Chocolate Coated Candied Orange Peels

These things are A-MAZ-ING.  They say everything is better home made, so what could be better than something that tastes like a home made Terry's Chocolate Orange?  I accidentally made about a trillion of these, so be careful if you're going to double the recipe.  You will end up with tupperware containers FULL of these guys.  On the other hand, they do take a while to make, so if you're into chocolate and orange, it might be worth making one big batch and saving them. 

First, cut your orange in half top to bottom.  Using your hands or a spoon, scoop out the orange pulp from the inside, leaving only the peel.  You can also juice the oranges then scrape out the remaining pulp, if you want to make orange juice out of it.

Cut orange peels into thin slices.  Try to keep then as consistently sized as possible.

This is where the fun really starts! Blanche the peels by putting them in a pot with cold water, covering them by about 1". Put a lid on the pot.  Bring the water to a boil, allow to boil for a minute or so, then drain water.  Repeat this process two more times.  Blanching is important as it removed the bitterness from the peels. 

Mix together 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water to make a simple syrup.  Add syrup to orange peels and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and allow most of the water to simmer away.  Don't wait for all of it to evaporate, as this will get your peels burnt and stuck to the bottom of the pot. Err on the side of taking it off too soon rather than too late.  Remove peels from syrup with a slotted spoon, placing them on baking sheets to dry.  Allow to dry for 4-5 hours, possibly overnight depending on the humidity where you are. Peels should be hard before dipping, but I dipped some that were still sort-of soft and it

was still delicious, just chewier.  

Melt chocolate in a double boiler.  Make sure the chocolate is really melty before you begin to dip the orange peels.  Chocolate isn't very warm will stick to the peels too much and result in an too much chocolate sticking to each peel. 

Dip each peel into chocolate.  You can dip the whole thing or just half.. I tried to do about 3/4 but it got more difficult as I started to run out of chocolate and resulted in a few finger burns, so be careful or use forks to manipulate the peels in the chocolate.

Chocolate Coated Candied Orange Peels

3 sunkist oranges
1 cup water
1 cup sugar for syrup
1-2 cup sugar for coating
Water for blanching
350g dark chocolate

Adapted from: Food.com

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Someone around me mentioned they had a hankering fo banana muffins, so I whipped these up.  I made them a little fancier than normal by piping chocolate on top and putting nuts on it.  The extra chocolate was deeeeeelicious and the nuts made it nicely crunchy.  I don't usually have any luck with muffins and this time was no exception - I had it all mixed up and ready to put in the pan when I realized I had forgotten no fewer then four ingredients.  I was sure they weren't going to turn out, but I added what was missing and they were totally fine.  So, if you stress about muffins, don't worry about these, they're very forgiving.

In small bowl, blend bananas, melted margarine, milk, eggs and vanilla.

In large bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir in chocolate chips

Add the banana mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just mixed.  It's right about here I realized I was missing ingredients, so do a double-check to make sure you've got everything, but don't panic if you missed some!

Fill muffin cups.  Bake for 18 to 22 minutes at 375F, or until golden brown and toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Let stand several minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool

Once your muffins are cool they should look something like this. They're totally delicious like this, but the chocolate kicks it up a notch.  Make sure your muffins are completely cooled  before proceeding to next steps.

Heat chocolate chips reserved for topping in a double boiler until mostly melted.  You don't want to get it too hot because in order to pipe the topping you'll have to put it into a plastic bag, so just melt it until it's lumpy, remove from heat and stir until smooth.

Trying to get things into piping bags used to be a nightmare for me until I discovered this simple solution.  Put the zip loc bag into a tall glass with one point towards the bottom.  Spoon melted chocolate into the bag.  Seal the bag once finished, or else you'll get chocolate all over your hands when you try to squeeze it out to decorate. Clip the corner 1-2 millimetres wide and use the bag to pipe the chocolate design on to each muffin.  While chocolate is still liquid, add nuts.   Store in sealed container, unrefridgerated, to retain maximum moistness.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup chocolate chips
2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (about 4 large)
1/2 cup (1 stick/4oz/113g) butter or stick margarine, melted
1/4 cup milk
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Topping:
1 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup nuts of your choice


adapted from: Diane's Desserts

Chocolate Dipped Coconut Macaroons

I made these but didn't end up being able to take them where I wanted.  They are, however, so delicious I will have to make them again.  The coconut is sweetened by the condensed milk and the chocolate dipped half makes it like two cookies in one.  Very easy and addictive!

 Dump the coconut in a large mixing bowl, then add a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Add can of condensed milk and stir. 

Separate the whites from two large room temperature eggs and put them into a bowl.  Mix on high until medium stiff peaks form.  Basically, when you can pull up a peak that stays but eventually fades back into the bowl.

Gently fold the egg whites into the coconut mixture

Use an ice cream scoop to place balls of the mixture on a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper.  I again didn't have parchment paper, but I cooked them in a glass pan and it turned out fine. 

Bake in a 325 degree oven for about 25 minutes, or until they just start to brown

To make ganache, heat cream until boiling then pour over chocolate chips.

Let sit for 2 minutes.

Stir ganache until smooth and shiny, being careful not to overwork.  Dip half of each cooled cookie in ganache and then let cool on parchment paper or tin foil. 

Coconut Macaroons

• 14 oz sweetened shredded coconut
• 14 oz sweetened condensed milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 extra large egg whites, at room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Ganache

• 1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chunks
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract