Truffles; spiced almonds

Press, 5 December 1979, Page 19

Truffles; spiced almonds

CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES These are rich biscuits that don’t need baking. Keep them in the refrigerator so they stav firm even when the weather is hot. Ingredients: J packet of wine biscuits IOOg butter i cup cocoa 1 cup icing sugar j cup coconut 2 tablespoons sherry Method: Put the biscuits in a plastic bag and bang them with a rolling pin until they are completely broken into crumbs. Put the butter in a bowl. Soften it if it is cold, but do not melt it. Put it in a bowl and mix it with the cocoa, icing sugar and coconut, then add the biscuits and the sherry. Stir well, and put the mixture in the refrigerator for ten minutes if it is a hot day. Roll small balls, then roll them in extra coconut in a small bowl. Put them in the refrigerator to get hard, then put them in a jar or tin and keep them in a cold place. Note: These biscuits may be stored in the freezer one to two months. Packed in an at- .. active container they make good presents. If you replace some of the

biscuit crumbs with cake crumbs, reduce the amount of butter used. The finer the crumbs, the firmer the biscuits will be. SPICED ALMONDS When my sisters and I were young we were taken “visiting” with my mother. At one house we had iceblocks in our drinks — a great novelty. Another lady made large quantities ofNhe most delicious custard squares I have ever eaten; someone esle let us operate their soda siphon; and at yet another house a tin of spiced sugared almonds was produced regularly. They are expansive to make, these days, but they taste just as good as they always did, and if you put them in an airtight container and hide it cleverly,

you can produce a few almonds to be nibbled with drinks, for weeks on end. Ingredients: 500 g (2 cups) unblanched almonds 1 egg white | cup castor sugar 1 cup cornflour 2 teaspoons salt 2 teaspoons cinnamon 1 teaspoon mixed spice I teaspoon ground ginger Method: Pour boiling water over almonds, in a sieve or colander. Do not let almonds stand in boiling water and do not remove skins. Leave almonds to drain then mix them with the unbeaten egg white in a large shallow bowl, until nuts are evenly coated. Mix the remaining ingredients together in a bowl, transfer them to a

seive, and sprinkle them, through the sieve, over the almonds. Turn nuts, to coat as evenly as possible with the spicy coating, then spread them out on a greased oven slide, so they do not touch each other. Bake at 130 deg. C (250 deg. F) for 1 to 1J hours or until coating has set. Do not use higher temperatures, or nuts will brown before the coating is crisp. Lift nuts off the oven slide while they are hot. If they cool and stick to the slide before you have removed them all. put the oven slide back in the oven for a few minutes, until you can remove them easily. Store nuts in airtight jars as soon as they are cold. If nuts soften on storage, reheat them in a low oven until they are crisp.