White Chocolate

Whispered

Hey, I've found myself with 5lbs of white chocolate in the form of cigarellos in my house.

What is your favourite thing to do with white choc - I'm looking for drinks, cakes, bikkies, anything to get rid of it. My husband wants me to throw it out which would be a real shame, so I need a plan to get rid of it quickly and deliciously.

Pigwidgeon

I made raspberry and pecan blondies before. They were amazing.
Any form of blondies (white chocolate brownies) really. Nyom.

star-pants

Another +1 for Blondies, these are peanut butter & white chocolate ones, girl in work made them and they were just gorgeous
http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/607182

phormium

They are expensive to be just melting! Are they near use by date or do you just not have a use for them in their original form?

Whispered

Yes they were expensive - no they are not near their date - but I have no use for them in their original form. I'm not much of a baker at all. They were bought to decorate a wedding cake but were not used in the end.

It would be a pity to melt them down but I've no use for them as cigarellos.

Sigma Force

Just be careful when melting mabey use the microwave and stop it every few seconds and stir to make sure it doesn't go icky.
White chocolate truffles are nice, roll them in coconut and they make nice Xmas gifts, dollop a bit of baileys when making them.
White chocolate mousse would be nice or crush them and use them to sprinkle over cakes and ice cream.

Whispered

Going to make blondies and try out some truffles today. If the truffles work out I think I'll go buy some nice boxes and my christmas pressies are sorted! (so broke this year after getting married - a pressie like this would be perfect)

star-pants

Truffles as lil presents doooo sound like a good idea too

Sigma Force

If you had any wedding favour boxes left or knew where to get them they make cute little truffle boxes.

Whispered

Tried to make white choc cupcakes Failed miserably. Ah well 4.5lbs left.

Might try truffles either later or tomorrow.

Rasmus

I would definitely try the truffles. When I have white chocolate I usually chop it up and use like regular choc chips, and add them to fruit muffin mix (cranberry, blueberry etc). Or give them away tonight in trick r treat bags! You could just have some in a bowl for the kids to grab. : )

the beer revolu

White Chocolate and Passionfruit Mousse

Acoshla

Would cigarillos not be really unsuitable for things that require baking/heating, like cookies, cupcakes etc, because they are thin layers of chocolate as opposed to chunks which can melt slowly?

I'd say the best recipes to use would be ones that require them to be melted before being added to anything, or just crumbling them on top of things. If their sell by date isn't soon you should just hold onto them and use them bit by bit, they're always lovely around a cake with fresh fruit etc.

Sigma Force

Mabey using a recently boiled kettle and putting the water into a saucepan and then the bowl on top rather than keeping it over hot water might work.
If it were me I'd probably have them all scoffed just on their own by now, num num.

I wonder if you put them through a food processor perhaps making them into crumbs to sprinkle or bash them in a ziplock bag and sprinkle.

Whispered

Ok - another kitchen disaster.

Genache - lovely. Turned out great. Creamy, buttery and chocolatey. Have a plate of genache balls sitting in my fridge.

But I couldn't melt the white chocolate to a dipping thickness. It just turned to mush. I tried a bain marie and the microwave.

I'm going to buy dark choc tomorrow and try melting that.

Thanks for the recipes and ideas.

Acoshla

Probably the reason that it's difficult to melt it to a coating consistency is because it is probably tempered couverture (ie very good) chocolate, so it may need to be tempered again before you would get that consistency.

Sometimes the mush is caused by overheating?

Also a teaspoon of vegetable oil added to the chocolate can give a more coating consistency.

Or you could use the Homecook white cooking chocolate to cover the truffles, as you have the good stuff in the truffles you wouldn't even notice the cheap chocolate and it will definitely coat them better.

They might work best in cold desserts, like mousse or cheesecake.

Magic Monkey

Speaking of cheesecake, here's a white chocolate cheesecake recipe. I don't know how much white chocolate you have left, but it doesn't require too much:

Makes 1 x 11"/28cm cheesecake

Ingredients

• 120g Unsalted butter
• 250g Digestive biscuits

• 380g White chocolate, chopped
• 400ml Whole milk
• 750g Philadelphia cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 Vanilla bean, seeded
• 60g Icing sugar, sifted

Method

1. Blitz biscuits, melt butter, mix, press onto base.
2. Melt white chocolate and milk in a heatproof bowl over gently simmering water (i.e. a double boiler) until melted and smooth. Blend briefly to combine, using either a stick blender or food processor.
3. Cover with baking paper or cling film, and leave to cool.
4. Cream the cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla seeds. Stir in 50% of the white chocolate "ganache", fold in the remaining 50%.
5. Pour over base, spread until level, cover, chill 6 hours.

To melt white chocolate for dipping, your cigarillos should be chopped into small even pieces, placed in a heatproof bowl, and put over a pot of barely simmering water. It'll take some time to melt, but it will melt. Stir occasionally.

To temper white chocolate, melt it to 45c, cool to 26-27c, reheat to 28-29c. You can add 15% by weight of a neutral oil to the chocolate to make dipping easier, but the coating won't be as crisp. For example, to 500g white chocolate, add 75g vegetable oil.

Whispered

I got milk choc and melted it (still couldn't get it to dipping consistancy ) but it was a lot better than the white. rolled my genache balls in it, rolled it in coconut and I now have 14 delicious looking truffles.

If they taste as lovely as they look I'm going to make loads for over christmas. I think I'll buy some edible glitter to festive them up a bit.

Thanks a million for the suggestions.

star-pants

PICTURES!!