Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everybody out there. I hope the new year is good to you. This morning as we were driving to the dairy, (yes I know things are pretty rough when you have to get out of bed on new years day to milk somebody else's cows) we were greeted by an amazing cloud formation, and for a change I had the camera. Which in no way did justice to the early morning sun on this cloud. When the sun came up fully the clouds all disappeared and we are now getting a full summer blast with hot dry winds, which is good for the washing as long as there are no bush fires.

Now I just need to get my act into gear and take some photos of soap to post. Seeing that this blog is supposed to be about soap. I could make a mile long list of resolutions, but I think I will spend my time working on what I have in front of me. Which lately has been the renovations of our "Hut". This is a small cabin on our farm which we have been fixing up to make into a small shop. I need somewhere besides my kitchen to make and store soap, and we have always had a dream to have a farm shop where people can come and enjoy our little valley, and pick up some unique gifts and foods. The whole preparation has taken us heaps longer than we had planned as our budget has been so tight that almost everything has been recycled and done by us. It is so easy to think that we just need to buy this or that, but we had to keep coming back to what our original plan was, which is to have a rustic farm hut, and to use only what we had on hand. I am so proud of what we have achieved, although there is still a few finishing touches to do. I am hopeful that in the next couple of weeks we will be open for people to come and see. We have big plans but for now we are concentrating on soap. Hopefully I wont take too long in posting some pics, and more details.

White Chocolate Truffles

I am just about to make these. They are our all time favourite christmas truffle recipe. I have lost the cookbook and I cant find them anywhere on line. Thankfully my girls put the recipe on the computer, but as this computer is about to be retired I thought I would put the recipe here, for safe keeping. And also to share because they are too good not to share.

Enjoy.....

WHITE CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES

200g White Chocolate

125g packet cream cheese

1 tbs Honey

1 tsp Vanilla essence

1/4 cup Roasted unsalted peanuts, chopped

1/4 cup Coconut

1 cup Coconut, extra.

Melt chocolate over hot water; cool. Beat chocolate, softened cream cheese, honey and essence in a small bowl with electric mixer until smooth. Stir in peanuts and coconut. Cover, refrigerate several hours or until firm. Roll teaspoonfuls of the mixture into balls, toss balls in extra coconut. Refrigerate until firm.

To make a tree centrepiece:

125g White chocolate, melted

3 honey ice cream cones

60g dark chocolate

Mark a 6 cm circle on a foil covered tray, spread with a little of the white chocolate. Stack cones together using a small amount of the white chocolate and secure to base. Completely cover cone with a thin layer of white chocolate. Starting at base of cone, place truffles around edge of cone, securing with a small amount of white chocolate. Continue in layers to form tree. Refrigerate until set. Melt dark chocolate over hot water, drizzle over tree. Refrigerate until required.