Tuesday 23 August 2011

Foraged Rosehips and Luxury (Frugal) Chocolate Confectionery

Rosehip Truffles

This time of year is great for foraging. Right now, although the blackberries, sloes and elderberries have a bit to go, the place is alive with rosehips of every shade, from pale orange through to deep, blood red. Some are such a deep red that they have passed burgundy. I opted for a russet shade of rosy red for my late summer delicacies. The hips are enormous this year and these all grow along the south facing wall of our garden, so not far to go for foraging.

I picked about 500g of hips, gave them a quick rinse and then popped them into the mocrowave in a covered dish with a couple of tablespoons of water. It takes only 10 minutes on high power to reduce the berries to pulp, which is then squeezed through a jelly bag to remove all the skins and seeds. You can, of course, stew the berries down in a pan on the cooker. 

In this particular case, the resulting liquid came out mango coloured. I did taste it once it had cooled and, even without sugar, it had a lovely flavour to it, so I was happy enough to use this foraged produce as an ingredient in my August entry to 'weshouldcocoa'.


My Frugal Recipe for Rosehip Truffles

150g of chocolate
5 tablespoons of icing sugar
3 tablespoons of stewed & strained rosehip 'juice' (or any other flavouring you fancy).

A seperate 100g of chocolate
1/2 tablespoonful of icing sugar & 1/2 level tablespoonful of cocoa powder combined

Being a frugal household, I don't usually have any sort of luxury baking items in stock, so this time around, the 'past their sell by date' milk chocolate santas got used. We bought a full case of these when they were on offer from one of the clearance stores, I can't remember which it was, but if you check on the Frugaldom forums, they are all listed in the 'Frugal Food' section.

Melt your chocolate in a bowl over over a pan of simmering water. I just use my steamer on the cooker top, as it seems to work as well as anything else I have tried.

While your chocolate is melting, you can sift the icing sugar into a seperate bowl and then slowly combine that with your chosen flavouring. In this case, I'm using the juice from stewed, garden-foraged rosehips.
It changes from a deep mango colour to a shade more like condensed milk once it's mixed with the icing sugar.

As soon as your choclate has melted into a smooth paste, slowly pour the icing sugar mix into the bowl, stirring and blending at the same time.

Your mix will lighten a few shades, regardless of whether you have used milk or plain chocolate.

You can now set this aside to cool. I cover mine with cling film and put it in the fridge as soon as I can.

It doesn't take too long before the truffle mix is set, so it's a good idea to keep your hot water in the pan, ready to melt the next lot of chocolate, which is for covering the truffles.

I left this lot to set in the fridge, overnight, then shaped them into 'logs' before pressing them down with a fork. If you love chocolate and don't mind a bit of a chocolatey mess, handmade truffles are the very thing for you to try.

The above recipe is exactly the same as before. You can use almost any flavour you choose, be it alcoholic or otherwise. In case you missed my last lot of truffles, check HERE

Feel free to join us in the Frugaldom Forums, where moneysaving and good living go hand in hand on even the strictest of budgets.

9 comments:

  1. Fantastic, well done you. Love the use of rosehips and old christmas chocolate. What I want to know is, what do they taste like? I expect they were delicious. Look forward to seeing the finished truffles. Thanks for participating.

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  2. What a great idea! Can't wait to see the finished truffles.

    Sft x

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  3. I haven't got around to coating them yet, ran out of time last night and need to go to a meeting soon. Will get them finished and photographed later this afternoon - IF they don't get eaten as is! They taste delicious, although not good for diets. :)

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  4. wow what a good idea. Look forward to seeing the finished photos. I think truffles is a lovely idea for incorporating rosehips with chocolate and foraged ones too!!

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  5. Great idea for rosehips, there are some in the park across from my house but I didnt have any clue what to do with them! Bookmarked this one!

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  6. Thanks for the comments. As an added extra, you can also combine the rosehip liquid with the icing sugar for ordinary icing and use it with egg white instead of mint essense and water to make fondants. (Coming from a long line of manufacturing confectioners, I do tend to have a very sweet tooth. LOL)

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  7. The truffles look very pretty - I like the fork pattern on the top.

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  8. I'm going to try freezing some rosehips so I have them available for the Christmas truffles.

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  9. Beautiful truffles. I love the addition of homemade rosehip.

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