Finnish Winter and Brasilian Brigadeiro Truffles

Today it was an interesting day. I paid a visit to my brasilian good friend  Claudia  who, just like me, has lived in Finland for quite some time. As many of you already know, I´m a mexican living in Finland now for 10 years, and I promised to tell you  in coming posts more about México, about Finland, this little, hidden, beautiful country, the life events that brought me here, and of course: its food!

To start, I was born, raised and grown up in Mexico, until destiny got me married to a wonderful finnish man and brought me all the way to Finland, after a tour around Europe, particularly Scotland and UK. I must say life in here, inspite of language, cold winters and cultural shocks, has been a lot more enjoyable than in other countries. Maybe because in here I found a lot of good finnish and no-finnish friends to form a tight-knit group in which we have a common thing to share: living permanently or  or at some point have lived  away from our home country. We are most of the time in touch, we share our experiencies, we constantly learn from one another...and we cook!! 

Today it was a highly expected day. Claudia wanted to make some ravioli from scratch, she needed help to make pasta at home and invited a few of us, helpul and friendly hands, to carry on the project and spend a lovely kitchen afternoon at her place. She lives in the middle of the forest and has the greatest backyard  I know, where you can pick berries in the summer, go hunt for mushrooms in the fall, and enjoy a very cozy winter landscape at the end of the year

The dessert menu for this kitchen afternoon included  a very typical Brasilian chocolate sweet truffle that I learned to make last summer. It's name is Brigadeiro  and it's considered a national dessert in Brasil. It's really sweet , soft and made of just a mix of condensed milk, cocoa powder and butter. Claudia made the batter this time, so my rol was just photoshooting and eating! ;-) ;-) 

Brasilian Brigadeiro (it makes 12 small balls)

-1 can of condensed milk

-1 big Tablespoon of butter

-2 big Tablespoons of cocoa powder

Mix all ingredients in a sauce pan and mix them at medium heat, stirring all the time with a spoon until it starts to bubble. At this point low down the heat and keep on stirring the batter until it gets really thick. That will take a few minutes, from 10-15. Don't stop stirring. 

Place chocolate batter in a resistant container, cool it down completely and and place it in the fridge overnight to harden it.

Now comes the fun part. To roll the truffles, grease your hands with a generous amount of butter to stop batter getting too sticky. with a teaspoon grab a small amount of batter (it must be really hard by now) and roll it in your greased hands into a little ball. 

Sprinkle on top some chcolate jimmies and put truffles on a nice dish or truffle paper cup for a better presentation. Put them in the fridge for another 2 hours and take them out just before serving. 

Brigadeiro can be eaten at room temperature too. In that case, grab a spoon or prepare yourself for a really delicious finger licking session. 

Enjoy!!