THE NIBBLE BLOG: Products, Recipes & Trends In Specialty Foods


Also visit our main website, TheNibble.com.

FOOD FUN: Lemon Reindeer

December 4, 2013 at 10:54 am · Filed under Food Fun


Christmas craft reindeer. Photo courtesy
Happy Girl Kitchen.		  

Happy Girl Kitchen is an artisan food producer in the San Francisco Bay area, making preserves and other condiments with organic farm fresh produce. The chutneys, jams, honeys, pickles and preserved tomatoes make delicious holliday gifts.

Next to their Mandarin Lemon Marmalade in the photo is a reindeer sculpture that’s fun to make at home.

  • Gather, wash and dry twigs for antlers and legs.
  • Attach a small lemon “head” to a large lemon “body” with three toothpicks. Orient the head so that the stem point serves as the “nose.”
  • Add the antlers and legs. You can use a toothpick or an ice pick to make small holes to insert the twigs.
  • For more fragrance, you can stud the body lemon (and the head, too) with whole cloves, or just use one clove for a tail. If you cover both lemons with cloves, they will preserve your lemon as a fragrant pomander.
  • Optional embellishment: tie a red ribbon around the neck.
    		•
     

      

    Comments off

    GIFT: Daelia’s Honey Nougat (Italian Torrone)

    December 4, 2013 at 8:39 am · Filed under Candy & Confections, Party Favors-Stocking Stuffers

    Good nougat is hard to find. It can be a jawbreaker or cloyingly sweet. But is a Christmas tradition in numerous countries, and good nougat is worth hunting down.

    For at least six generations, Maria Walley’s family has made torrone for Christmas and Easter (torrone, pronounced toe-ROE-nay, is Italian for nougat).

    Her ancestors brought the recipe to America from Viterbo, Italy in 1910. It was made with almonds and hazelnuts and wrapped in pieces of wax paper with the ends twisted.

    Maria has turned the family recipe into a commercial venture, Daelia’s Honey Nougat. She separates the flavors into your choice of Almond or Hazelnut.

    The all-natural confection is made with egg whites, honey and nuts; the almonds come from California, the hazelnuts from Oregon. There is no corn syrup—an ingredient used by many nougat manufacturers that cheapens the flavor and texture.

    		  
    Daelia’s Nougat in two delicious flavors:
    Almond and Hazelnut. Photo by
    Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.
     

    The bars of nougat are formed in wood molds, then cut by hand. A 3.53-ounce bar is $9.99 on Amazon.com:

  • Almond Honey Nougat
  • Hazelnut Honey Nougat

    •  

    A delicious stocking stuffer, party favor or small gift, nougat is delicious with tea or coffee…or just by itself.

    Daelia also makes delicious biscuits for cheese. Check them out.

    —Steven Gans

      

    Comments off

    TIP OF THE DAY: “Fruitcake” Ice Cream For Christmas

    December 4, 2013 at 8:23 am · Filed under Christmas, Ice Cream-Sorbet-Yogurt, Recipes, Tip Of The Day


    It’s easy to make “fruitcake ice cream” Photo
    courtesy Vivolo.it.    		  

    This photo from Italian gelato maker Vivolo inspired a recipe idea:

    Serve “fruitcake” ice cream/gelato for Christmas.

    Start with vanilla ice cream. You can soften it and mix in the ingredients (and return to the freezer to harden), or simply top the ice cream, sundae style. Use:

  • Fruitcake ingredients—candied citron, cherries and pineapple
  • Shaved or chopped dark chocolate
  • Cubes of pound cake or actual fruitcake—tossed with rum or orange liqueur (e.g. Grand Marnier), if you like

    •  
    Good fruitcake is a real treat. It has a bad reputation because of the many inexpensive, mass-marketed versions made from cheap ingredients that simply don’t taste good. The candied fruits are mediocre (or worse), the cake is mediocre, and no one wants to eat it.

    But start with top ingredients, and you’ll have a hit—with very little effort.

     

    THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ICE CREAM & GELATO

    Pete Palazzolo, of Palazzolo’s Artisan Gelato & Sorbetto in Saugatuck, Michigan, sums it up: “Gelato is simply ice cream,” he states, “Ice cream the way it was before the American Industrial Revolution blew it full of air and artificially flavored it.”

    In other words, gelato is:

  • More dense than ice cream.
  • Made with more milk than cream to better showcase the flavors (the more cream, the more fat coats the tongue and interfere with the flavors).
  • Bursting with natural ingredients—for example, actual puréed banana, not banana extract.

    •  
    Here’s more on gelato.

      

    Comments off

    The Nibble Webzine Of Food Adventures


    © Copyright 2005-2026 Lifestyle Direct, Inc. All rights reserved. All images are copyrighted to their respective owners.