Baking - Real Sweet

Brigadeiro Chocolate Fudge Truffle

In this blog I am going to be showing you how to make a Brazilian chocolate fudge truffle that is called a Brigadeiro.  "Traditionally, brigadeiros are found with a coating of thin, crunchy chocolate sprinkles, but you can go crazy with fun coatings here" (Sever 149). Baking is such an interesting thing because you can have fun with so many different elements with baking, whether it is the design, the taste, or the texture. This is why I wanted to do baking, because there are hardly any limits to what you can do. In baking, creativity and imagination are shown and represented.


First off to make this candy, you will need a few items, and you will probably have some of these already, if you have baked before.

Materials:

• 14 oz. Sweetened condensed milk
• 1/3 c. cocoa powder; unsweetened
• 2 tbs. butter; unsalted
• 1/8 t. sea salt; fine
• 1/4 t. vanilla extract; pure
• Toppings; chocolate sprinkles, cocoa powder, etc.
• baking pan; 8 x 8 inch  
• nonstick cooking spray                       (Sever 149)

After you have gathered all your materials you can start making your brigadeiros. "If you use canned milk, the candy is likely to thicken and cook faster, so keep an eye out for visual clues described below to avoid overcooking it" (Sever 149). This tip actually helped a lot with making these, because I didn't need to spend all the time to make my own condensed milk and even longer waiting for it to cook and not burn.

How to make the Brigadeiros:

• Put a saucepan over medium heat.
• Mix in the butter, condensed milk, cocoa powder, and salt and keep mixing with a whisk so the ingredients can come together.
• You will know the candy is done when it has a thick consistency almost like brownie batter, and this process can take 15 to 25 minutes to finish.
• Take the candy off the heat, stir in vanilla extract, and pour into a greased baking pan.
• Cool the chocolate truffle candy for about an hour in the refrigerator until it is firm.
• Then roll the candies into 1 inch balls and coat them in your desired toppings.      (Sever 149)

End Result:

I think the Brigadeiros turned out pretty well for a first try but the thing I probably would have changed about the process, is to keep the saucepan with the mixture on a lower heat so there would be a lower risk of the candy getting burned. But overall they tasted really good especially if you add chocolate sprinkles as your topping.

Questions: What kind of toppings would you put on a brigadeiro and what tips do you have for making candy?

• Sever, Shauna, and Leigh Beisch. Real Sweet: More than 80 Crave-   worthy Treats Made with Natural Sugars. New York: William Morrow, 2015. Print.