Passionfruit Yo-Yo’s with White Chocolate Ganache

Here is a delicious recipe for Yo-Yo’s from a recent Gourmet Traveller, I think it was thier passionfruit special. Passionfruits are going for $1.50 a pop now so I used the tin of passionfruit pulp in syrup you can but from the supermarket instead, seemed to do the job without a problem & much less fiddly then pulping & processing too.

Passionfruit Yo-Yo’s with White Chocolate Ganache

Makes about 24 biscuits

180gm butter, softened
90g pure icing sugar
80ml (1/3 cup) passionfruit juice
225g (1 ½ cups) plain flour
100g (2/3 cup) cornflour

Ganache
90ml pouring cream
45ml passionfruit juice
2 pieces of lemon rind, removed with a peeler
180g white chocolate, finely chopped

For Ganache, combine, cream, juice & rind in a saucepan and bring just to the boil over medium-high heat. Place chocolate in a bowl, strain over hot cream mixture, whisk until smooth & refrigerate for 4 hours or until thick.

Beat butter & sugar in an electric mixer until light & fluffy, add juice & combine. Add flours & mix until just combined, then turn onto a floured surface, form into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap & refrigerate for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 180c. Roll out pastry to 8mm thick & using a 3cm diameter cutter, cut rounds from pastry & place on baking paper lined oven trays. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until just golden, cool on trays for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Spread half the biscuits with a teaspoon of Ganache, sandwich with remaining biscuits & stand until set. Uniced yo-yo’s will keep for up to 1 week in an airtight container.

Note: To make your own passionfruit juice, blend passionfruit pulp in a food processor to crack seeds, then strain through a fine sieve. 12 passionfruits yield about 1 cup of juice.

Chocolate Truffles & Sugar High Friday!

For the latest Sugar High Friday the theme is truffles & the host is The Passionate Cook. Now I love truffles yet have never made them before so I thought I would start at the beginning & make some traditional French style truffles from Green & Black’s Chocolate Cook book. These are predominantly a chocolate ganache, dusted with cocoa powder. Apparently they were first called truffles as they looked like real freshly dug truffles of the fungus type! They are absolutely wickedly delicious, dense & rich in a very adult dark chocolatey way that I love and I feel even more guilty eating these as opposed to bought ones as I know exactly what went into them. Not too time consuming though you do have to start at least 3 hours or so before hand to get the required amount of refrigeration time. Also today in Melbourne it’s quite hot, up there in the 30’s, so I found I had to roll them in batches as the mixture started getting a bit melty after about 10 truffles, so I popped the mix batch in the fridge every now & then. Yum, now I have to try & give some away before I eat them all.

Micah’s Truffles

275g dark chocolate, minimum 60% cocoa solids, broken into pieces
250ml double cream
50g unsalted butter, at room temperature
50g cocoa powder

Place the chocolate in a large bowl. Bring the cream to the boil & pur it over the chocolate. Stir gently until the chocolate has melted, trying not to create bubbles. Leave to cool for 2 minutes, then add the butter in 2 stages & stir in gently. Once the butter is incorporated, the ganache should be smooth & glossy with no oil slick on the surface. Set the mix in the fridge for a minimum of 3 hours or overnight.

Remove from the fridge about 15 minutes before you want to make the truffles, depending on room temperature. Put the cocoa into a bowl. Ensure your hands are cold & dry, then dust them with cocoa. Take teaspoonfuls of the ganache mix & roll the mixture in to a ball in your cocoa dusted hands. Drop each truffle in the bowl of cocoa, roll it around then toss between your palms to remove any excess powder. The truffles can then be returned to the fridge and kept for up to 2 days as long as they are stored in an airtight container. Serve straight from the fridge or at room temperature.

Movida

Last night I caught up with Megan & Rach for dinner at Movida, which is a fantastic little tapas bar tucked away in a laneway in the city. They do dinner in 2 sittings, either 6 or 8.30, so if you do the 6 you have to get out fast & if you do the later session you can settle in & relax. As we were all going straight from work we did the 6.00 session as last time I went for the later one we were all very drunk by the time we got there, not very good at restraining myself from the bubbly whilst waiting! The menu is divided between tapas (small dishes) & racions (slightly bigger dishes) that are designed to share. You can also have a banquet. I love eating this way as it means you get to try so much more of whats on offer. Last night was no exception with 3 hungry girls not afraid to eat! The huge selection we tried last night was as follows:

Bread with Olive oil
Ensalada Valencia – Valencian Salad, endive, orange, palm hearts, & Manzanillo olives
Croqueta - Fried croquette flavoured with chicken & garlic chives
Tortilla de Patatas – confit potato & onion omelette
Setas Asado Con Jerez – Oven roasted portabello Mushrooms finished with sherry vinegar
Gambas A La sidra – whole prawns cooked in terracotta with Asturian cider
Chicken Speical – cant remember the exact flavours, was braised with an almond meal breading
Costilla Con Sobrasada - Roasted lamb cutlet encased in a Catalan pork & paprika pate
Vierna, Jamon Y Espuma – Half shell scallop oven baked with jamon & potato foam

Churros – Rich hot drinking chocolate & Spanish doughnuts & Ganache Caliente Con Turron, Hot chocolate ganache pudding with vanilla bean ice cream & nougat

Everything was absolutely yummy as you can see form the photos, the salad which the waiter suggested was really good & a bit different, the croquettes absolutely melted in your mouth, the mushrooms didn’t look much but were very tasty, the chicken special was delicious, in fact it was all lip smacking good. I had also heard that the churros for dessert were to die for so of course I had to try them along with the ganache which we shared between the 3 of us, of my God, as Rach put it, you could come here for dessert alone. The dipping chocolate was so thick & rich & good, it was a shame we ran out of dippin doughnuts & had to leave some & the ganache was exceptionally good too.

All in all it was really, really good & lots more to try in future visits, the menu changes regulary too so always something new to try. Very highly recommended, just remember it is very popular so book at least a week in advance

Movida
1 Hosier Lane, Melbourne
Ph: (03) 9663 3038
www.movida.com.au
Open 7 days 12pm to Late