You’ll need to sign up for Tor’s free e-book club, which means they’ll offer you a free book every month. I don’t mind that. (Yes, they’ll use your email to promote other books but you can always use a throw-away address if you don’t want to hear from them.)
This bundle is only available for the next few days but if you haven’t read these titles it’s a great opportunity for three good books.
Especially Murderbot. Because everyone loves Murderbot.
Today I am going to caramelize white chocolate, and then use it to make white chocolate passionfruit tofu pudding.
There are a number of ways to caramelize the chocolate, the most traditional being a 250F oven for 45–60 minutes, stirring every ten minutes or so. A second option is to sous vide the chocolate at 90C for anywhere from 4 to 12 hours, but that’s a long time and I have dessert-making to do now.
I think I’ll start with the quickest of the options I’ve found so far: the microwave.
… (time passing)… (muzak from your preferred era)… (stepped away to make a lemon meringue pie because it’s Mr Man’s favorite and, you know, Valentine’s Day)…
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Success! It took seven minutes of microwave time total, plus all the opening the microwave and stirring and closing the microwave door and … you get the picture. I’m glad I tried it but next time I will test the sous vide method. It takes a lot longer but it’s all hands off.
Yes, that is my handwriting. Yes, it is terrible.
That said, all that microwave time paid off. Caramelized white chocolate is freaking delicious.
I made another batch of tofu chocolate pudding, subbing in the caramelized white chocolate for dark, passionfruit simple syrup for plain, and lime juice for the vanilla. It is quite good but a little too sweet straight from the blender. It may balance out once it chills. If I try it again I’ll reduce the amount of syrup considerably (half? less?) and up the lime. (Actually, next time I’ll probably just toss a block of tofu in the blender with the white chocolate and go from there.)
I recently tried a variation on the previously-posted tofu chocolate pudding recipe, based on Mark Bittman’s Mexican Chocolate Tofu Pudding. It uses simple syrup, which makes it easy to add any flavor boosters you might like. I took the opportunity to make both plain for the pudding and a batch of passion fruit syrup to try with caramelized white chocolate later. (I may also try this with maple syrup. Go Canada!)
This recipe is gluten and lactose free (vegan too, depending on your chocolate). Don’t let that deter you, the final result is rich and creamy.
Right now I’m only able to find silken tofu in Tetra Pak boxes that hold 12.3 ounces and the easily available chocolate comes in 6 ounce packages, so I tweaked the recipe to match. I also left out Bittman’s cinnamon and chili but that version’s good too.
And hark, Valentine’s Day approacheth!
If your local store has silken tofu and decent chocolate it’s hard to find a quicker, easier dessert that’s still delicious. (It’s also possible to use the pudding as pie filling with a graham cracker crust, but I haven’t tried that yet.)
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Tofu Chocolate Pudding v2.0
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
12 oz. silken tofu, firm
6 oz good chocolate, dark to semisweet
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt
Heat sugar and water over medium heat. Cook until sugar is dissolved, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and let cool slightly, then add chocolate and stir until melted and smooth.
Blend all ingredients together until smooth, scraping down the sides as necessary. Chill for at least 30 minutes, although longer gives a denser texture. Serve straight, or with fresh fruit and whipped cream.
Serves four. Or two. Or one. You’ll find no judgment here.
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Yes, our part of Ontario is expecting freezing rain (thanks climate change!), but there’s still enough snow for that purest of winter joys, a snowball fight!
Snowball fight captured in film for first time 1897 | AccuWeather The 50-second clip captures a group of people in Lyons, France, playing in snow and the chaos ensuing as a snowball fight between two sides turns into a surprise attack on a bypassing cyclist. … Like in the current day and age, there were many things the Lumière brothers could have filmed as world events brewed and boiled, but instead, they chose to make one of their many short films about people playing in the snow…
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Here it is again in a version has been upscaled and colorized, making it even more relatable.
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“A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.”
Are you un-agented? Have you been waiting for a high-profile publisher to send out a call for submissions? Do you happen to have a science fiction, fantasy or horror manuscript lying around the house, waiting for its dare-to-be-great moment?
Then this, my friends, is your lucky day!
Angry Robot has announced a week-long open submission period for un-agented works. I don’t happen to have one handy but maybe you do? If so, may the odds be ever in your favor!
The Submission period will run for one week, from Monday the 21st of February to Monday the 28th February.
We are looking for:
– Novel length works.
– A synopsis of the full work in a separate Word document.
– An elevator pitch and author bio in your email.Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.
– Adult fiction.
– Finished manuscripts.
To apply, please send us: – A sample that consists of the first three chapters of your work (or first fifteen pages if the chapters are short). – A synopsis of the full work in a separate Word document. – An elevator pitch and author bio in your email.
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