August DB 2011 challenge - Candylicious, Tempering Chocolate

This month's challenge was to temper chocolate and make bonbons.

This was a a great challenge I have always wanted to temper chocolate and luckily I got into a great chocolate making class and I made these lovely bonbons.

Also I was extra excited since the challenge was co-hosted by Lisa one of my favourite bloggers and we a special joint project coming soon.

Since I made my chocolate at school they worked out very well I thought. The other forum members really went all out the creativity was amazing.

I have to make this a short-and-sweet posting since I'm writing a "short novel" that needs my full attention at the moment.

Blog-checking lines:
The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

Chocolate School results
I was in Balmain and I saw that a shop was having "chocolate" classes and I was lucky enough to get the last place for the very expensive course. These are the results of the classes (over two days), I made six kinds of bon bons. I have to admit that I got better and better at tempering chocolate some of the bon bons came out very shiny, since the moulds where brand new. The class was very informative and entertaining well worth it I thought! I'm not sure if these count for the challenge since I made these in class using their fancy moulds and top quality equipment but I loved learning so many new processes and techniques. (Sorry I wasn't allow to take photos in the class).

I did learn that you can only get very shiny chocolate coatings by using a mould and the better the quality of the surface of the mould the better the final shine of the coating.

Dolphin - blue/grey coloured choc mould filled with choc truffle marzipan mousse filling
Pink heart - pink choc coating with white choc cream & strawberry jam filling
Heart with dark red swirl - swirled dark red choc coating with chilli choc cream filling
Mint Leaf - dark choc coating with mint choc cream filling
Box with bow - shiny tempered choc coating with praline filling
Oblong topped with orange peel - dark choc coating with orange choc cream filling

Assorted bons bons

August DC 2011 challenge - Appams & Curries

This month's Daring Cooks' challenge hosted by Mary, from Mary Mary Culinary was to make appams with a curry. Appams are thin crisp pancake made with ground rice and coconut milk that has fermented. Appam come out like a cross between a crêpe and a crumpet, with a thin, lacy, crisp edge and a thicker spongy middle. Appams are part of the culinary traditional of South India.

Blog-checking lines: Mary, who writes the delicious blog, Mary Mary Culinary was our August Daring Cooks’ host. Mary chose to show us how delicious South Indian cuisine is! She challenged us to make Appam and another South Indian/Sri Lankan dish to go with the warm flat bread.

I have to say I was happily surprised that appams are easy to make and are super tasty! I love how in the Daring Cooks' we try so many different types of foods from around the world. I can totally recommend the appam recipe to one and all.

Curried vegetables with appams

This is such a great challenge the appam batter is simple to make and to cook. I tried various cooking methods with the fermented batter and I like my appams crisp, thin and very brown. I made a vegetable coconut curry (made with broccoli, carrots and potatoes and a home made curry paste with sour tamarind pulp and curry leaves) to serve with the appams. Thank you so much for the fabulous challenge the appam really has a nice delicate "sour" rice flavour.

I don't have a powerful blender so the appam batter was a little gritty but it cooked up fabulously, I got about 13 appams from the recipe. They must be served immediately since appams don't store well.

Mary thank you for the marvellous challenge, I will be trying some more curry recipes during the month.

Soaked rice


Yeast mixture


Batter after overnight fermentation



Cooking batter into a appam


I like my appams to be thin crisp and brown



Appam with vegetable curry