The April birthday day has just come and gone at one of my jobs. I had a semi-difficult time deciding what to make this month. Whereas I have found a lot of main dish and side dish recipes to experiment with for TH2.6 I only have a few dessert choices left to choice from (a few to me). As of right now I have around 8 desserts planned. chocolate nut bars, lebkuchen, pie assortment, my fruit cake, gingerbread cookies, pistachio ambrosia, apple cake, and walnut rolls. I still have several recipes to try out: Zwetschgenschnecken (Plum Rolls), a German style Gingerbread loaf, a christmas bread, streusel kucken, and waser kipfels (water lillies), zimtsterne (cinnamon cookie), and nougatkugeln (nut nougat-like ball). If I keep making about one a month I will have work-possible recipes until November. This month's "Birthday Day" seemed to come out of nowhere. I chose to make the nougatkugeln. It was the simplest recipe in my list, and unlike anything I have ever made.
The nougat balls from this recipe are a different kind of nougat then what is in your average mass produced candy bar.They are a mix
of ground nuts, cocoa, and powdered sugar. I used macadamia nuts instead of
the hazelnuts that were called for in the recipe. I did not like the raw flavor of the hazelnuts at my local shop. The texture is smooth with hints of the ground nuts and a strong vanilla flavor. They are then coated in melted chocolate and dusted w powdered sugar. Overall,I thought they looked pretty nice. However, I had an odd experience with these nougat balls. I didn't like them, and neither did my wife.
I am pretty open minded when it comes to non-mint flavored foods, but this just didn't do anything for me. Somehow the combination of flavors did not agree with us. I had a dilemma on my hands. Should I bring a food I do not like to work or should i make a whole new dessert? After looking through the unmade recipes I had left I decided to do both. I made 1 batch of the zimtsterne. The lightly cinnamon flavored and very delicate cookies are very good. The recipe makes around 60 cookies because the dough is rolled so thin. I now had something I could feel comfortable bringing to work.
Since neither of us really enjoyed the nougatkugeln I figured I could take them to work because I had the zimtsterne to bring with me. Maybe a few people would like the nougat balls. I brought around 20 nougat balls, and 40-ish zimtsterne cookies. Something happened that I was not expecting. The nougat balls were a "work hit". I figure half of them are true and the other half are people being nice, then I have the answer to my future question. I was stunned that they were all gone by 2pm. I'm guessing that whatever flavor that we didn't like was the flavor that drew the other people to them. Perhaps this flavor stimulates the same part of the brain as mint (Mint is awful btw). The cookies were a quiet hit. They disappeared slowly throughout the day. I'll take that as the second positive sign.
I have decided to make both recipes for TH2.6. I will only be making a single batch of each as of right now. Thankfully both of them can be made well ahead of time. This early bake time will keep my final week of preparations for other more time sensitive recipes. Two more recipes down and about 12 to go.
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