I’ve finally decided to make the leap over to my own domain, so I’d love it if you could come join me at wayfaringchocolate.com! Make sure to update your blogroll, reader, bookmark, feed, or whatever way you have of checking in… I’ll be posting a rather gorgeous-looking chocolate over there tomorrow, and surely you wouldn’t want to miss out?

Yep, this way folks… http://wayfaringchocolate.com/

Super fun times galore await!

Advice That Certain People Who Write Essays Would Do Well To Note:

1. It doesn’t matter whether a sociological theorist is “pessimistic” or not, or which year s/he was born in. It does matter, though, that you understand that “rationalisation” relates to disenchantment and bureaucratisation, and not to people thinking logically about their life choices.

2. I’d prefer you wrote about Karl Marx and Max Weber, not Kyle Marx and Max Webber. You see, I’m not entirely sure what the latter two contributed to Sociology. Oh, and Emile Durkheim is a man, although it would be nice if one of the “Founding Fathers” was actually a “Founding Mother”. Sadly, we aren’t allowed to change the sex of people born centuries ago.

3. Want to know what helps you, in a grades-affected manner? Answering the essay question.

4. Want to know what helps me, in a sanity-affected manner? When you get my name right on the cover sheet. (Oh, and my sanity also benefits when you answer the essay question.)

5. Last but not least, cookies help inexorably with the essay-marking process. They might even help with the essay-writing process. I therefore suggest you bake and gobble these up at the earliest convenience.

I don’t often bake cookies. For some reason, cookies are associated in my mind with boredom. Too sweet, too crunchy, and lacking in satisfaction. However, whilst flicking through one of my many rarely-used mini Women’s Weekly cookbooks, I found this gem of a recipe.

Sweet but not too sweet, baked a little under the required time so as to retain a soft and almost-doughy interior without losing the crispier exterior, heady in cinnamon and with the faint nutty flavour of oats and whole-wheat flour, these were exactly what I forget cookies can be.

That is to say, addictive. Did I eat seven of these between baking them in the afternoon and going to sleep in Skank Bed at night? Possibly. Perhaps. Maybe. Okay, yes.

But they’ve got oats, and fruit, m’kay? So they’re good for me. Possibly. Perhaps. Maybe.

Vegan Apple Cinnamon Cookies

Adapted from The Women’s Weekly Biscuits and Slices mini cookbook.
Makes about 15.

The recipe below is for my cut-down-by-a-third-and-adapted version of the original, which purported to make 45 cookies. Whilst I know I could very easily eat 45 cookies over the course of a few days, I also know I’d get horrifically bored by the sameness of them all if I did. Ergo you should be able to double or triple this recipe easily, if you want more cookies in your life. Or if you want to share with other people, instead of sitting by yourself with cookies and ice cream watching old-school romantic movies all afternoon.

• 1 American tb (15ml) flaxmeal, mixed with 45ml water (or one egg for a non-vegan version)
• 90g (1/3rd cup + 1tb) brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 tb (40ml) canola (or vegetable) oil
• 2 tsp honey/agave/golden syrup/liquid sweetener
• 2/3 cup (60g) rolled oats
• 50g dried apples, chopped
• 1/3 cup (50g) wholemeal plain flour (or normal plain)
• 1/4 cup (37g) self-raising flour
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon (this was the only part I didn’t cut down, as I used the full tsp of the original recipe for a batter a third the size. Woot cinnamon love!)

1. Beat brown sugar with combined flaxseed and water with an electric mixer until mixture plumps up a little and lightens a bit in colour (if using an egg, wait for the mix to get significantly lighter in colour).
2. Stir in (manually, not with the electric mixer) the vanilla essence, oil, and liquid sweetener of your choosing, then the oats, apple, and sifted dry ingredients. Refrigerate for one hour.
3. Preheat oven to 190°C. Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls and place on lined baking trays. I expected mine to spread more than they did, so if you prefer thinner and crunchier cookies, you might want to press the balls down a little bit.
4. Bake 9-10 minutes for cookies with a deliciously soft core, or a bit longer if you want them crunchier. Though in all honesty, I don’t know how crunchy these would get. Maybe they never would? All I know is that I love the way mine turned out.

Question Time: Do you have advice for someone that would be safer shared here than with the person him/herself? Vent, my pretties, vent.

Because sometimes you have to not only embrace but be the cliché.

The second reason relates not to the chocolate itself, but to how I came to have it in my hot little hands.

The Curious Chocolatier Dark Chocolate with Blueberries

Do you remember when my family and I went out to lunch for my Grandma’s 81^st birthday? Well, the entryway to Flint in the Vines is a bit of a shop, selling gorgeous crockery and a few local food products. Including, yes, chocolates by The Curious Chocolatier. I bet you can imagine my delight when I spotted this limited edition bar on the shelf, but I bet you can’t imagine how I came to own it.

(No, I didn’t steal it.)

What I did was (over the course of the lunch’s several hours) sporadically slip into any conversation involving my brother the fact that he should probably buy the chocolate for me, because he’d promised to bring me chocolate days earlier and hadn’t followed through. For example:

E.TeacherLord: I’m trying to decide between the barramundi and the beef. I think I’ll try the barramundi.

Hannah: Do you know what I think? I think you should buy me that chocolate. That would be fun for you.

Or:

E.TeacherLord: And then one of my students [did something amusing] and it made being at work for 10 hours bearable.

Hannah: Wait, what did you say? I didn’t quite catch it. Something about buying me that chocolate?

The strange thing is I was really only doing this to amuse myself. (Boy, was I amusing myself.) So when I got up to visit the ladies and said to my brother that “now would be the perfect time to buy me that chocolate”, and he reached into his bag and pulled out the bar that he’d already snuck off to get for me, well…

I was ecstatic, grateful, and mindboggled that my ploy had worked. Apparently, I’m more persuasive than I thought, or else my brother loves me loads. Which I hope is true, because I think he’s awesome, and if he weren’t in another state, I would have shared this chocolate with him. Perhaps. Maybe.

Now that we’ve got the back story out of the way, how did this chocolate rate in the Wayfaring Chocolate universe? Well, it certainly didn’t threaten my adoration of The Curious Chocolatier’s Dark Chocolate with Apricot and Rosemary bar, but it was pleasantly sweet and vanished all too quickly.

The bar is beautifully glossy and the freeze-dried blueberries clearly evident in their rounded glory, as seen in the photo above. The aroma was sweet and slightly fruity, and the snap quite crisp.

Flavourwise, the chocolate base tasted like what I’ve come to expect from The Curious Chocolatier’s 54% blend, which means it was honey-sweet with strong vanilla and marshmallow tones, tempered with a nice jolt of chocolate richness.

The berries themselves provided a subtle fruity tang, although weren’t as strong in flavour as the apricots of the aforementioned Rosemary bar. I enjoyed the interplay of the honey and cream chocolate with the natural berry flavour of the blueberries, and have since realised that I seem to be conquering my anti-fruit-and-chocolate demons. Hurrah for widening chocolate tastes!

As a result, I feel comfortable recommending this bar as a pleasant, unaggressive, and refreshingly sweet-without-being-cloying chocolate treat.

Question Time: What fruit do you wish you could find embedded in a chocolate bar?

So, here goes (oh, and I hope you appreciate the way I’m humiliating myself by showing you horrible things I’ve eaten in the past. To make myself feel better, please keep in mind that these photos are from my trip to America three years ago).

Things I’ve Done (And Eaten) In My Life That I’ve Felt Really Silly About Afterwards:

1. Climbing really high up a tree at my primary school, getting stuck, and needing a teacher to come and carefully guide me back down whilst I sobbed in panic. (Age: under 10)

Maybe it's because I didn't grow up with Crab Spice Seasoning in the cupboard (i.e. what the bollocks is Crab Spice Seasoning?), but these just tasted awful and bitter to me. Postprandial silliness rating: high.

2. Unwrapping a present on Christmas Day to discover a doll I’d desperately hoped for, becoming hysterical with happiness, and then accidentally thanking the wrong grandparent for it in a really over-the-top fashion. (Age: under 9)

Another Pop Tart: "French Toast" flavour this time. Slightly better than the Hot Fudge Sundae, but still sickeningly fake and sweet-tasting. Postprandial silliness rating: High.

3. Getting a teensy bit drunky at a sleepover with two friends, accidentally knocking a bowl of almonds to the floor and deciding, in my drunky logic-befuddled state, that the only way to rectify the problem was to eat every single almond off the floor without touching any with my hands. (Age: 15) (Note: This was one of only two times in my life I’ve been legitimately drunky. Now do you see why I prefer to make one beer last for three hours?)

*giggle* In all honesty, this didn't taste awful. Postprandial silliness rating: Moderate, but only because I knew I'd just eaten a candy bar the size of my shoe in under five minutes.

4. Climbing really high up a tree in a friend’s backyard, getting stuck, and needing her mother to come and carefully guide me back down whilst I sobbed in panic. (Age: under 10) (Note: This friend’s mother banned me from ever climbing trees again when under her supervision.)

Ewww. Stouffer's Stuffed Pepper with Beef and Rice. What was I thinking? Stupid American dorm living. Postprandial silliness rating: Really high.

5. Falling prey to a “sale!” sign and buying a bag of marshmallows at the supermarket, despite the fact that I don’t like marshmallows (except toasted over a bonfire). Then realising that most of these marshmallows were apricot and banana flavoured, which means they were disgusting. (Age: one week ago.) (Note: I went through half a jar of peanut butter just to render the marshmallows edible. Which, in translation, means I ate about a spoonful of peanut butter in tandem with each marshmallow, simply so I couldn’t taste the latter. GENIUS.)

Oooh, tenuous marshmallow link for the win! Postprandial silliness rating: Moderate, because this tasted of nothing but sweet and I'm ashamed to admit I've never had a real s'more.

6. Climbing really high up one of the trees in my own front yard, getting stuck, and needing my dad to come and carefully guide me back down whilst I sobbed in panic. (Age: under 10)

So disappointing. Postprandial silliness rating: High, because this could have been so tasty and was instead dry, insipid, non-peanut-buttery and overall lame.

Moral of this story? I ate a lot of non-awesome foodstuffs when in America in 2007-8. (And a lot of them seem to have been orange-ish in colour?!) 

Oh, and don’t let me anywhere near trees, unless you’re in the mood to play the hero.

Question Time: What have you done and eaten in your life that you’ve felt silly about afterwards?

I mean that, every few days or so, I’d buy an entire round/block/geometrical-shape of one type of cheese and would eat the entire thing in one sitting. Because that’s how I roll. (“Roll” being the operative word.)

I’m pretty sure my bones were thanking me for all the calcium, even if my heart was simultaneously shaking its little heart-fist at me for the sodium assault.

Can’t win ‘em all, right?

(I shall test the cheese-reviewing waters today with just one cheese, and then you can let me know if you’re interested in hearing more on this rather savoury topic.)

Petit Valençay

I wonder if Egpytians or aliens built this pyramid of wonderment?

This little pyramid of goat’s cheese is Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée-certified and made from raw goat’s milk. It was the first cheese I bought in Paris, and it swept away my prior beliefs about goat’s cheese. To me, goat’s cheese has always been pungent, assertive, and in-your-face ”goaty”. This cheese, however, was the antithesis of being punched with a goat’s udder*; it was subtle, creamy, gooey at the edges yet firm (not chalky) inside, and in some ways reminded me more of a brie than a strong chevre.

See the gooeyness at the edges? Mmm-mmm.

I tasted butter, hazelnuts, cream and cream cheese, almonds, grass, and a deeply satisfying umaminess. The blue-grey rind had a slight flowery and hay-like flavour, which was unhindered by bitterness. This cheese was so rich, so creamy, and so mellow yet complex, that all of a sudden the packet was 110g lighter and I 110g heavier. And all I had left to savour was the pyramid base, marked deeply by the ridges of the packaging…

Cheese bottom!

Question Time: So, folks and friends, what say you? Are you at all interested in seeing some cheese-y-goodness (or badness) on this blog every now and again?

* What the?! I’m sorry.

Off the top of my head, I can think of one positive and one negative for getting up early after a bad night’s sleep and baking a cake to cheer oneself up.

Positive: Cake batter for breakfast. It’s funny how much batter can be “accidentally” left on the electric beaters, bowl, and two spoons used in the batter-making, isn’t it?

Negative: Finding cake batter in one’s hair hours later.

This wasn’t the cake I was originally lusting after. But when I ducked home to find the recipe for the originally-desired cake, I saw, directly to the left of that recipe, this fella. (What brilliant sentence construction! The essays I’m marking must be rubbing off on me…) My mum used to make this fella occasionally, but nowhere near as often as she made the originally-desired cake. I remember, though, that I used to feel more grown up eating this than the other (the originally-desired cake, that is. Have I lost you yet?), because of the below’s rather unique and non-children’s-party-friendly flavour.

So I forgot about the cake I had initially been craving, and made this one instead.

Oh, and I veganised it.

Oh, and I love it. And it still makes me feel grown-up.

This cake tastes like old-fashioned to me. It tastes like something one of the heroines in my beloved-childhood novels would have eaten whilst sitting in her garden dreaming about the future, or whilst serving afternoon tea to a dear grandmotherly-aged friend. This is the cake I imagine Elnora from A Girl of the Limberlost would have slid into the oven with her soft hair falling in front of her face and her butterflies adorning the wall behind her. This is the cake I imagine Anne Shirley would have shared with Theodora Dix as they listened to the echoes of their voices calling back to them from faraway hills.

It’s also the cake I can imagine I’ll  have polished off in two day’s time, but that can be our little secret.

Caraway Cake

Serves 8 -10, adapted from The Women’s Weekly Cakes and Slices Cookbook. For a non-vegan version, substitute Nuttelex with butter, two eggs for the flaxmeal, and normal milk for the soymilk. My mum used to make this wheat-free with her own mix of cornflour and rye flour, so I assume it would also work with gluten-free flours.

• 2 tbs flaxmeal (ground flax)
• 125g Nuttelex (I used the Olive Oil kind)
• 1 cup caster sugar (I used raw caster sugar)
• 1/2 cup soymilk
• 1 1/4 cups self-raising flour (the original recipe said to sift this, but I didn’t bother. What can I say? I’m a rebel.)
• 1/4 cup custard powder
• 2 tbs caraway seeds.

1. Preheat oven to 160°C, and grease and line a 14cm x 21cm loaf tin.
2. In a large bowl, mix the flaxmeal with 90ml water and leave to sit for 5 minutes.
3. Add Nuttelex, sugar, milk, flour, and custard powder to flaxmeal and beat on low speed with an electric mixer until combined. Increase speed to medium-high and continue beating for 3-4 minutes, until the mixture has lightened in colour.
4. Stir in caraway seeds.
5. Spread mixture into prepared tin and bake for 50m-1hr. Stand in tin for five minutes, then turn onto a wire rack to cool.

Question time: Are there any particular dishes you make that remind you of a storybook character? Saying oatmeal makes you think of Goldilocks or beans of Jack doesn’t count…

Rawganic Chocolate with Hibiscus and Lucuma

First things first. Lucuma. What on earth is it? Those of you in the raw food world might already know, but I had to have a little chat with Mr. Google to find out. Apparently, lucuma is a subtropical fruit from Peru, and is high in fibre, carotene, and assorted vitamins and minerals. I couldn’t really find anything explaining what its flavour is like, though, and so I have to admit I couldn’t really pinpoint anything as “lucuma-y” in my tasting. But we’ll get to that.

Rawganic is an Australian raw chocolate company that produces organic and vegan treats, then donates a percentage of its profits to charities that help animals. So regardless of whether you think the chocolate tastes good, you can feel good eating it. Unless you hate animals, in which case you might feel terrible.

But if you hate animals, you should probably feel terrible anyway.

Where was I?

This particular bar is made of raw organic cacao butter, raw organic cacao powder, raw organic agave nectar, raw organic lucuma powder, organic hibiscus flowers, and pink Himalayan crystal salt. If nothing else, this company displays a great commitment to devising interesting flavour combinations, which I’m always appreciative of.

The chocolate displayed the typical slightly-grainy texture of raw chocolate, but had a crisper snap than I’ve come to expect from its ilk. The aroma was more like cocoa powder than chocolate, and I was pleased to see a few fragments of hibiscus flower peeking out of the bar once I started breaking it apart.

The texture was softer than normal chocolate but wasn’t mushy. (If it sounds like I’m reaching for positives, I guess I am, a little bit. Not mushy! Woot!) My main issue with this creation was that it simply didn’t taste strongly of much at all. It was hard to pinpoint anything definitively “chocolatey” in the taste, although there was a slight bitterness, a very subtle sweetness, and every now and again a tang from the hibiscus flowers.

I enjoyed the hibiscus tang, as it put me in mind of the dried sour cherries used in Green & Black’s Dark Chocolate with Cherry bar (which is the only Green & Black’s creation I’ve bought several times). I can’t help wondering if this chocolate would have had a stronger taste if it had used a different sweetener; as far as I know, agave is known for contributing sweetness without a distinctive flavour, and so I kept thinking that something like maple syrup might’ve helped. Of course, maple syrup isn’t raw (I’m not a die-hard Laura Ingalls Wilder “Quick girls, it’s graining!” fan for nothing!) so maybe that’s not a very good idea.

I probably shouldn’t admit this, but there was one moment when the chocolate flavour in this amped up and I enjoyed it more. That was when I, um, microwaved it.

I’d love to know what someone who has been raw, and hasn’t had regular chocolate, for a long time would think of this.

And even though I didn’t love it myself, I still want to try the other flavours. I mean, there’s a chilli and lime bar! I have to see what that’s like, right?

Wow. My mind just went to a really scary image-place. Enough of that. Here’s my detailed timeline for how to eat pavlova like Wayfaring Chocolate.

Once upon a time, there was a caramelised pineapple with lemon sorbet dessert at Flint restaurant in Canberra. “Once upon a time” in the sense of “over a year ago” and “has nothing to do with this post”, but shhh. I won’t tell if you won’t.

8:30am: Wake up, buoyed by the fact that at the doctor’s surgery yesterday, you were told to come back in a week’s time, rather than twice weekly as has been the case for the past two months.

8:32am: Look at problem toe and feel heart fall. (I know this isn’t a gory-injuries blog so I’ll avoid going into details, but let’s just say there was a stain of something that rhymes with “glood” on the bandage.)

8:35am: Call doctor’s surgery. Make another appointment, knowing that they probably think you’re a hypochondriac.

9am – 2pm: Alternate marking essays, staring out the window, trying to resist urge to draw on own face with a pen, bursting into spontaneous fragments of angsty Alanis Morisette songs (Ooooo-oooooh, this could get mess-sssssyyyyyy, but you-ooooooo don’t seem to miiiii-iiind), eating, and bursting into spontaneous fragments of that popular recent song you love (I’d like to make myself be-lieeeeeeeeve that planet Eaaaaaaarth tuuuuuuuuurns slooooooooowly). And marking essays. Did I mention the essays? Because there are more of them coming this afternoon.

Once upon a time etc etc pine nut, feta and roasted pumpkin salad at Flint restaurant etc etc won’t tell if you won’t etc etc.

2:30pm: Slink into doctor’s surgery, where your normal nurse is really ever so kind. She looks at toe, and starts talking about more surgery. Yes, that would be the third round of surgery in less than a year.

2:40pm: Male doctor who is not your actual doctor ambles into room (and I mean ambles. Hands-in-pockets, pelvis-out, shoulders-back, King-Of-The-Domain…) and starts talking in medical jargon, the gist of which seems to be “doesn’t need surgery”.

2:45pm: Nurse pulls out a long grey implement that looks like a giant matchstick and applies silver nitrate to your toe. (I wonder if I’ll make metal detectors go off now? Or if I’ll be lying if I yell “I’m not made of money, you know!” when people ask me to “spare a dollar for the bus cuz” at the interchange?)

3pm onwards: Drive to parents’ place. INTERNET! (I mean, visit my mum.)

Pavolva prong!

6pm: Arrive home. See lone pavlova in clear Tupperware container above the microwave. Look into pantry of healthy, wholesome dinner ingredients. Look back at lone pavlova in clear Tupperware container above the microwave.

6:01pm: Look into pantry.

6:02pm: Look at pavlova.

6:03pm: Look into pantry.

6:04pm: Reach for pavlova-containing Tupperware container. Open, slip pavlova onto plate.

6:05pm: Look at punnet of strawberries.

6:06pm: Look at packet of chocolate chips.

6:07pm: Look at punnet of strawberries.

6:08pm: Look at packet of chocolate chips.

6:09pm: Open packet of chocolate chips, but decide to make a tacit nod towards “health” by using natural yogurt instead of cream as the intermediary between sugar and sugar.

Ta-daa!

6:10pm: Construct pavlova.

6:20pm: Decide that the use of natural yogurt was inspired, as the tang plays off the super-sweetness of the meringue base brilliantly. Wish there was more. More of everything.

7pm: Realise you should feel guilty about eating pavlova for dinner, and so get off sofa with a sigh and put together a bowl of whole-wheat couscous, chickpeas, baby peas, tahini, and lemon juice.

7:15pm onwards: Watch SeaChange with housemate for the rest of the night because you’re both sick of election talk. (LAURA. How could you ever think Warwick could beat out Max? Nononononono. Don’t you remember the way Max replied with “You, I think”, when you asked him what he wanted, in episode one of season three? You silly woman.)

The end.

And that, my friends, is how you eat pavlova like Wayfaring Chocolate.

What can I say? Apparently my dislike of water is genetic.

Anyhoodles, my favourite part of those holidays (apart from the Scrabble and tennis and trampoline-in-the-ground and annual expedition to the embroidery/cross-stitch store) was feeding the native birds and wallabies. There are stories relating to that which I’m tempted to delve into, but I shan’t, for I brought this holiday-anecdote up to explain that I now understand why the lorikeets, king parrots, cockatoos, and crimson rosellas were so into my seed mix. (Not a euphemism.)

It was because seeds can be like crack. See below for proof.

C’ôte d’Or Dark Chocolate with Roasted Seeds/Bloc Noir Graines Grillées

There are two categories of Top Chocolates in my understanding of life. One category is high-quality, unadorned, pure chocolate, whereby the flavours and excitement emanate from the cacao beans (and perhaps the sugar and vanilla) alone. The other category is chocolates that are enjoyable not because of the chocolate itself, but because of what’s been added to the chocolate: nibs, herbs, salt, caramel, edamame… you name it, I’ll try it (unless “it” is orange).

This C’ôte d’Or Dark Chocolate with Roasted Seeds belongs to the latter category. The chocolate itself didn’t strike me as amazingly mind-boggling, but when combined with its plentiful sunflower, pumpkin, and sesame seed inclusions, it became out of this world.

I know that’s a big statement, but just think for a moment. These seeds haven’t been thrown into the mix plain and unadorned. No, these seeds are more like three fairytale women preparing for a prince’s ball; they’ve been pampered and they’ve preened and now they’re presenting themselves in their best possible light, all in the hopes of kissing a frog and landing a kingdom.

The sunflower seeds are roasted.

The pumpkin seeds and roasted and salted.

The sesame seeds are roasted and caramelised.

And in combination with the chocolate, which at 46% is honey-sweet yet undeniably richer in cocoa notes than, say, Lindt’s Excellence dark chocolate, these seeds make me feel like an addict, unable to resist going back for more even when I know all I’ll feel at the end is misery that the sensation/hit is over.

Each seed in this chocolate stands out, both in terms of its different preparation and its nutty essence. There is no bland, musty nuttiness to be found here, only the savoury, almost-bitter burst of sunflower seeds, the incredibly crisp and intense snap of salted pumpkin seeds, and the burnt-sugar halvah-like crackle of the caramelised sesame seeds. As you can see, this chocolate is bursting with seeds, and the flavour is a testament to such [ingredient] generosity.

I absolutely adored this, and it hurts my heart that this is not a C’ôte d’Or that I’ve ever seen in Australia. Please, if someone in a position of chocolate power is reading this, please swap out the caramel milk chocolate C’ôte d’Or or the raspberry one for this slab of heaven.

200g was simply not enough. I must needs get have tasty eats nom nom more.