of your favourite brand of hazelnut-chocolate paste.

Forget everything I have just said. I am a true kitchen goddess. There is no need to cry over spilled milk, broken cake or a recipe that has gone wrong. Taste is what matters.
Are you tired of spending a mass of money on chocolate spread? Would you like to know exactly what you give yourself and your children to eat? Are you worn down by all the additives in commercially bought hazelnut spreads? Fear not, you can easily make your own and it won't cost you an arm and a leg. Better yet, rather than being stuck with milk chocolate paste and hazelnuts: by making your own, you decide what flavour to use. Everything is possible: white chocolate with walnuts, milk chocolate with Brazil nuts, dark chocolate with almonds, three-chocolate swirl. If you can think of it, you can make it.

Perfect Chocolate Spread

Ingredients:

• 400 gram of your favourite chocolate (milk, white, dark: with or without added flavours) (it can be as expensive, or as cheap, as you like)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
• 284 millilitre double cream (1 tub)
• nuts and/or dried fruit of your choice

Method:

1. Take a pan and fill it half with cold water and place on the stove, bringing the water to the boil
2. Place a heatproof bowl on top of the pan
• Make sure that the bowl does not touch the water but that it seals off the pan completely - you want the water to stay in the pan and no steam escaping
3. Break the chocolate into the bowl and add the cream
4. Let the chocolate melt as the cream and the bowl warm up
5. In the mean time, chop the nuts and/or dried fruit as coarsely (or finely) as you like
6. Stir the nuts/fruit (and the vanilla extract, if using) into the chocolate
7. Leave the chocolate to cool
• If the mixture is setting too solid, mix in some extra cream once cold

Flavour combinations that will work well:

• white chocolate:
• tart fruit such as apricots, raspberries, cranberries and sour cherries (all dried)
• to keep the chocolate as white as possible, try not to break the fruit as much as possible by stirring it in gently just before you leave it to cool
• ground cardamom
• any kind of nut
• milk chocolate:
• banana, coconut, raisins and tart fruits as above (all dried) (blitz the dried banana to a powder so that you don't break your teeth on it)
• any kind of nut
• for a more adult version: replace up to half of the cream with Baileys or rum
• dark chocolate
• strong flavours such as orange and ginger (both candied) but also sour cherries
• any kind of nut
• spices such as cinnamon or ground ginger
• for a more adult version: replace up to half of the cream with Cointreau, Tia Maria, rum or brandy

Try not to get too many air bubbles into your chocolate as this will decrease the amount of time you can keep it. Leave the chocolate in the bowl or scoop into sterilised jars.

You can use the chocolate spread on sandwiches or you can loosen the paste a little with some cream and use as fillings or icing on cakes and biscuits.

That leaves me just with:

Enjoy!