final

So it's the last day of 2011, and the new year is on the horizon. It's been an amazing and dull year simultaneously, with my graduation happening and then...  not a lot else. Next year it's time to get me some serious move on, and get myself back into working and hopefully starting to forge myself a decent career.

For now, as a final goodbye to 2011, I thought I'd share with you the labels I did for my Christmas presents. It's a combination of my favourite things - victorian type, painting with gouache and food! These were printed on sticky paper and put onto gift bags.

The truffles I made were all eaten too quickly for me to take a good photo, but I can now reveal their lovely fillings as everyone has received their gifts. The first two fillings were taken from Hope & Greenwood's recipe book and I gave them some festive names. 

Happy New Year to all my readers and I will see you in 2012!

truffles

Today I've been doing a little bit of painting pictures of food (no change there then) ready for some of my Christmas gifts. I had a go at making truffles (sorry if you are getting these and your surprise is spoilt) so I needed some images of them for the... I suppose you'd call it a chocolate menu? The fillings guide!

I found that making chocolates from scratch was actually pretty fun and not as insanely hard as I thought. I made a traditional style ganache truffle as well as two others with unique fillings. 

The recipes for the unusual fillings were from a book by the rather fabulous Hope & Greenwood that my brother got for me for my birthday last year, and beside the sumptuous recipes the actual writing in there is worth buying the book for alone - a very witty style that kept me entertained whilst endlessly dipping chocolates! You can find the book here (it also features some fantastic photography and lovely fifties style illustrations. It's basically the kind of book I would design if I were a publisher!) 

Here's some sneak previews of the actual chocolates - don't look, friends! The stars I used on the white truffles are Dr Oetker and you can get them from most good supermarkets or online here. I got the edible red glitter from a specialist baking shop in my local town but I found some online here if you'd like to experiment! 

I won't tell you what's in these - I shall save that until after Christmas! 

Update: Now that Christmas is over I can share with you the finished 'choccy menu', complete with details of the chocolate fillings...