Brigadeiros Recipe (A Brazilian Chocolate)

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Last night I made brigadeiros, that yummy Brazilian chocolate that makes Brazil lovers drool. These were probably one of my top five favorite foods (yes, chocolate is a food) when I lived in Brazil. My picture seemed to garner a lot of love on Facebook, and a bit of lust, so I thought, if I can’t share the chocolates with my friends (I’m not sure how I feel about sharing chocolates) then I can at least share the recipe.

Here’s the recipe I used–I translated it from Portuguese about 7 years ago, and don’t remember where I got it from.

Brigadeiros (A Brazilian Chocolate)

1 can of sweetened condensed milk
3-4 tablespoons of cocoa
Several tablespoons butter
Chocolate sprinkles (use real milk chocolate sprinkles)

Melt the butter on the stove.  Mix in the cocoa.  Add the sweetened condensed milk.  Stir, over heat, as you bring the mixture to a low boil.  Keep stirring until the consistency changes and it becomes thick and sticky.  Remove from heat.  Let cool enough so you can touch it with your fingers, but no cooler.  Put butter on your fingers, and quickly roll the mixture into balls (of about and inch to an inch and a half diameter).  Roll the balls in chocolate sprinkles and place them in candy cups (like miniature muffin cups).  Let cool before eating.

Makes about 30.

More tricks, techniques, and pictures:

Chocolate Sprinkles

The key to this recipe is to use real chocolate sprinkles. If you go to a normal grocery store in the US and look really carefully at the label, you’ll realize that what you’re buying is not chocolate, but chocolate flavored.  Alright–okay for some things, but not ideal for brigadeiros.

My sister got me these real chocolate sprinkles from Germany–they’re 32%, which is way more than your Hershey’s bar will have.

You can also order them online, or get them at a specialty store: Pirate O’s in Draper, UT has them, as do other gourmet and foreign food stores.

Candy Cups

It’s also helpful to actually have candy cups. They’re a little smaller than mini muffin holders. See the comparison:

I bought these at a cake shop. You could use mini muffin paper cups and it’d be just fine, the risk is that you’ll make them too large, and you’ll be overwhelmed by chocolately goodness. (Okay, maybe that’s not a bad thing.)

More Pictures

Who can resist a brigadeiro close-up?

And my Brazilian doll, hoarding several brigadeiros, which are as large as her head:

Guardians of the Hearth

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For an LDS woman, being a “guardian of the hearth” is about much more than cooking food on a fire (or on the stove)–it’s about the entire spiritual responsibilities and divine roles of women in the home.

(Frederick Childe Hassam’s “The Fireplace”)

This month’s visiting teaching message is titled “Guardians of the Hearth,” quoting President Gordon B. Hinckley, who said the following in a 1995 address to women:

You are the guardians of the hearth.  You are the bearers of the children. You are they who nurture them and establish within them the habits of their lives. No other work reaches so close to divinity as does the nurturing of the sons and daughters of God.

It’s insightful to read this quote in the context of the woman and her relationship with the historic hearth. Recently, I’ve been reading the book Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light. The educational yet entertaining book spends most of its pages talking about the development of electricity and how it changed Western culture and society, but the first quarter of the book is about what life was like before electric light.

(Photo of tenant farmer and family in front of fireplace taken as part of the FSA project in 1939.)

The hearth–the fire–was often the figurative center of the home. It was used for cooking and the heat for ironing. In the evening, candles and lamps were often used sparingly, because of their expense, so the hearth was often the main source of light. It heated the home–or at least the portion of it closest to the fire. Without the other evening diversions and entertainments made possible by electric lights, families congregated in the evening around the hearth–it was a place of warmth and a place for stories and for the shared weaving of lives.

I don’t have a fireplace in my home, but I still can be the guardian of the hearth. I can be a guardian of light, of time spent together as a family, of warmth, of safety, of food, of shared stories. As a wife and mother, I am not the only one with responsibilities for the hearth–others often light and tend to our home’s fire. But I am the guardian–a guard and protector of light and spirit, one who preserves the fire and makes sure its embers do not go out.

(Helen Allingham’s “In the Nursery”)

Crocheting, Home Arts, and Ribbons at the State Fair

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There was something really exciting about the High School Awards Ceremony when I was in 9th grade. I sat on the edge of my seat, knowing, surely, I would win something. My name was called, and I walked to the front of the auditorium, trying not to look to pleased with myself as I received a certificate for this, that, and another class I was in. The excitement was definitely helped by there only being 400 or so people at my school in Portland, Connecticut: fewer people means more awards can be given out per person in an hour long assembly. I believe everyone got called up at some point during the ceremony.

I admit, I had a bit of the same anticipation a week and a half ago when I entered three of my crocheted items into the Utah State Fair–surely, surely, I will get a ribbon for something. Luckily I don’t have the same high school anxieties, and luckily, like in my high school, there are plenty of categories. There are 6 different levels you can enter at: Professional, Advanced Amateur, Amateur, Senior Citizens, Youth, and Disabled. And then, within each of those levels, you compete against only other similar items.

So the afghan that I crocheted was not competing against all other afghans, but against only other Amateur Crocheted Infant Afghans. Likewise, my second entry competed against only other Amateur crocheted Jacket, Ponchos, and Sweaters.

Funny, having lots of categories does not stifle the excitement when you win two ribbons at the state fair! (Edited on Sept 22: it turns out I actually won three ribbons–see below.)

   

I received a 2nd place at the Amateur level for the wavy, spring-themed Baby Afghan I made, and 3rd place for the orange, Autumny baby jacket I crocheted. I’m sure it was the bright green buttons that did it. The third item I entered did not place and was not displayed.

Edited on September 22, 2011:

When we went to pick up my items from the fair, we discovered that I’d won a third prize: a blue ribbon for my Christmas tree wall hanging, in the general Christmas category. I was quite excited and not expecting it, because we missed part of the Christmas display when we visited the fair. Here are the pictures: 

What’s interesting to me is that the wall hanging actually uses the simplest stitch, but I executed everything perfectly, while the other two items were a little more complex but had some problems. (I liked that the judges gave really helpful feedback on each item–who knew that I could use a little bit of fabric glue to fix the ends that refused to weave in?)

Home Arts

In light of entering my yarn crafts into the state fair, I’ve been thinking about the question: is crochet an art?

I’ve heard many people argue that crochet is not an art, but rather a craft. They say, well, perhaps it’s art when you design your own patterns, or do something completely defying tradition and on public display, like creating a crocheted carrot jetpack with accompanying story, pictures, and video. (The jetpack is amazing, by the way.) But if you take a pattern for a traditional (often home) object and then make said object, you’ve created a craft.

When making this argument, it’s best to pronounce “craft” as if it’s a dirty word. Also, make sure to specify that crafts don’t require any creativity. That makes us crafters feel really great.

Crocheting is definitely a craft, but I’d argue that it’s also an art–both a visual and a sculptural art.

A close up of the corner of my very first afghan, started when I was 11 or 12, then dragged out of the box and completed in January 2009. 

Art is a means of creative personal expression that often is intended to have an impact on the viewer.

Creativity is “originality, progressiveness, or imagination.” It’s also the state of being creative, or in other words “having the quality or power of creating.” In other words, it’s the act of creation.

Much that we extol as creative follows set patterns for set purposes, and so could be rejected as art just as crochet sometimes is. A concert pianist is certainly an artist, even if she is not a composer or a jazz musician.

I recently watched a documentary on Lynda.com about Doyald Young, a logotype designer. He designed 1 or 2 typefaces during his entire career, yet recently won an important award for his contributions to the field of type. His creativity came not in the form of creating new types, but in using traditional types with insight and purpose in designs such as the Prudential logo.

Even in visual arts, creativity is not just about doing something new. Learning technique, knowing how to draw a horse or a face makes it possible for the act of creation to occur in the form of a portrait or painting.

In his book The Remarkable Soul of a Woman, Dieter Uchtdorf defines creativity as “[taking] unorganized matter into our hands and [molding] it into something of beauty.” Now am I going to argue that my crocheted dish cloth is art? Actually, I probably will. My dishcloths are pretty, soft, and add a homemade, DIY flavor to my kitchen. As a positive side effect, they makie me feel a whole lot better about doing dishes.

Uchtdorf goes on to write that “Creation means bringing into existence something that did not exist before–colorful gardens, harmonious homes, family memories, flowing laughter.” Creation in the home, whether it’s of an afghan or a relationship, is rarely new or glamorous. Yet the goal in crafting a sweater or raising a child shouldn’t necessarily be to defy tradition.

I like the title of the Home Arts building at the Utah State Fair. Home Arts are arts in and for the home. To me Home Arts include everything from cooking to organizing to decorating to nurturing a child. So perhaps next time I say that I am a homemaker I should clarify what that really means. It means that I’m a home artist.

Oh yes, these most certainly are cake mix cookies. They were delicious.