Chocolat

Wind and rain are sweeping across my view today.  It is the perfect weather for steaming up the kitchen windows a la Vianne Rocher and scrying with melted chocolat.

I love the feeling of tearing open a block of chocolate, the sound it makes when broken and dropped onto the board for chopping.  I love the glossy sheen of melted chocolate; the smell and of course, the taste!

I have made chocolate bark, pennies and chocolate covered marshmallows.

I am not a fan of white chocolate, as I find it too cloying and over sweet, but teamed with bitter dark chocolate it turns into something else entirely.  To make chocolate bark all you do is melt a block of white chocolate, spread it carefully onto a sheet of baking paper so that it is about 3mm thick, chop half a block of  plain chocolate into small chunks and sprinkle it over the still warm white chocolate.  Carefully top the whole thing with more melted white chocolate.  The plain chocolate will begin to melt a little and mix with the white as you spread it, making a lovely marbled pattern.  I added some gold stars for a bit of Christmas prettiness.

The best ways to eat marshmallows are toasted on an open fire (preferably a camp fire) or, even better, dipped in melted chocolate and rolled in desiccated coconut or sprinkled with sugar stars.  Oh yum!

These chocolate pennies are just swirls of chocolate on baking paper.  You can have as much fun as you like decorating them.  I sprinkled these with a little edible gold glitter and the ones at the back are studded with silver coated chocolate hearts.

Amazingly, nothing went wrong.  No disasters occurred while melting loads of chocolate, nothing got knocked over and I did not end up in tears.  In fact it was all rather relaxing and pleasant.  I am having to keep the kitchen door shut now as Puppy knows there is something in there that he is convinced is for him.  He would of course eat the lot and then probably die.  He and MAL stole a mince pie yesterday and wolfed it down almost before it hit the floor.  Nothing we could do about it by then, apart from be annoyed that it was the last one.  My sister-in-law's parents' dog ate half a Christmas cake, that her mum had just finished icing.  He then spent 24 hours bringing it all back up on their lovely carpets.  Ridiculous animals; they are very greedy.

After two weeks worth of panic, I think I am now in control - or rather, everything is under control for the time being.  H2's school Christmas play is tomorrow night and thankfully he is really excited about it.  Pea starts her mock exams today.  The first one is Welsh, which she is fine with and she has done plenty of revision, so I'm sure it will all go OK.  By the time they break-up on Friday, they will all be behind her and she can relax over the holidays.  I can't wait for that!  I love having my children home, and the Christmas holls are the best.  There is no need to do anything if we don't want to.  We can be completely content and relaxed and if we drag the dogs down the lanes now and then, to ease the guilt of being slobby, all will be well.  I expect by January I will be climbing the walls and ready to get the house back into some sort of order, but for now I am prepared to let it slide - a little.

Have a lovely creative day and thank you for reading. xxx