Playing with Food - Meiji Chocolate House

When Y and her husband R were in Hong Kong recently, we partook in a couple of delicious meals together, and they also kindly and generously brought me this fun gift - a to-be-assembled "house" made up of chocolate pieces. Y says that her (super cute, super well behaved 5 year old) daughter QB really enjoyed putting this together, and thought I might like to try it, and thereafter enjoy the chocolate, of course.

I decided to tote it along one afternoon when J and I visited his family, so that we could do it together with his two nephews (3 and 7).

As it turns out, I took more pictures than actually partake in all that much of the assembly as J did most of it together with the older nephew.

The end result was quite funny, nothing like the coordinated, put together piece pictured on the front of the box, but cute in a messy way nonetheless. Everyone had loads of fun heating up the chocolate "glue" that holds the pieces together, gingerly putting the pieces of chocolate together, and finally, gently plonking on the colourful chocolate pebbles and strawberry flavoured cones on the roof. And of course, at the end, it got torn apart as the boys greedily descended upon the chocolate to gobble everything up.

Thanks again, Y and R!

Making chocolate pudding

Had 2 boxes of Valrhona dark chocolates squares in the fridge and discovered they were reaching the expiration in a few weeks - so decided to do something with them that would constructively use them up.

Used this recipe from Smitten Kitchen - followed the recipe closely except for pure vanilla extract - couldn't locate anything apart from artificial vanilla flavouring and I looked in four supermarkets.

Still very Valrhona chocolatey, and was a cinch to make.