Cinnaniminon

Yesterday these

turned into these

And then I ate too many.

Chocolate sauce

Chocolate milk, originally uploaded by Hazelnutgirl.

There are a lot of basics that people make for themselves instead of buying them - crackers, marshmallows, deodorant, spreadable butter to name just a few that I've either done sporadically or plan to. But the one thing I do make and will always make and will never, ever buy the commercial alternative to again is chocolate syrup. I used to think that the Hershey's syrup was great, and then I went for several years without having any, until Hazel began to like chocolate milk and since it's the only milk she'll drink (me too, can't imagine anything more disgusting than a glass of plain milk. Ugh!) I dutifully bought the Hersheys. Now I don't know if my tastes had changed in the intervening years, or their recipe had, but it was awful. Teeth-achingly sweet, not very chocolatey, and fairly expensive. I remembered that when I was a kid Mum used to make chocolate syrup for icecream and milk and I thought I'd give it a go again. People, you NEED to make this yourself too, it's the best! And really easy to make. There were masses of recipes online so I grabbed a few and started experimenting. Here is my recipe:

Chocolate Syrup

1 slightly heaped cup of cocoa*, sifted
1.5 cups sugar
Pinch of salt
1.25 to 1.5 cups water (depends on how runny you want it)
1-2 tsp vanilla

1. Combine all the ingredients except the vanilla in a saucepan and whisk together. The mixture will start out foamy but will end up lovely and thick and glossy by the end. 
2. Bring to the boil over a moderate heat and cook, stirring constantly, for about 3 minutes. Take care not to let it boil over or burn on the bottom of the pan. 
3. Let cool and stir in vanilla to taste. 
4. Keep refrigerated.

*Use the best cocoa you can, it really makes the difference! My dream is to make this up using the Valhrona cocoa, but that's not really in the budget at the moment so I buy the Trade Aid cocoa which has a lovely flavour (but is slightly grainy). Plain old Cadbury's is perfectly fine too.

This recipe is infinitely customisable, want it a bit sweeter? Add more sugar. Less intense? Put in less cocoa. Runnier? Use a bit more water. Chocolate peppermint? Put in peppermint essence instead of vanilla. Boozier? Slosh in some rum or Baileys.  I guess it goes without saying that the last option is for the grownups :)

Our sauce never lasts long enough to worry about sterilising the jar beforehand, but if you were making it as a gift or planning on storing it for awhile, it would be a good idea.

Homemade chocolate syrup

Chocolate syrup, originally uploaded by Hazelnutgirl.

When I was younger mum used to have a bottle of homemade chocolate syrup in the fridge for putting into milk or on top of icecream. When I moved down here I was excited when Hershey's syrup showed up in the supermarket and I thought it was pretty good (though rather expensive). I hadn't had it for ages though, until recently when I got some to make cold chocolate milks for Hazel. It was awful! I'm not sure if my tastes have changed, or their recipe, but it was way too sweet and not very chocolatey. So I went in search of recipes for the homemade kind which I remember being so rich and intense.

I can't remember which recipes I cobbled this together from, but it's quite wonderful and next time I'm going to use a really good cocoa instead of the bog-standard Cadbury's and it'll be even better! Even with the regular cocoa this is much much nicer than the commercially available versions, not to mention cheaper. And even if you use more expensive cocoa I figure that the increase in intensity of flavour would simply reduce the amount you needed to use and hence the cost per mug. That's my reasoning to justify a trip to Sabato for the madly expensive cocoa anyways. Seriously, once you've had this stuff it's hard to go back to Cadbury's! Sadly, the budget does dictate it happens all too often (like pretty much always).

1 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups water*
1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract (to taste)

Mix the cocoa and the water in a saucepan. Heat and stir to dissolve the cocoa. Add the sugar, and stir to dissolve. Boil for 3 minutes over medium heat. Add the salt and the vanilla. Let cool. Pour into a sterile glass jar, and store in the refrigerator. Keeps for several months.

*If you want a thicker syrup use 1 cup water. My syrup is a good pouring consistency, but might run off icecream a bit too fast (haven't tested this yet!)

I finally made croissants

I'm not doing anything crafty that I can take photos of yet so to fill in the space I'm giving you photos of the croissants I made this weekend! I've been talking about doing this for ages and ages and finally took the plunge. I was motivated by my essential cheapness that forbids me from buying them very often because they're so expensive and the feeling that "I could do that" for much cheaper.

I made them on Saturday night and the recipe said I could put them in the fridge to prove overnight. When I took them out in the morning not only had they not risen, they'd dried out on top. So I brushed them with milk to soften them and put them in a slightly warmed oven where they did their thing slowly and came out looking slightly dodgy from expanding while being slightly dry on the surface. Still, they look like croissants don't they!


(I salvaged the extra bits of dough and made little rolls with them which is why some don't look particularly croissanty.)

The oven was supposed to be at 200C which proved to be much too hot and I almost burned them, luckily I realised in time, turned it down, and they only came out moderately brown.



They were perfectly acceptable croissants and with a few adjustments in the recipe and technique I think I might achieve pretty damn good croissants. It's labour-intensive but instead of paying $2.50 a croissant I'm guessing these cost at most 20 cents. My plan is to make a couple of batches and freeze them prior to the second rising, then just pull them out as needed. Imagine having a freezer-ful of pain au chocolate or almond croissants as well as plain ones!

ETA: The recipe I used comes from Alison and Simon Holst's Bread Book but there are lots of recipes online too. I'd be a bit reluctant to post the recipe up anyways, but you need all the diagrams to show you how to fold everything and there is no way I'm drawing all those out!