Friday, January 27, 2012

Chocolate


There are several times throughout the Harry Potter series when chocolate is mentioned without a specification of what kind of chocolate the characters eat. But the first mention of "chocolate" on its own also occurs hand-in-hand with our trio's first conversation with the lovable Professor Lupin:


"A loud snap made them all jump. Professor Lupin was breaking an enormous slab of chocolate into pieces" (Prisoner of Azkaban 84).

Chocolate is kind of an art. Making chocolate is a very involved process that takes place over several days with equipment I definitely don't own. So today, we'll make chocolates, not chocolate. And we're going to use a super easy recipe for "Chocolate Nutella Shapes" I found on the Internet.

A cop out you say?

Who cares? It's delicious, and I want some chocolates.

You Will Need (this recipe makes A LOT of chocolates!):
1 16oz tub chocolate frosting
1 cup Nutella or other Chocolate-Hazelnut spread
2 1/4cups Powdered Sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
Meltable candy coating

1. Place the frosting and nutella in a mixing bowl and beat together on low until combined.

2. Add the powdered sugar and cocoa powder. Mix together on low until completely incorporated. You may need to use a spatula after awhile.


3. After mixing, you should have a mixture with a texture like play-doh (mine was very grainy, but smushed together well. Gather the dough into a ball and roll it out between two sheets of wax paper until it's approximately 1/2" thick.
4. Use a small cookie cutter (really, a small one! these candies are super-sweet!) and cut out as many "cookies" as you can, re-rolling the dough as necessary.


5. Melt your candy coating according to the manufacturer's instructions. Either dip the candies into the coating, using toothpicks, or cut a small corner off the bag and artistically drizzle the melted coating over the candies.


6. Let the candies set. Store in an air-tight container or bag. I recommend keeping them in the fridge.

Very tasty! They taste a lot like frosting... but that is a major ingredient after all. And I would certainly feel much better about myself after eating a couple of these instead of eating a couple scoops of frosting right out of the can! Bonus, they're super cute to give as gifts! Enjoy!

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