throwback thursday - TBT #17

been a few weeks since i showed up and marked attendance here... travel, being a bit under the weather, and sundry other excuses as usual.

i've just not been in the best of spirits lately, and i was thinking of something to post today while still being in a sore mood.
the only thing that came to my mind was that, when you are feeling blue, the best medicine is a little purple :) yup, what quickly cheers me up is thoughts of my beloved cadburys. (to be precise, real old cadbury's, before it became kraft. somehow its never the same inside my head anymore.)

anyway, ended up browsing through vintage ads of cadburys and found this one -

          image from flickr, here

( i wish I find meself some cadburys real soon. right now all i have on hand is some white chocolate, which im using as an emergency substitute.)

mundane monday # 39

i dont get sports. i have no clue about most sports, and least of all football. but seeing this mug on my shelf just reminded me that this is the one opportunity i have, to write something using the words 'sao paulo' or 'brazil' in a sentence.

i received this mug from sao paulo, brazil, last year - and its apparently from a chocolate shop called cacau show and it came filled with truffle like chocolates.

apparently, the words on the mug 'pra vida ficar mais show' roughly mean 'let there be more show to life' - if google's portuguese translation skills are to be trusted. cant argue with that philosophy though, especially when it comes to chocolate. and if you are a sports fan, i do hope you are enjoying all the show thats going on in brazil right now, and having a great time.

so there, i (too!) made a topical post, and managed to bring in football, brazil, sao paolo and chocolate, all into a couple of sentences. everything sounds better when chocolate is involved, of course.

mundane monday - # 17

american kisses... the next best thing after the french ones :)

From mundane monday

since today's pic is coming after a gap, i thought it might as well be something nice :)

this one is from the archives... seeing it today, its also a reminder of some of the happier days gone by...

speaking chocolate-wise, hershey's kisses are one of the few american chocolates that i like. more than the taste, there is something nice about unwrapping a kiss and popping it in when you need a quick 'picker-upper'.
i grew up with cadbury's dairymilk as my first love, and so shall it be always. i even considered it a great personal tragedy when cadbury was taken over by kraft.

i think i first tasted hershey kisses when i was in my teens, and its one of the few from hershey's product line that i like to stock up on, every now and then...

everyone has their own favourite when it comes to chocolate. (i dont know if its humanly possible not to !) for me, somehow when it comes to chocolate, the american ones dont quite match up to the taste and smoothness of the european ones. ghirardelli is one of the american ones that i find ok, and is smoother and tastes much better than the typical hershey bar.

taste apart, sinking your teeth into your favourite chocolate and letting it slowly melt in your mouth is a delightful experience which lifts up your spirits, changes your mood and takes you to another plane of happiness :)

what is your favourite chocolate ? does it kindle in you sweet memories of happy days ?

well, i'll wrap up things for now, hope you all have a sweet week ahead ! see you pretty soon :)

chocolate dipped shortbreads

what could be better than shortbread ? chocolate dipped shortbread. of course.

being, as they are, two of the best tasting things in the history of food, it only makes sense to bring them together...

i love the taste of shortbread, and i love the fact that it is one of the easiest things to make, and takes only a few simple ingredients (3, + salt, to be precise) ...  and chocolate dipping them proved to be no big feat either - so here goes, the result of yet another of my experiments...

shortbread itself is very easy to make - take 1 part all purpose flour (or maida in india), 1/2 part of butter, and 1/4 part of sugar. soften butter to room temperature (not melt), cream or beat together butter and sugar (light brown sugar is best, but you could just make do with normal sugar if you dont have it), add flour, a small pinch of salt, and make a soft dough... a dash of vanilla extract is optional if you want. (if you dont have real extract, just skip it, and dont bother with the imitation essences...) chill the dough in the fridge for a minimum of 30 mins, take out and cut into shapes and bake at 180C/350F for 15-20 mins, till the bottom starts becoming brown. take them out and allow to cool. (you can cut the dough into shapes and then chill them to retain their shapes better, or even make the dough a day ahead and refrigerate it, and bake it when you find time.)

now for the chocolate dipping part, melt chocolate pieces or chocolate chips in a double boiler. a double boiler could be any vessel or pan that sits on top another, with water boiling in the bottom one, the water level not actually touching the upper one. see how i managed to come up with what is likely to be the world's smallest double boiler ?  -

well, it was just perfect for the amount of chocolate i needed - about half a pack or 6 oz (abt 170 gms) of chocolate chips.
the heat from the boiling water will melt the chocolate in a few minutes. keep stirring and the chocolate chips above will transform into something glossy and beautiful like this -

take the cooled down shortbreads and dip them one by one in the melted chocolate, and allow them to set. they are an absolutely pretty sight while still glossy -

see ? all pretty right after their chocolate bath...













once the chocolate cools down and sets, its ready to eat, best as a teatime snack, but irresistible any time of course...

and that, my friends, will bring you one bagpipe's length away from scotland :) sink your teeth in, and enjoy the buttery, crumbly, goodness... !