Chocolate Covered Walnuts

I’ve been experimenting with chocolate and melting it to make candy, pour over ice-cream, dip with muffins and generally just melting chocolate. It’s pretty fun. I do believe I have become a chocolate-pyromaniac. Such happiness while watching chocolate break down and change form.

I had half a kilogram of walnuts just sitting in my cupboard, and I figured it was time to coat them in chocolate. I used a cup-and-a-half of walnuts and 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate. Using an idea from Frugal Feeding’s chocolate truffle recipe, I decided to add some orange zest just to play up the flavours a little. With most nuts that are covered in chocolate, once you bite through the choco-layer the flavour and texture of the nut tends to overplay the cocoa, so I wanted some other flavour to linger. Orange seemed like a tried, tested (and good!) flavouring option.

I simply toasted the walnuts, melted the chocolate in my makeshift double boiler and added some orange zest. Then take walnut-dip in chocolate-cool-eat.

CHOCOLATE COVERED WALNUTS

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/12 cup walnuts
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 teaspoon orange zest

METHOD

• Toast the walnuts on a tawa or nonstick pan, keep aside.
• In a double boiler, melt the chocolate and fold in the orange zest and combine evenly.
• Dip the walnuts in chocolate, cool and allow to set.
• If you have any leftover orange zest, you can sprinkle a little on each walnut for fun.

These were so yummy, and the orange gave it such a kick! I used such a small amount of orange zest, but that lent enormous flavour and a gentle fragrance. As I ate, I was thinking- when the natural stuff can taste so good, why would anyone ever want to use artificial flavouring? I think my next project should be to procure some vanilla pods and make my own vanilla sugar.

Finally, Some Candy

If you are a food blogger who runs a recipe blog, then at some point you will adapt a recipe from Dorie Greenspan. I mean, how can you not? When it comes to all things sweet and fluffy and chocolatey, she is the one to go to. And I do believe it’s rather fashionable to try out Dorie’s recipes.

I have wanted to make something sweet for a while now, but since my baking skills need to be kneaded into shape, (Wham! Double-decker bad pun!) I wanted a simple no-bake recipe that used chocolate. And I found this little gem on Dorie’s site.

My version of Dorie’s chocolate crunchies!

Chocolate crunchies are so easy that it would be rather difficult to screw them up. Serioulsy. And I told myself that if I did mess it up, then I’m not worthy of eating chocolate.

I changed the recipe around a little bit and added more chocolate. I mixed everything together with melted semi-sweet dark chocolate first, and once it cooled, dipped the mounds of candy mixture into melted milk chocolate. (Hence the title of ‘double’ chocolate crunchies.) In one bite, you get several rich flavours: creamy milk chocolate, the denser dark chocolate, and a hint of a smoky taste with the toasted walnuts.

Dark chocolate

Bringing it all together

DOUBLE CHOCOLATE CRUNCHIES (Adapted From Dorie Greenspan)

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup toasted walnuts or pecans

1/2 cup soft raisins

1 cup corn flakes

3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup milk chocolate chips

METHOD

1) Finely chop the nuts and toss them into a bowl along with the raisins and corn flakes.

2) Gently melt the dark chocolate chips in the top of a double boiler or in a microwave oven on low power.  Pour the chocolate into the bowl and stir until all of the ingredients are evenly coated.

3) Drop mounds of the candy mixture onto waxed paper or foil. You can use a cookie scoop or teaspoon for this. Allow to cool.

4) Next, gently melt the milk chocolate chips.

5) Coat the cooled candy mounds with the melted milk chocolate- you can use a wooden spoon or just dip them into the melted chocolate. Once cool, place the candy mounds on paper petit-four cups or onto a sheet of wax paper.  Chill for at least one hour before serving.

Candy mounds before they are dipped in milk chocolate

This candy is very simple to make, and sooo good! And you don’t even need phancy ingredients. Just some good quality chocolate, and the rest of the stuff will not be difficult to come by at all.

I didn’t have petit-fours cups so I popped two pieces into a cupcake liner instead!

Are any of you fans of Ms Greenspan?

Date And Walnut Cake

Qatar has an ABUNDANCE of dates and date palms. It’s probably the only fruit that can flourish in those conditions. Driving around the city of Doha, all you’ll notice are the date palms- lining the roads, in gardens, along the driveways. So, it was only natural that my mom-in-law decided to make a yummy date and walnut cake. My mom-in-law was the chief baker while I helped her. 

Dates soaking

For this recipe, the dates need to soak for about 5 hours in water+bicarbonate of soda so that they get nice and soft and the sinewy strands fall off the fruit.

Walnuts

Dates- all mashed up

Once they’ve soaked, you need to make a mushy date mixture- I just used my hands, but you can use a spoon if you like

The butter, flour, eggs and sugar mix

The batter

The dates and walnuts have been added and the batter is now ready for the oven

Out of the oven

Voila

And that’s all there is to it 😛

 This cake is moist and chewy and crunchy all at the same time which is why I love it. And it isn’t clawingly sweet either. I ate 4 pieces at a go!

The recipe we followed was adapted from allrecipes.co.uk, which can be found here.