Hello and welcome to the first blog post of 2022! Work is in full throttle and so is Omicron in Delhi. We have had a bunch of COVID positive cases all around. But this year, the virus got our clean freak Natasha as well. Very lucky that this new variant is fairly mild and she is reaching back to full health. Natasha spent the last week in isolation and finally tested negative yesterday. She surprised me by coming home today with some yummy Starbucks and that million (read: billion) dollar smile! We watched TV, ate Asian food, and just cuddled in bed. So glad to have her back home with me! But just as a PSA, remember to stay at home, mask up if you are leaving the house, and social distance at all times!

These truffles have taken many shapes and forms through the year but I’m here to tell you about the first time I made them! It had been just a year into my blogging journey that I made these truffles in 2018. I was working at my first agency job at The PRactice (no, thats not a typo, our company’s name was a pun and I hated it haha). One of the accounts I worked on was the Federation of Maple Syrup Producers Quebec’s India chapter. They were a food board that had come to India to help increase awareness about pure maple syrup from Canada. It’s actually really interesting to create comms programs for food boards. They are essentially a coalition of farmers and brands who help create awareness about a certain food type in a region with low access to that product but with a great perceived demand for it. Your job as a food board to build a groundswell demand for a product before brands can come into the country to sell their products. One of the most popular food boards have been the Italian board for Olive Oil. They took the world by a storm— investing in research for health benefits, building product evangelists, flooding the market with a large variety of products, and eventually being part of the cultural zeitgeist of that market. The MSPQ, were trying to do the same thing. We did a variety of activities for them. Get dieticians to begin recommending maple syrup, getting doctors to validate the research, get a variety of food articles placed in the media, on-board food content creators to create regional and international recipes with maple syrup, and channel all that traffic into a singular informational website that was agnostic of a brand but heavy on the need for maple syrup in the diets of wealthy Indians in major metros across the world.

As a part of this team, my job was to manage the social media, run ads, and create compelling campaigns throughout the year. This account taught me so much about the food market and gave me deep insights into how to build a persona in the ecosystem. This was also the account that Shirin managed and also how I ended up getting close to her. All in all, just a fabulous engagement. One of the last campaigns I worked on was to build a new library for winter party snacks inspired by maple syrup. The original idea was to get a chef to work on the recipes and for us to shoot them with a photographer that we had in the creative team. However, we blew most of our money through Diwali, which led us to think of other ways to make this happen. I pitched to the account lead for me to create all the content end to end for a nominal fee (seems nominal now, but at the time, it was actually the first time I got paid to make food haha) and she agreed! I made 6 recipes for this campaign— from candied maple bacon breadsticks to a whole pecan pie. And one of the recipes were these fab truffles made from a pecan pie filling and bourbon. As I write this, I remember just how nervous I was. I took two days off just to work on these and without a studio, a majority of these recipes were shot all over the house with literally all the techniques I knew. While most of my cooking till that date was fairly chill, this was a stressful process. Not only did I have a deadline on my head, I was also competing to produce content that was as good as what we have produced in the past with some professionals. I think my favourite picture is flatlay of four truffles that sit in and around a cocoa dusted silhouette of a Maple syrup bottle that has that iconic teacup handle on its neck. I know silhouettes are a little basic but I really have never seen that kind of silhouette ever, and for that reason, it just worked.

Since 2018, this recipe has gone through many changes. I now bring you a walnut pie version with whiskey, and two kinds of chocolate options as well! I hope you do try this recipe and as always happy cooking!

Glimpses from the week

Ingredients

100 grams of graham crackers or digestive biscuits

¼ cup whiskey

½ cup brown sugar

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup of honey or maple syrup

1 ½ cups of toasted walnuts or pecans, finely chopped

250 grams of dark chocolate or white chocolate (I used compound chocolate here)

Method

1. In a non-stick pan on medium heat, add the walnuts or pecans and toast on both sides. 10-15 minutes or until the tops start to brown and glisten. Take off the heat and place them on a plate. Let them cool (they will cook as you leave them to cool). Chop roughly.

2. In a medium bowl, stir together walnuts, graham cracker crumbs, brown sugar, and salt until well combined. Add honey, whiskey and vanilla, stirring thoroughly. Use your hands or a spatula to make sure the mixture becomes fully incorporated.

3. Form mixture into walnut-sized balls, then place on a cookie sheet and freeze for 2 hours.

4. On top of a double boiler or in a medium stainless steel bowl set over a pot of gently simmering water, melt chocolate. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Dip the frozen balls into the melted chocolate, then place them onto a prepared baking sheet. Let sit for 15 minutes or until firm. There are two ways to coat them with chocolate. Refer to the video!