Brazilian Chocolate Brigadeiros

I found this recipe on another food blog and they looked so lovely that I had it on my list to try. Then came along the Let’s Make Christmas event, so I made it for my swap contribution. See below for my adapted recipe.

They are really easy to make and the recipe makes about 30 balls, depending on how big you roll them. This could be a really fun job to involve kids in. Get a lot of different coloured sprinkles and create a whole range of amazing looking sweets.

Sidebar: In the process of making this, I discovered the world of glittery sprinkles in a cake supplies shop nearby. It’s like a kid being let loose in a toy shop. Now I need to find more recipes where I can use the colourful icing, the icing pens, glitter, etc. Fun!

Brazilian Chocolate Brigadeiros

Rating: 51

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 40 minutes

30

Brazilian Chocolate Brigadeiros

Really fun Brazillian sweets that you can make in a jiffy.

Ingredients

    For the Brigadeiros
  • 1 400ml Can of Condensed Milk
  • 3 tbsp of Drinking Chocolate Powder
  • 2 tbsp of butter
  • For Decoration:
  • Chocolate Sprinkles
  • Fancy Sprinkles
  • Baking glitter
  • Crushed Pistachio nuts

Instructions

  1. Pour the condensed milk into a medium saucepan and place over medium heat.
  2. Add the drinking chocolate drinking and butter and keep stirring your Brigadeiro mixture until it starts to show the bottom of the pan when you scrape it with your spoon. This is the only crucial bit to watch out for. As you scrape the bottom of your pan with the spoon, the Brigadeiro mixture should be thick enough to show you the bottom the pan for a couple of seconds before the mixture levels out again. This takes about 10 minutes.
  3. Pour the Brigadeiro mixture into a glass container and leave your Brigadeiros aside to cool until it’s room temperature, then you can put them in the fridge. The mixture can stay in the fridge for 3 to 4 days until you’re ready to roll them out.
  4. When you are ready to roll your Brigadeiros, remove the mixture from the fridge and let it warm up to room temperature again as this makes it easier to handle. Using a teaspoon, scoop a small quantity and roll it into a small round shape, about the size of chocolate truffle. If you spread a bit of butter on your palms before rolling, this will prevent the mixture from sticking. (You can make this a fun group activity to get the kids to do this part)
  5. Drop the Brigadeiro ball into a bowl containing your choice of topping and gently roll it around until it’s totally covered. I chose some chocolate sprinkles and some colourful edible star shape sprinkles from Sainsburys.
  6. Transfer your Brigadeiro to a mini cupcake cup. (I bought my mini cupcake cups from ebay where there are loads of choices.)
http://www.eatcookexplore.com/brazilian-chocolate-brigadeiros/

Food Bloggers’ Swap at Let’s Make Christmas

The fabulous Vanessa Kimbell started a conversation on Twitter to organise a Christmas gift swap between food bloggers, with handmade edible. This eventually turned into an event held at Fortnums and Masons and a very competitive competition judged by Dan Lepard.

Let’s Make Christmas was born. 50 food bloggers, many, many amazing handmade foodie gifts from Christmas cookies, seasonal chutney, very professional chocolates and sweets and an impressive range of alcoholic infusions.

Xmas_FM

After Vanessa announced a list of prizes for each category of baked goods, drinks, sweets and preserves, the competitive gene kicked in. The star prize was a Kenwood K mix for the winner of the baked goods category, so of course I had to make one thing for that category. I chose to make some Malaysian Pineapple Tarts which is something that we make in Malaysia (or rather, buy in from some lovely lady who bakes millions for each festival) for Chinese New Year or for Hari Raya (Eid).

I have not done much baking or pastry for ages so this was a great opportunity to start again. I totally under estimated the time that this would take and it was a mad scramble to make short crust pastry at midnight, while stirring a pot of pineapple jam on the side.

I had to improvise with some star shaped cookie cutters to make it look more festive. We usually make these in a round shape with a specially designed cookie cutter that simultaneously cuts the pasty and creates the indent in the middle for the jam. There was much improvisation but it turned out quite well in the end.

Malaysian Pineapple Tarts

I had originally planned to just make some Brazilian Chocolate Brigadeiros which are just simply sweets made with condensed milk.The making of these were quite easy but it took hours of shopping to find the colourful sprinkles, the little gold cups and a suitable sized box to put the sweets in. Here are the finished results. I fell in love with the colourful sprinkles in different shapes and colours and have discovered a whole work of cake and cookie decorating goodies at the local cake shop. Oh no, I feel a new addiction kicking in.

Cinammon Kitchen 049

Here is an idea of the competition on the day.

Lets Make Christmas- Baked Goods

These are some of the entries for the baked goods category. There was a lot of talent in the room.

Lets Make Christmas- Baked Goods

Entries for the sweets category.

Much serious judging by Dan Lepard and the man from Fortnums.

Lets Make Christmas-10

There was much socialising, networking and meeting food bloggers that we only know by their Twitter handles. So many people had come down to London for this event, it was really an amazing gathering.

Lets Make Christmas-12

Helen (Fuss Free Flavours), don’t know, Vanessa, Sarah (Food For Think)  and not sure and didn’t have a chance to meet.

Lets Make Christmas-13

Fiona (London Unattached), Jackie (I am a Feeder) and not sure.

Lets Make Christmas-17

The winners: Jay (Jaynerly) , ?, ?, Urvashi (Botanical Baker), Dan and Vanessa. Sorry, can’t remember the names or the blogs of everyone I met that day.

These are the gifts I got from my swap. Chocolate Peppermint Crunch from Heidi Roberts and glittery Honeycomb rom Gail Doggett (One Million Gold Stars).

Lets Make Christmas-20

Lets Make Christmas-22

 

 

That was a really fun afternoon, met some new food blogger friends, got some delicious brownies from Michelle (Utterly Scrummy) and left with a little goodie bag from Fortnums. Big thanks for Vanessa for organising a really fab bloggers event.