My Easy Rum-and-Raisin Chocolate Truffles

Photograph by Nina Timm

One of the unexpected pleasures of writing a food blog is that you get to meet all sorts of interesting, like-minded people from all over the world: food bloggers, chefs, cooks, gardeners, farmers, restaurateurs, hoteliers and food producers. Some of them you meet in a virtual way, via Twitter, Facebook and similar social- media platforms, and others you befriend in real life. One such person is Nina Timm, the cook, stylist and photographer behind the award-winning blog My Easy Cooking.

Nina is one of the grande dames of South African food blogging, and she's made her mark over the years by posting accessible, well-tested recipes accompanied by excellent photographs. Nina's weekly cooking slot on the Afrikaans radio channel Radio Sonder Grense (RSG) is bringing her fame in South Africa, and recently I accepted her invitation to join a small group of bloggers for a morning's cook-along.  The theme of the recipes was South African dried fruit, and I prepared two dishes, one using juicy dark raisins, and the other dried apricots. Click here to read Nina's post about my truffles.

Photograph by Nina Timm

I had the pleasure of cooking alongside fellow bloggers Ishay Govender of Food And The Fabulous (here's her post about the event) and Ilse van der Merwe from The Food Fox (her post here). While we cooked, we were interviewed by the effervescent Marthelize Brink, an RSG presenter and professional motivational speaker. We had plenty to taste once we'd finished cooking all our dishes, but the winner for me was Ilse's sublime malva pudding with dates and pecan nuts - a sticky, deeply comforting take on one of South Africa's favourite desserts.

I made two dishes with dried fruit for this cooking challenge: one, my Moroccan-Spiced Chicken Pie, to which I added dried apricots, and the other sweet chocolate truffles filled with rum-soaked raisins.  These are not true chocolate truffles of the sort you will find in a chocolate shop, but a quick, homely version so easy to make that even a child could manage this recipe. If you're not a fan of rum, try another version of this recipe: my Whisky and Orange Dark-Chocolate Truffles.

Rum and Raisin Chocolate Truffles

1/2 cup (125 ml) raisins or currants
4 Tbsp (60 ml) dark rum
350 g dark chocolate (70 per cent cocoa solids)
1/2 cup (125 ml) cream
3/4 cup (180 ml) icing sugar
1/4 cup (60 ml) cocoa powder, sifted, for coating

Put the raisins in a bowl, pour over the rum and set aside to soak for at least an hour, preferably two. Place the chocolate, broken into pieces, in a glass bowl and melt in a microwave oven or over a pan of simmering water. Stir until smooth, then beat in the cream, the soaked raisins and any rum left in the bowl. Sift the icing sugar into the chocolate and mix until smooth. Press a piece of clingfilm onto the surface of the mixture and place it in the fridge for about an hour, or until firm enough to handle.

Tip the cocoa powder onto a plate. Dig out spoonsful (each about the sized of a large marble) of chocolate paste and roll quickly between your palms to form rough balls resembling real truffles. Place the balls on the plate of cocoa powder and roll them about so that they are well coated. When you've made all the balls, place them in a sieve or colander and shake gently to remove any excess cocoa powder. Cover and place in the fridge for two hours, or until firm. These freeze very well.

Makes about 35 truffles. 

Note: The basic truffle recipe is adapted from Phillippa Cheifitz's The Cosmopolitan Cookbook (1986)

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Apricot Ripple Ice Cream

A scandalously rich ice cream made with eggs, cream and some fresh lightly stewed apricots. It's easy to make, if you can get your head around making a proper custard, and freezes to a lovely velvetiness, even if you don't have an ice-cream maker.

Apricot Ripple Ice Cream

I came up with this ice cream recipe after I bought some beautiful fresh apricots, the very first of the season. I love the taste of apricots, but I can't eat them raw because I have an aversion to the feel of their skin. A mild aversion, actually, compared to the way I feel about peach skin. I don't know if I'm the only person in the world with this affliction, but I cannot tolerate touching - or biting into - peach skin. Even writing about it brings up goosebumps on my arms and sends spiders skittering down the back of my neck. My hatred of the feel of peach skin (and, oddly enough, of the cone of raw wood just below the tip of a sharpened pencil) is so intense that I can't even watch someone else peeling or eating this most delicious fruit.

Naturally, anyone who knows this about me goes out of their way to sneak up behind me and rub a furry peach against my upper arm.

But back to the apricots. It's just as well that I don't eat them raw, because I do think that apricots are one of those fruits that just taste better lightly cooked, or dried, both of which processes bring out their beautiful astringency and perfume.

If you don't have an ice-cream maker, you can use the freeze-and-beat method.

Apricot Ripple Ice Cream

16 whole fresh apricots
½ cup (125 ml) white sugar
an 8-cm-long strip of fresh lemon zest
1½ cups (375 ml) water
1 Tbsp (15 ml) lemon juice

For the custard (crème anglaise):
1 cup (250 ml) cream
1 cup (250 ml) full-cream milk
½ cup (125 ml) caster sugar
6 large egg yolks
½ tsp (2.5 ml) pure vanilla extract

Put the whole apricots, sugar, lemon zest and water into a large saucepan and bring gently to the boil, stirring now and then to turn the apricots over. Cover, turn down the heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes, or until the apricots have collapsed. Set aside and allow to cool. Stir in the lemon juice.

To make the custard, put the cream, milk and 2 T (30 ml) of the sugar into a saucepan and bring gently to just below the boil (watch the mixture like a hawk). In the meantime, using a whisk, beat the remaining sugar and the egg yolks in a large bowl until pale and creamy. Stir in the vanilla. Put the hot cream/milk mixture into a jug and pour it, in a steady stream, over the eggs, stirring vigorously as you do so. Strain the mixture back into the pan, turn the temperature right down, and reheat it very gently, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. The mixture will begin to thicken slightly within a few minutes. To check whether it is done, coat the back of your wooden spoon with the custard and draw your finger across it. If the channel created by your fingertip remains open, or closes reluctantly, the custard is ready.

Do not, whatever you do, allow the custard to come anywhere near boiling point, as it will curdle and you'll have to turf out the lot.

Remove the custard from the heat, cover its surface with a piece of clingfilm to prevent a skin forming, and allow to cool to room temperature.

Place a metal or glass dish in the freezer. Set a large sieve over another bowl and into it tip the apricot mixture. Using the back of a soup ladle, stir and press down on the mixture, until all you have left in the sieve is the pips and bits of skin. (This is a little laborious, so turn on the music and take your time about it!).

Measure out half a cup (125 ml) of the apricot purée and set aside. Stir the remaining purée into the cooled custard and mix well. Place in the fridge to chill.

If you're using an ice cream maker, churn the mixture until firm and creamy. Tip into the bowl you placed in the freezer earlier and swirl the purée you set aside over the surface. Now gently 'ripple' it into the icecream, using a metal spoon, so it forms little seams of apricot. Cover and freeze until quite firm.

If you're using the freeze-and-beat method, ripple the reserved purée into the ice cream, as described above, about two-thirds of the way through the freezing process, or before the mixture becomes too stiff to stir easily.

Serves 6-8 as a dessert

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Val's Apple and Apricot Selby Tart, with an Easy Biscuit Base and Topping

I have a passion for passed-down-through-generations family recipes, and this lovely, easy sweet tart epitomises everything that's good about an ancestral recipe: it's quick and simple to make, it uses ingredients you're likely to have in your cupboard, and it tastes exactly like home.

My mom made this many times during my childhood, and we always knew it as 'Selby Tart'. I don't know where that name came from, but I can tell you that the recipe originally came from a close friend of our family, the late, dear Val Horak. (She was one of those honorary 'aunties' most people have: that is, you think she's a blood relative until you discover, to your astonishment and disappointment, that she's not related to you at all.)

This is a versatile, biscuit-style base and topping that you can make very quickly. There is no need to bake the base of the tart 'blind' to crisp up its base (look, this is a family pud, with not a hint of cheffiness); simply press it thinly into the base and up the sides of a tart or quiche pan, add the filling, grate over the remaining pastry and sling into the oven. And, of course, serve with billows of whipped cream, or cold vanilla ice cream.

I filled my latest Selby Tart with gently stewed fresh, peeled apples and depipped apricots, but, if you're in a hurry, you use any fruit you like as a filling: drained, tinned apples, peaches, guavas or apricots; spicy Christmas mincemeat from a jar, or just a thick layer of lovely strawberry jam.

Val's Apple and Apricot Selby Tart, with an Easy Biscuit Base and Topping


For the dough: 
230 g butter, softened
1 cup (250 ml) caster sugar or white sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 t (5 ml) vanilla extract
400 g white cake flour
2 tsp (10 ml) baking powder
a pinch of salt
the finely grated zest of a small lemon

For the filling (or use a quick filling; see above):
1 cup (250 ml) white sugar
375 ml water
a slice of lemon, peel and all
an inch-long stick of cinnamon
5 large apples
10 fresh apricots

To top:
3 T (45 ml) granulated white sugar
1/2 tsp (2.5 ml) ground fresh cinnamon

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C. First make the dough: put the softened butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and, using a wooden spoon, beat well, for about a minute, or until the mixture is well blended. Gradually add the beaten eggs and the vanilla essence dollop by dollop, whisking well after each addition. Don't worry if the mixture looks as if it's going to curdle: all will come right when you add the dry ingredients. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt over the butter mixture, add the lemon zest and then, using a wooden spoon, gently mix to form a soft biscuit dough. When the dough forms a ball under your spoon, knead it lightly with your fingertips for 30 seconds, and slice the ball in half. Wrap one half of the dough in cling-film and place in the deep freezer, for about 20 minutes, to firm up. Wrap the other half in cling-film and place in the fridge.

Now make the filling (or use an instant filling, as suggested above). Put the water and the sugar into a saucepan, place over a moderate heat, and bring to the boil, stirring frequently. Add the lemon slice and cinnamon stick, then turn down the heat and allow to simmer for 10 minutes to create a clear syrup. Peel and core the apples, chop them into chunks and drop them in the simmering syrup. Halve the apricots, remove the pips, and add them to the syrup. Allow to simmer, on a low heat, for 10-15 minutes, or until the apples are just tender. (Poke the tip of sharp knife through the thickest apple chunk: if there is no resistance, the fruit is ready.) Put a colander over a big bowl, and tip the fruit into the colander, allowing the syrup to drain into the bowl beneath. Set aside to cool slightly.

Take the refrigerated half of the dough out of the fridge and press it, using your fingertips, into to the base, and up the sides, of a shallow tart case or quiche pan, spreading it quite thinly (it should be 3-4 mm thick). Trim the edges of the dough using a sharp knife.

Pile the cooled, drained apples and apricots (or the filling of your choice) into the dough case. Remove the other half-ball of dough from the freezer, and coarsely grate it (using a cheese grater) all over the fruit topping. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon and bake, at 180° C, for 25 minutes, or until golden-brown.

Makes 1 tart, which serves 8-10 as a dessert Print Friendly