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Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm :)

This has to be good!

I made some sloejacks at the weekend with the spent sloes from some sloe gin I started making at Christmas and took them into work today for people to taste. I'm now very popular (ha ha) and the proud owner of a new recipe for using gin-soaked sloes (from a colleague with a freezer full of them!). This has Belgian choc, cream and alcohol... what could possibly go wrong? ;)

This recipe makes around 40 truffles

You will need:

25g/1oz unsalted butter
75ml/3fl oz/5tbsp double cream
225g/8oz good quality Belgian chocolate
75g stoned sloes, broken up and softened with a pestle and mortar
2 tbsp sloe gin

To Finish:
100g Very good quality chocolate (I use Green & Blacks 72% cocoa cooks chocolate, this really does make a superior truffle. Its high cocoa content gives you the 'hit' of chocolate without the sharpness of a plain chocolate)
Chopped roasted hazlenuts

1. Line a Swiss roll tin with baking parchment

2. Place butter and cream in a small saucepan and bring slowly to the boil, stirring constantly. Boil for one minute then remove from the heat.

3. Break the Belgian chocolate into pieces and add to the cream. Stir until melted, then mix in the sloes and sloe gin.

4. Pour the mixture into the prepared swiss roll tin and chill in the fridge for about 2 hours until firm.

5. Break off pieces of the mixture and roll into balls. Chill for a further 30 minutes before finishing the truffles.

6. To finish melt the Green and Blacks chocolate. Dip the balls into the chocolate on a fork allowing the excess to drip back into the bowl. Carefully cover the truffle with the hazlenuts by putting it into a small dish or saucer of the nuts and covering it with the hazlenuts by hand.

7. Place the truffles in paper cases and refridgerate to set.


I did half in hazlenuts and half just coated in the chocolate, so they looked pretty in the boxes.

Tip: The truffle mixture needs to be firm but not too hard to roll. If the mixture is too hard, allow it to stand at room temperature for a few minutes. During rolling the mixture will become sticky but will reharden in the refridgerator before coating.

The chocolates can be kept in the fridge for about two weeks.

Warning: If you intend to give these out as gifts, make double quantity as it will be very hard to part with them!

I do hope you try these and enjoy them. Wishing you all a very merry Christmas, Sloeranger

Reproduced from Sloe.biz

Current Mood: excited

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I've worn glasses since I was 12, I wear contacts when I'm filming, but let's face it. It's a fiddle, constantly sticking your fingers in your eyes isn't very good for them, and we'd all rather just be able to see. Besides my slight astigmatism means I can't actually see very well with my contacts in, I'm wearing them right now and it's actually quite a task to read what I'm writing.

Lulled in by Optical Expresses £395 per eye claims I went for a consultation, the cheapest possible fee for laser correcting my eyesight will be £895 per eye, a total of £1790 for the lot. And that's without their super-duper fix it exactly and don't have a surgeon stick a scalpel in your eye machine which costs about £1500 per eye!

Anyway, I still want it. I want to be able to see without mechanical assistance. I want my eyesight back. Personally I think the government should pay for it, isn't that what the NHS is for? But since they won't even cover my eye tests anymore I look to you, my friends and family. I've seen other people do this for other things, I've contributed to a few of them in my time, but I've never done it myself

If I can raise £1000 ($2000) I will cover the rest of the money myself!

In return you get, well nothing actually, except the knowledge that you are a charitable and lovely person who will undoubtably be rewarded in some karmic fashion by the universe at large. Also if I get really rich and famous at any point I will pay you back, because I am nice that way.


I know £1000 sounds like a lot, but don't let that put you off, you don't have to give a lot, if every person I'm friended to on Livejournal (just as an example) were to give me £3 ($6) I would have reached the target!

I have two paypal accounts, one that you can't use credit/debit cards to send money to, but that paypal
don't steal a percentage from, and one that you can use cards with, but that paypal do steal a
percentage from. Pick the one that fits you. Or if you see me often or have my address you can give me
money directly, this is the best way. Alternately you can transfer funds directly bank to bank, if you know my email address just drop me an email and I will give you the account number.

Use this one unless you are absolutely sure there will be no credit/debit card involved in any way...

I have a paypal account and can transfer money directly...

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Current Mood: hopeful

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