This year, Diamond Interiors participated in the first ever Sweet Swap: an online event for Australian food & lifestyle bloggers with all proceeds donated to Childfund Australia. Registered bloggers were matched up with three other bloggers and posted out a sampler of a delicious new recipe to each.
The event has been organised by: Sara McCleary of Belly Rumbles & Amanda Michetti of Chew Town, two very amazing food bloggers!
My three matches to send to were:
Belly Rumbles, Flick Your Food & Playing House.
I chose to make my matches some of my indulgent Mocha Fudge; a combination of my two favourite flavors, chocolate and coffee. Of course, always striving for that ‘something different’, I failed miserably the first time around; that’ll teach me! What I love about fudge is that it keeps very well. My ‘mistake’ batch was sitting around in the fridge for over a week before I stopped being mad at it and decided to eat it all up. Fudge is a super quick recipe, easy enough to make with the kids and tastes amazing!
Rich Mocha Fudge with Dark Chocolate Icing
This recipe should fill a medium sized slice pan or make about 24 – 30 small cupcake sized pieces.
Ingredients
- 2 cups Dark Chocolate Melts (cooking chocolate)*
- 1 cup Milk Chocolate Melts (cooking chocolate)*
- 1 tsp. Vanilla Essence
- 2 tbsps. milk
- 1 can Sweetened Condensed Milk
- 4 tsps. Instant Coffee (diluted in 1 tbsp. warm water)
* You can use any cooking chocolate that melts well. I find the Cadbury brand chocolate melts always have a smooth texture and retain that Cadbury taste we all love!
Method
1. Combine all ingredients in a medium sized saucepan over medium to low heat. Stir well until chocolate is melted and all ingredients are combined.
2. Allow mixture to sit for about 30 minutes until reasonably cool.
3. To shape the fudge: You can use a slice pan (make sure to line with baking paper, leaving enough paper around the edges for you to easily lift out the fudge when it has set). Or, you can pour the mixture in small paper cupcake trays for individual pieces. Another good option is to use small, flexible cupcake silicone baking moulds: no lining necessary as once the mixture is set well you can pop out each piece. With a silicone mould, I find
that you would need a few extra hours of chilling time before the fudge is set enough to push out.
4. Chill in the fridge overnight and there you have it!
Icing
Ingredients
- 2 cups Icing Sugar
- 1 1/2 cups Dark Chocolate Melts
- 1 tsp. Vanilla Essence
Method
1. Melt down the chocolate and stir in vanilla and sifted icing sugar. Spread evenly over fudge after it has set and chill for another 30 minutes.
Initially, I had wanted to make a marshmallow fondant as an icing to make each piece of fudge look like a mini cappuccino. The fondant itself was lovely and smooth, tasted great alone but put the two together and there went all your teeth. Much, much too sweet!
In case anyone is interested, a quick marshmallow fondant recipe:
Melt a bag full of marshmallows in the microwave, stir in 3 cups of icing sugar and food colouring (if you want a fancy colour; or you can leave them as the marshmallow’s colour white/pink) and stir well, adding more icing sugar to the mix as necessary to create a kneadable consistency. Grease your hands (I just used cooking spray for this part) and knead on a flat surface dusted with yet more icing sugar! Roll out with your rolling pin and you should have a lovely fondant not to be used with fudge but great for all other decorations!
Now, what tasty treats did I get? Well, I had some delicious goodies arriving in the mail (yes, that is why I entered: dessert in the mail!) from some amazing people:
Rosemary Sea Salt & Almond Toffee from
This toffee was a huge hit! The amazing combination of flavours complimented each other so well and the sea salt added that delightful tang in the toffee. Note: toffee should come with a warning. After (grudgingly) sharing this treat with my sister, we found it to be rather addictive and were hanging for more the very next day. Who would have thought that rosemary and chocolate would taste so great together. The Hungry Mum, that’s who. A tangy, wonderfully unique (and horribly addictive!) treat, thanks Mum!
Salted Caramel Popping Candy Dark Chocolate Truffles from
A Table For Two is run by former Masterchef Australia contestant, Billy Law; a fact that I showed off to as many people who would listen. “Hey guys, guess what? Billy Law sent me chocolates!” These were incredible! The popping, the caramel, the chocolate! I especially loved the caramel: just sweet enough without being overpowering. I loved the packaging with the Table For Two logo both on the ribbon and stamped onto each chocolate truffle. I refused to share these but was gracious enough to allow a select few a taste test… Thanks A Table For Two for the lovely popping treats!
Soft Raspberry Coconut Ice from
I just adore coconut ice, so opening up this pretty in pink package (see what I did there?!) was a real treat for me! The coconut ice was soft, moist and bursting with the fresh flavours of coconut and raspberry. I can’t wait to make this recipe myself! Included in my lovely box of goodies was yet another little surprise: A Thousand Days Red Jasmine Tea Flower with the note: ‘Brew in a teapot and watch the flower open.’ Although I’ve never been big on tea, I was intrigued. I just had to watch that flower open… so I did what any good daughter would do: brewed a tea for mum and chronicled the opening of the magical tea flower.
Now, I am not sure what happened after that last photo. Mum got a little sick of watching me snap photos of her tea cup and decided to get away while she could, tea in hand. I hope I got to see the mystical flower in all its glory! (PS: The tea was great too, apparantly!) Thank you Culinary Library for a beautiful package of treats!
So there we have it: My Sweet Swap 2013 experience. I really enjoyed taking part in this year’s event and am hoping to join in the sweet fun next year too! Thank you to all my matches; I enjoyed all your treats and had so much fun opening up all my packages. I hope my three matches enjoyed my Mocha Fudge as much as I enjoyed preparing it!
Looking forward to next year! Have a sweet day!
Leave a Reply