Lemon truffles with a pepper-warm coating

Sneaky truffles, I'd say. In a sense that their lemon-y filling and pepper-warm coating together create an almost healthy feeling in your mouth. Lemon-y and warm. Just like a cuppa hot tea, only that actually you eat a handful of truffles!;)

Lemon and black pepper are another great combination magnifico that I strongly advise to try in all variations that come to mind!

Lemon truffles with a pepper-warm coating
(makes about 30)

200 g white chocolate
½ dl double cream
at least 1 tbsp lemon juice

160 g white chocolate
¼ - ½ tsp black pepper

1. Chop the chocolate to little pieces.
   
2. Heat the double cream to boiling point and pour it onto the chocolate ight away. Mix well, until the mixture is smooth. Add lemon juice. Place the mixture into the fridge for about a half an hour.
3. Make little balls out of the mixture and then place them into teh fridge to harden for some more time.
4. Melt te remaining chocolate over a waterbath and add pepper to it. Coat the truffles with this chocolate and let them harden on foil or on parchment paper. Store in the fridge.

White chocolate, that often feels so cloy, gains freshness and vividness from the lemon juice. If white chocolate were a lady of respectable age then in these truffles she'd certainly be young again...:) At first the pepper is a balancing flavour but in the end it leaves the mouth sighing warmly in the most pleasant way possible. Contrasts and novelty. Freshness and warmth.

One thing's for sure. Black pepper declares itself as a true dessert spice. I recommend to remember that;)

This entry also participates in the most gorgeous food blogging event of all, Sugar High Friday. This time the host is the wonderful Helen of Tartelette and the theme (again!) CITRUS.

Hazelnut cookies with black pepper and a dash of rosewater

I am often skeptical about all sorts of cookies. I frown. I try to imagine them in my mouth. I assure myself they're not good for anything and then go and eat some yoghurt instead. But being a food blogger, there are a number of other food bloggers I'd believe even if they told me that salmon flavoured hot chocolate was a real treat. Or, maybe, let's just limit that to 'a dash of pepper exalts the flavor of hazelnuts like no other'.


Clotilde was so very right about that statement when altering a cookie recipe by Laurence Salomon. This was already my second batch! And I seldom make a second batch! Nevertheless these got overbaked a little - never pick up your phone when you know you have to take your cookies out of the oven in no time!


Hazelnut cookies with black pepper and rosewater
(Clotilde's adaption from Laurence Salomon's 'Fondre de plaisir')

100 g whole hazelnuts
200 g wheat flour
70 g oat flakes
120 g sugar
1 tsp baking soda
a good pinch salt
1/4 tsp (freshly ground) black pepper
130 g butter, chilled and finely diced
2 tbsp rose water (can be replaced with plain water)

1. Toast the hazelnuts in a dry skillet until fragrant. Rub them in a clean dishcloth while they're still warm to remove the husks and chop roughly after they've cooled down
2. Combine the hazelnuts well with the rest of the dry ingredients, from flour to pepper, in a medium mixing bowl.
3. Add the diced butter and rub it into the dry ingredients with your fingers or a wire pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse meal.
4. Add the rose water and stir it in until the dough comes together just enough that you can gather it in two balls.
5. Cover the bowl and set aside somewhere cool for 1 hour.
6. Preheat the oven to 150°C and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Shape the dough into balls a bit larger than walnuts, flatten them slightly, and place them on the prepared baking sheet, leaving them a little elbowroom to expand.
7. Bake for 25 minutes, until golden and set. Let stand for 5 minutes on the baking sheet before transfering to a rack to cool completely.

The cookies are crumbly, they're moderately sweet, they're unique in their own way. The pepper completes the taste instead of fighting it and does create a nice warm feeling in the throat. Weird to say this, but it kind of warms up the taste too. Rosewater is recognisable but not striking.

In the end you'll get a small bowlful of hazelnut cookies. Not pepper cookies. Not rosewater cookies. Hazelnut cookies - crumbly and wonderful, with little surprises, perfect enjoyed together with cold milk.

And perfect for a cosy girls' night.