The situation comes up where you have a party scheduled, and your looking to provided to your guest something special for dessert. How about giving them some chocolate candy? You will find a lot of chocolate candy recipes to select from, and you can do some practice prior to the big event if you pick the recipes that require small amounts of ingredients and even less time.
Chocolate Truffles
One of the chocolate desserts that many people love the most is Truffles. While some cooks might find this intimidating, there are a lot of chocolate candy recipes that you can find that will give you instructions on how to prepare chocolate truffles easily and with minimal effort.
The ingredients that you need are whipping cream and chocolate shavings; you can select the type of chocolate that you want depending on the amount of sweetness or how bitter you want your truffles to be. You will need to scoop the chocolate with an ice cream scoop to create the truffles, then allow them to chill in your refrigerator so they can keep their shape.
The next step is to add the toppings that you want. Some people prefer to roll their truffles in cinnamon, others choose to use cocoa powder or chopped nuts for a rich taste as well as presentation. This recipe is easy enough to make the day of the party, and it is sure to be a big hit.
Chocolate Toffee
If you are a a person who prefers toffee, you can share your favorite treat with your party guests as well. Chocolate candy recipes also include toffee, and you can locate an assortment of recipes that include caramel, dried fruit, or various types of nuts. You will also need butter as well as brown sugar to make a complete recipe.
You can use the stove to make the toffee, and then transfer it to your oven to help in make the sugar solidified. The majority of toffee recipes take roughly 20 minutes to make, so you can make an attempt at the recipes a few time, even in the event your guests are arriving the next day. The chances are, the more often that you make the recipe, the better it is going to taste, so by the time your guests actually have dessert, you will have complete confidence.
Fudge
Another idea to try is fudge, which has the capacity to be similar to toffee but tends to be somewhat richer. You can also add nuts and fruit pieces to this recipe you choose as well, and you should make certain, that you have a high quality baking pan so that your fudge will not stick to the edges.
If you want to give your fudge a dense, rich flavor, use marshmallow cream, and/or evaporated milk. This has the effect of making the fudge sweet and creamy, and you can also add caramel, peanut butter, or any other kind of flavor extract that you want.
by: Korbin Newlyn
ArticleCity
Friday, May 9, 2008
Chocolate Candy Recipes - Winning Recipes to Make Your Next Party a Big Hit
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Is Wine Making Considered A Lost Art
Wine making is one of the fastest-growing hobbies in the United States. It is a skill passed down from generation to generation and each successful generation likes to add some special touches to give there wine a unique taste. Wine making is like anything else, the more you practice, the better you will become. There are five basic components to making wine: harvesting, crushing and pressing, fermentation, clarification, aging and bottling. This hobby is remarkably easy to learn and, compared to other hobbies, amazingly cheap plus it is fun and makes great gifts for that special occasion.
The First Step is the Grapes
The first real step in wine making is definitely growing the grapes and believe it or not this is not that hard to do right at home in your own backyard. For red wines the grape preparation includes mashing the grapes, sometimes with the stems, in a machine or by stomping with your feet which is still practiced in some parts of the world today. Grape preparation for white wines is a more involved process. The complete contact between the juice and the skins after crushing grapes gives red wines their color but to maintain the white wine’s clarity the contact between the skins and the juice is dramatically reduced or you can let the crushed grapes naturally drain producing a lighter white wine. You can use any organic fruit or vegetable to make wine with and this helps to give your wine a unique and extraordinary taste that is all your own.
There are several things to think about when making wine at home, like the sterilization of the equipment, the grapes themselves, the skins, the process used (there are a few different ones), temperatures etc. Harvesting or picking the right grapes is certainly the first step in the actual wine making process. Traditionally the next step is crushing the entire cluster of fresh ripe grapes with either a machine or by foot. Next is the fermentation process which turns the juice into wine and it is one of the most important steps in wine making. The trick is make sure your fermented fruit does not turn to vinegar by processing it to long, just allow it to ferment and become wine, not vinegar. Once fermentation is completed, the clarification process begins and the final stage of the wine making process involves the aging and bottling of wine.
The Fermentation
The fermentation process will slow as the sugar is consumed and in two or three weeks will be essentially complete but depending on the temperature at which the fermentation takes place, the lower temperature the longer to process which means it can take up to a month for the fermentation to finish. You can also stop the progress too soon, known as "stuck fermentation", leaving residual sugar in the wine.
Here is a list of thing to make sure you have before the fermentation process begins:
Campden Tablets: These tablets are added before fermentation and again before bottling.
Pectic Enzyme: This is added to help break down the fruit during fermentation.
The Hydrometer: This allows you to determine the alcohol level of your wine and it will help you to track the progress of your wine's fermentation.
Yeast Energizer: Provides essential minerals, trace nutrients and vitamins for yeast growth and metabolism during fermentation.
Yeast Nutrient: Add to fermentation to increase yeast activity. Juice will begin fermenting naturally within 6-12 hours with the aid of wild yeasts in the air.
The process of creating wine at home is considered a passion and an art form shared by serious wine enthusiasts from around the world. You can learn so much by making wine in your home and it gives you a sense of accomplishment. Home wine making is inexpensive, takes very little time, and the results are good quality wine at a fraction of the prices you would pay in a store.
by: Alyssa Nair
ArticleCity
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Recipe For Ginger Beer, A Wonderful Non Alcoholic Beverage
Ginger beer has a completely different recipe than regular beer, its completely non alcoholic and easy to make, the confusion that people have probably lays in the term beer, its just a common mistake. Ginger beer may be mixed with beer (usually a British ale of some sort) to make one type of shandy. Anyone can make this ginger beer recipe and everyone can drink it, even children.
The process involved of making home made ginger beer is quite simple and quick, it is a lot of fun to make even with your (grand)children. really anyone can make this refreshing recipe. There are a lot of ginger beer recipes you can find online but the one we will give you is especially popular
What do you need for your own Home Made Ginger Beer
Ingredients and Tools:
When you plan to make your own home made ginger beer you need the proper tools and ingredients. For our ginger beer recipe you will need eight pint (plastic) bottles or four quart (plastic) bottles, and bowls where you can make the mixture in.
Basic Ginger Beer Recipe
For this most basic home made ginger beer recipe, the required ingredients are as follows:
- 2 oz. fresh ginger
- 1 tsp. cream of tartar
- 2 lemons
- 1 lb. sugar
- 1 oz. yeast.
- 1 gallon boiling water
The preparation is easy, You need to wash the lemons and slice them in thick rings, after that the ginger root should be roughly crushed. Mix the ginger, lemon, sugar and cream of tartar in a large bowl.
Pour the boiling water over the top, stir the mixture and let it cool to lukewarm temperature. After that you need to stir in the yeast. You'll need to leave it for 24-48 hours to let the yeast go to work. Once the plastic bottle is very hard, and can't be squeezed, the ginger beer is done. At that time you need to skim off the yeast and the mixture strained. After that your ginger beer can be bottled. Place the bottle in the fridge overnight. This halts the yeast and stops the bottle exploding. Once the ginger beer is chilled, pour it into a glass and enjoy. When you just follow this simple ginger beer recipe you can't go wrong.
Exploding bottles
Because of the yeast, ginger beer can be a very aggressive fermenter, it produces high pressure very rapidly. So it is better not to bottle ginger beer in glass bottles. You also should not leave the finished ginger beer in a closed up warm place, because this can result in generating enough pressure to explode the lid of.
This is just one, although very popular, recipe for ginger beer. On the internet or at your favorite brewing supply store you can find many more.
Have fun in making this delicious Ginger Beer recipe, and enjoy making it together with your children or grandchildren. Together you can make little changes to make it your personal Ginger Beer recipe.
by: Drew Brown
ArticleCity
Choosing the Right Bean to Cup Coffee Machine
Bean to cup coffee machines enable the caterer to serve superb tasting fresh espresso coffee drinks and speciality coffee variations at the touch of the button with the minimum of fuss.
Customers demand quality and choice. Gone are the days of offering a choice of a black or white coffee. Nowadays it is important to offer the very best coffee and coffee variations in different cup sizes together with a decaffeinated option.
The most convenient way of supplying this insatiable demand is with a bean to cup machine.
Bean to cup machine capacity (usage) is usually divided into three criteria.
Light volume - serving between to 30-80 cups a day
Medium volume - serving 100-200 cups a day
High volume - serving 250+ cups a day
If your expected number of cups per day is close to the overlap of volume then we recommend that you go for the next model up.
Perhaps the most important thing to consider when choosing a machine is whether to go for a model with a 'built in' milk frother'.
Cheaper models will not have a built in milk frother, but may have the option of an 'add on' unit that froths the milk. The more expensive models have a fully automatic milk frother built into the machine which is also refrigerated to keep the milk cool.
Since a high percentage of drinks served will likely contain frothed milk it only really makes sense to go for the fully automatic built in versions unless your budget is very restrictive. Add-on milk frothers can be clumsy and not function to a consistent basis. There is nothing more frustrating to a busy caterer than a shop full of customers and milk that won't froth!
If your budget is tight it is best to compromise on some other features rather than the fully automatic frother option. If you are happy for you or your staff to froth milk by hand then you might as well go for the more traditional espresso machine instead and froth the milk whilst waiting for the coffee to come through the group head.
Recently there have appeared on the market bean to cup machines which incorporate a canister of powdered milk for those who do not want the inconvenience of fresh milk, although this is a trade off with sacrificing overall drink quality.
Bean to cup machines are big business. There are now a large number of manufacturers of bean to cup machines and the number is growing all the time.
It is best to choose a model from a manufacture that they have been producing for a number of years so that any initial problems have long since been ironed out. Now is not the time to be a guinea pig with a brand new model however fantastic it may seem.
Most manufacturers produce a series of models with different functions and features suitable for low, medium and high volume coffee production.
This is where you pays your money and takes your choice!
Machines are available with one, two, three or even four bean hoppers. This gives extra capacity for busy periods and / or the option of a decaffeinated coffee.
Auditing facilities are also available on the top models where information about the drinks served over any given period can be obtained and maybe downloaded onto a computer for later analysis.
Digital displays, visual looks should also be considered before making your final choice. Note that many of the top models are available in a choice of colours to match the decor of the establishment.
However as already mentioned the two most important things to establish are that the machine can cope with expected demand and that it has a built in milk frother. All other features can be considered secondary.
Before contacting a potential supplier make sure you have decided which size and what features you would like from your machine with reference to this report. That way you will not be persuaded to upgrade or pay for things you do not really require.
Don't forget to pay particular attention to the servicing costs and water treatment systems.
Remember that without a built-in milk frother you will have to froth the milk by hand and that may cause problems.
However a reliable and well maintained bean to cup machine should give many years of profitable service and provide excellent quality delicious drinks to your customers.
by: Fenton Wayne
ArticleCity
Gourmet Coffee And Charity
Charity starts at home. Most people start their day drinking a cup of coffee. What a great way to start the day - knowing you are helping to make the world a better place.
Let's start with Fair Trade. Fair Trade is a viable solution to this crisis, assuring consumers that the coffee we drink was purchased under fair conditions. To become Fair Trade certified, an importer must meet stringent international criteria and pay an American company an astronimical fee to use the label; paying a minimum price per pound of a dollar.26, providing much needed credit to farmers, and providing technical assistance such as help transitioning to organic farming. Fair Trade for coffee farmers means community development, health, education, and environmental stewardship. The beauty of Fair Trade is it helps farmers in third world countries - so instead of getting $.50 per pound they get $1.50 per pound. A noble concept and should be at the basic of every purchase as a minimum. If given the choice choose Fair Trade over non Fair Trade.
But this is settling -when you can do so much more. There are now coffee companies that use their profits to help so many worthy causes.
There are a few great gourmet coffee companies that give all their profits to help so many worthy causes. For example two companies come to mind:Mission Grounds Gourmet Coffee and Coffee for Children give all their profits to helping children. And best of all they are Fair Trade so they are helping support the small farmers on the back end. But more importantly instead of helping a Starbucks fill their coffers with more profits you are helping impoverished children with the retail profits.
We believe in a total transformation of the coffee industry, so that all coffee sold in this country should be as a minimum a Fair Trade Certified, or if produced on a plantation, that workers' rights should be guaranteed and independently monitored. Our view includes social justice and environmental sustainability: all coffee should be certified organic and shade grown where applicable. And all these coffees should also be Shade Grown and Bird certified coffee.
But more importantly the coffee should be used to help children or the elderly. Can you imagine the help that would come from the $5 billion coffee industry helping homeless children? So next time you are Sipping on that $6 cup of coffee and on that next time you sit inside your Starbucks and try to figure out how you can make the world a better place.
by: George Moore
ArticleCity