small sweetnesses.

one of the oddest compliments i have ever had in my life was from a fuckbuddy who said the things he liked most about me were my 'small sweetnesses'. when pressed about what he was even on about anyway, he explained that my personality default of being somewhat brash and loud was undercut by little moments of being quiet and gentle that were total blink-and-miss scenarios. he has a point, but i think it was mostly the cocaine and the literature degree talking. still, the phrase has stuck with me for a few years, and i think the idea of delighting in life's 'small sweetnesses' is something i try to do when the general atmosphere of my life is pretty fucking rough. there've been a few in the past week or so, and they've kind of kept me going.

it started with a lemon. a lemon given to me by one of my regulars, an american septagenarian with a house in france (and oddly, coincidentally, also called ed), who i talk cooking and gardening with regularly. i'd given him some of my failed marmalade cake, and a couple of jars of the stuff, explaining the story behind the cake in the process. when he visited his house in france apparently he got thinking, and picked me a lemon from his tree, which he gave to me on the premise that i should retry the cake with my honey and lemon marmalade, telling me i shouldn't lose faith in my ability over one mishap because the cake was lovely. small sweetness, right?

i am actually sappy and sentimental enough to have taken a picture of this lemon, here it is...

and apart from changing the fruit, the marmalade, and the oven i used (fuck you top oven, seriously), i followed the original recipe to a tee, and it was a triumph this time. it looked a little something like this:

...which restored my faith in my ability admirably. there's a piece missing because my mum came in after a bad day after work so i put a piece of cake in front of her before i even said anything. i guess the small sweetness cycle is self perpetuating? the cake was amazing, and the lemon was really, really sharp, so the icing was even better on this one.

anyway, the other moment that made me smile that involved acquiring odd foodstuffs, also happened at work. after clearing up after a christening and spending most of the time talking to two little girls who took a shine to me and were following me about and 'helping' (tiny tots often do, it's the brightly coloured hair and penchant for behaving ridiculously), their mother bestowed a load of the leftovers on me to say thankyou. one of these leftovers was a litre bottle of jersey cream; thick, primrose yellow, and begging to be used in something decadent. i also had, stored away, a bar of green and black's espresso from christmas (i have barely touched the sugar stash from christmas; it's starting to perturb me that my sweet tooth appears to have lessened with age). what i did not have, was any inspiration to do anything exciting and innovative. but as we are learning with my endless repetition, food doesn't have to be either of those to be good. so i decided to make the truffle recipe i have been making since i was like, sixteen, that i'm sure i got from a newspaper if i remember correctly.

basically, i cannot remember the recipe for these properly. i had 100g of chocolate, which i melted in a saucepan over a low heat with 85ml of double cream, and a dab of butter. the original ratio was, i think, 275ml cream, 300g chocolate, and 25g butter, but i eyeball it these days. when it was melted, i left it for about three hours in the fridge, then rolled teaspoons-full into small balls, rolled them in cocoa and (pro tip here people) tossed them hand-to-hand to get rid of excess cocoa. these need to be kept in the fridge. also, for thorntons-goers who might be confused, these are french ganache truffles, as opposed to the lighter, sugarier belgian truffles most people know. they're darker, more intense, and, in my experience, impossible to turn down. i have used these to win friends and influence people in many walks of life, and i give them to almost everyone come christmas time. you can add booze, use milk, white or dark chocolate, infuse the cream, add booze, they're kind of unlimitedly customizable.

and the first thing i did with them? present my mum with a half dozen, cos she'd had another shitty day. and they were good enough to elicit a smile, so no small triumph. cos what have we learned here, apart from that two literature students shouldn't fuck, and i shouldn't internalize something someone said to me on coke? the small sweetness cycle is self perpetuating, that's the one.