Christmas needs chocolates and these strawberry creams will make a wonderful addition to any chocolate selection box, whether fully home made or to add to some shop bought varieties.
Have you ever made peppermint creams? They such fun to make, you simply make a soft minty dough, stamp out shapes and then dip into chocolate.
These wonderfully fruity strawberry creams use the same method but the filling is made with whizzed up freeze-dried strawberries to give a huge punch of berry flavour that also keeps the cream filling texture. I used the wonderful pulse dried strawberries (gifted but I also buy them on repeat because they're so good!) from my friends New Forest Fruit Snacks.
It's such an ingenious and completely free-from snack – the not so perfect strawberries from their farm nestled in the beautiful New Forest are swiftly pulse dried to retain all their flavour and to make the best fruity snack around!
These dried strawberries are wonderful as a snack but they also make a fantastic ingredient. Here I've blitzed the berries with the icing sugar to make the most beautiful pink sugary mix that tastes divine. Honestly, you need to make a batch of these delicious fruity creams, you'll thank me for the recommendation!
Strawberry Creams
Dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free, soya-free, sesame-free, gluten-free, vegan and vegetarian
makes 22-24
- 200 g icing sugar (sifted)
- 20 g freeze dried strawberries (2 bags of New Forest Fruit Snacks)
- 2 1/2 tbsps dairy-free margarine (melted)
- 1 tbsp water
- 150 g dairy-free dark chocolate
- 15 g cocoa butter (optional)
- Place the sifted icing sugar into a food processor with the freeze-dried berries and blitz until you have a beautiful pink powder
- Add the melted margarine and water and mix to form a soft (but not sticky) dough. If it's too wet add more icing sugar, if too dry, add more water.
- Knead lightly on a surface dusted with icing sugar.
- Roll out to 1/2 – 1/4 cm thickness and cut out disc shapes with a cookie cutter.
- Place on a lined baking sheet and leave overnight in a cool dry place to dry out. Make sure you turn them over so they dry on both sides.
- Melt the chocolate (at this stage is best to temper the chocolate to give a nice crisp finish, but if you wish to simply melt it then make sure you store the strawberry creams in the fridge)
- Stir in the melted cocoa butter (if using) as this will make it much easier to coat the creams as it makes the chocolate more free-flowing
- Dip each strawberry cream into the chocolate, add a little grating of freeze dried strawberry on top and then leave to set on some baking paper or a silicone mat
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