chocolate treats with lemon

This recipe can be done with any kind of cake you like. In fact, I started it the first time with remains of cake that I had. Later on I realised that I can do this recipe as well with brownies. I used a cake that has not butter but olive oil and can be served for many days keeping its moisture. Let's go...

Preperation time: 30' (totally)
Baking time: 45' (approximately)
Waiting time: 1 day (ideally)
Serves: 50 treats (depending on the molds you are about to use, With the chocolate molds that I used even 70 treats)


Ingredients
300 gr yogurt
170 gr olive oil
250 gr water
300 gr sugar
half tea spoon carbonated soda
2 tea spoons baking powder
half tea spoon salt
65 gr cocoa powder
260 gr plain flour
2 eggs gr (medium size)
1 tea spoon nutmeg powder
lemon zest (from 2 lemons)

For the coverage:
300 gr chocolare 55-57%

Preheat the oven
Put in a bowl all ingredients for the cake without the lemon zest and beat with a hand mixer until you mix all ingredients to fully homogenized. Your mixture will look like the one of crepes. Not thick. At the end add the lemon and mix to well incorporate.

Use a silicon mold or a dish covered with baking paper inside. Put the cake mixture inside, adjust it and bake it for 45'. You may check if your cake is ready with a wood stick.

Ideally you should make the little treats at least 3 days after having baked your cake. The cake basis should not be freshly baked. Nevertheless it will be very moist in a way that you will not need to use any ingredient further to make little balls. The cake itself is sufficient. 

Just take little pieces of cake and mold them to your hand to have it approximately like in the picture. Depending always on the mold that you will use you adjust the size and and the way you make it in your hands.

Put in the refrigerator for at least 1 day so that they become really firm. 

Take off the refrigerator and leave to room temperature. Ideally after 5-10 minutes they will be ready for the coverage. Moist and little cool.

Melt to bain marie the chocolate. Throw three quarters of the chocolate to a bowl and mix softly until it cools a little bit ( try chocolate in your lips and if it seems lukewarm or cool then it's ready). Then add the rest of the remaining chocolate and mix well until temperature is little cool (again test with lips). This is the quicker and easier for you to have a nice shiny chocolate on top. That's in fact one of the methods used to make chocolate keep bright and shiny texture while covering treats.

Tips

• You may prepare the cake many days before you wish to treat. One day before, take it off the refrigeration, prepare chocolate as described and ready to serve,
• If you don't want to use it all, you can split quantity of cake to your refrigerator (already in molds), depending on how many you wish to cover with chocolate and treat.
• As I said you can try any cake you like. An extreme idea would be to have different kind of cakes and make a combination of different tastes. For example, you could have a vanilla cake with orange, classic chocolate cake, possibly a brownie, vanilla cake with chocolate chips. fruit cake. Be careful though so that the cakes you chose are tasty but not dry. You need cakes keeping moist texture in order to easily mold them.  
• Make little treats for birthday parties and for aperitifs with friends. They are festive, they last many days (if you don't eat them all!!!!!) and they look stylish I believe to your table. Enjoy!

Love,

Les Delices d' Eleni

Sugar paste Christmas decorations

This time no  particular words will follow this post. All you need is sugar paste, your favorite cutters to apply, paste colors and your rolling pin.

Before you start some tips for you:

• All sugar pastes that you find in commerce possibly don't provide results the same way. The sugar paste has the texture resembling to plasticine: but it's edible. For the below designs and for my Christmas decorations I started using the white "Artisan Bakery". At the beginning paste was little hard but while molding texture become softer and easy to use.
• Paste colors enable you transform a hite sugar paste to any combined color you want. Paste colors can be found in specific shops for sugar art material. You may find plenty colors. The ones used in this particular post are Red Christmas, Blue Navy (dark blue) and Leaf Green. Use the edge of a toothpick to take a some color and as you see in the pictures below you just press it in the sugar paste. Then start molding until you get homogenized color.  
• To make your decorations last and keep their hard shape (moisture is the ennemy of the paste) you may find in commerce in specific shops (or eshops) dealing with sugar art material a special powder called Tylo (CMC). For my "bio" friends I would recommend tragacanth gum but is defintely much more expensive. Depending on what you want to make everytime you should not exaggerate in using because possibly you might provoke an extreme hardness to your paste texture and consequently will not be able to work with your hands or possibly would cause rips to your paste. So pay attention. I would recommend for every 50 gr of paste start with a tea spoon of tylo, mold with your hands. If texture starts to harden then you are on the safe road to create.
• Use Tylo or Tragacanth Gum after you have applied the color you want in your paste. Texture of paste is not the same while applying color in the white one.
• You may find as well, possibly in super markets abroad, pearls. In various colours small, big. With silver pearls I made the lamps of my little trees. 
• You may find as well special cutters for Christmas in many sizes... These cutters can be as well used to make cookies.
• The most precious tip of all: Put your kids in the kitchen, create all together. It's such a joy! My kids helped me in the whole process and next time we will do with their friends as well... 

Unfortunately my dear camera went on vacation and asked me to get a new one... Hopefuly soon Santa Claus is coming to town... with gifts (crossing fingers!!!!)..

All you need is inspiration, imagination, festive spirit and little time. For me working with sugar paste little tools and cutters is definitely psychotherapy!

All the above pictures are hammy and are related to my bazaar activity in December. Soon you will see as well their final placement in appearance in sweets. It's only the beginning....

Put some music, get your kids and friends and make sugar paste little miracles all together. Because after all Christmas always brings festive and joyful mood! Have fun...