Virginia Drader

Truffles are a great gift to give during the Christmas season. When baking with only a few ingredients I want to stress how important it is to use only the best. My favorite chocolate to bake with is Bernard Callebaut however; Valrona, Ghirardelli and Callebaut are also excellent options. My favorite brand of vanilla is Nielson Massey, the flavour is great and will really bring out the other flavours in your baked goods. I like to use 3 different types of vanilla:

Mexican Vanilla- creamy spicy flavour, goes well with warmflavours such as chocolate and cinnamon

Tahitian Vanilla- fruity cherry like flavour, goes well with fruit based baking

Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla- creamy, sweet and velvety flavour, all purpose vanilla, good in baked goods as well as salad dressings and barbeque sauces

(more…)

If you like crunch and munch then this is the recipe for you. It would be hard to find a recipe for poppycock that tastes as good as this one. The only tricky part is heating the sugar mixture to the right temperature, as long as you have a candy thermometer this will not be a problem. I will warn you though once you start eating this it is very hard to stop! (more…)

This recipe was from one of my aunts. I have tried other recipes for caramels over the years but I always come back to this one. They are surprisingly easy to make despite what you may think. However, I would strongly recommend that you use a candy thermometer since getting the mixture to the right temperature is key to their success. Additionally, I like to use vanilla bean paste instead of vanilla extract so that you get small flecks of vanilla bean throughout the caramels, so pretty! (more…)