Author: MKW Publishing

Homemade Orange Cream Filled Chocolates

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These are my favourites, and not content with only one or two in a box of popular variety chocolates, I decided to finally attempt making my own. I like baking, but sweets and desserts are my favourite. I found a recipe that seemed doable, I halved the ingredients to make a small batch first, and amended slightly as I went. I was actually left with half of the filling left after making this batch, so you could half this again of you want a small amount.

Ingredients

1/2 cup of double cream (250ml / 8oz)

1 1/2 cups of sugar (this was a mix of caster and granulated)

2-3 tbsp of orange extract (apparently if using orange oil, use less)

1/2 tps vanilla extract

1 tbsp of corn syrup (also know as liquid glucose)

1tbsp butter

100g of dark chocolate (ish) – or any chocolate of choice

You’ll need to make the orange filling first. Place the sugar and cream in a pan and let them soak together before putting on a low to medium heat. Stir often and make sure to keep it smooth. Use a pastry brush to water the sides while it’s heating, otherwise the sugar crystalises and can make the mixture gritty. Bring to the boil and add the corn syrup, keep stirring, feeling for when its thickening up. Depends on how solid you like your filling, waiting until it gets sticky will give you a firmer centre.

Once you are happy with the texture, pour onto a highsided tray (avoid scraping the sides or the gritty sugar will come with it) – try not to use glass as this mixture will be very hot and may break it. Now, I don’t have large marble slab to hand like the person who’s recipe I checked out, so I used a baking tray with sides, and laid one of my new heat proof baking sheets clumsily in it.

Once there, leave for 10-15 minutes to cool. It would appear that I may have used too little corn syrup (so you may want to use 1-2 for thicker), but it didn’t seem to matter. This worked in the end, so must have been ok. The next process it to turn it over and over, and in on itself for a good 20 minutes or so. It was during this process I decided to add the orange extract – around 1 tablespoon at a time, work it in, keep the mixture moving. Taste it and see how orangy it is, and add more as required. I would say you want to keep working it to be like slightly runny mash potato consistency. Then leave that to one side while we move to the chocolating the cases.

Pick your mould.

Melt your chocolate.

This was enough chocolate to coat the mould.

I used a small spoon to put some in each space, then used a paintbrush 🖌 to get the chocolate up the sides. Then put in the freezer for about 15 minutes.

I didn’t have a pipping bag, or a proper zip lock bag, so used a small plastic bag with small sealer (remember to actually seal it though! I didn’t 🤣). And just cut off one corner to squeeze out enough mixture into each space.

Fill each mould space with filling, but not quite to the top. Then melt up the second round of chocolate and place over the top.

Smooth them over with the back of a spoon or small pallet knife (art supplies came in handy for this kitchen time). I then put them in the fridge for an hour or two but you can put in the freezer for 20 mins maybe if you want them quicker. Then remove from the mould.

They were super easy to turn out, and looked perfect. After being in the fridge overnight, the filling had set even further but was still super soft.

I’m going to admit, I was very chuffed with myself for manging to make something that looked and tasted this good first time.

(c) K Wicks

Honey, garlic and ginger boost

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This old remedy is as useful now as it has always been. For feeling a bit run down and wanting to give your system a boost, then a spoonful of this every morning can help.

Get fresh ginger, garlic and honey, and an empty clean jar.

A handful of cloves, and a good gunch of ginger.

Roughly chop, then blend and add the mixture to the empty jar.

Now add lots of honey.

Give it a good mix and put in the fridge. It will gain potency after a few days, but you can dive in right away for a hit of goodness.

(c) K Wicks

The Root of the Issue

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Follow the problem to the root, locate the source and you might stand a chance of stemming all the issues that ensue from there. What we seem to have is a vast set of issues, keeping everyone chasing their tails and being pushed from pillar to post with commands and regulations, rules and charts, models and projections. And somehow everyone is expected to, and is supposed to function within that. Well, I hate to call it (and many have already), but this is not working.

The response is not at all proportionate to the event. And on the face of it, it looks simple (to a point). They want to make more people take more vaccines, at least every few months, whether that be purely for the money agenda or the depopulation agenda, who knows. But it is not about health, that much has been made very clear. In order to have the powers to keep coercing and blackmailing people, they need to keep the emergency powers and new laws they made up to facilitate their actions. Therefore, they have to keep the pretence of overwhelming illness to keep the emergency powers. If they declare the ‘pandemic’ over, then they no longer have the powers, can no longer introduce regulations, can no longer push their jab agenda.

But, the main point should be here – even if we were in a ‘health crisis’ and the NHS did get overwhelmed, would it seem normal or reasonable to shut away millions, yes, millions of healthy people to save that institution? You wouldn’t be saving people’s lives, as they are turning people away and sacking people, so what are you saving? A money guzzling badly run weapon of coercion? Where they hold your healthcare to ransom? Doesn’t sound like something I want to part of, unfortunately, like everyone else, I have been funding it my whole life, so I am good enough to take money from obviously, but not to be afforded the promised service when said money was taken. And to have my valuable time interrupted or threatened because a business cannot manage itself effectively is not something I am willing to accept. Let’s be honest here, the NHS hasn’t been able to cope for quite some time now, and should not be wielded as a weapon or tool of bribery against people, whatever their health status or standing in society.

So, it would appear that across the board, the intimated social contract between citizen and government has been breached, by the institution that itself created it. It has overstepped a very personal and intimate boundary by suggesting or deciding that millions of people shall be excluded from the basic necessities required for living. At what point do the millions become the majority? Will we honestly let people starve in the streets with shops full of food, because someone told us they ‘weren’t allowed’ any? And what it is that allows all these things to happen? Ultimately people, and I will get to them, but they do it by way of regulations and mandates. Someone introduces a rule, and then someone else follows them or breaks them. And then someone else enforces them, and then someone else punishes them. You can see how easily the responsibility can be shirked there? But what if the starting rule is wrong, or stupid, or doesn’t make sense? If no-one questions it or stops it at that point, it then becomes ‘normal’, when clearly it isn’t. And you begin to become part of the topsy turvy world that runs alongside the logical reasonable world that exists. Sometimes possibly only existing in and being aware of one at any one time, I don’t know about other people’s abilities with dual or multiple realities.

But this whole debacle has really highlighted to me, how just because you have always done something one way, is no reason to keep doing it once it has failed. Just because it used to work, is no reason to keep it. It is beyond me why we are still blindly following 650 or so elected people who appear to have never done an actual days work in their life. Have no connection with or ability to relate to the average person, and giving them the say and responsibility to knowingly steer us towards disaster. Logic and reason can prevail, but only if courage and bravery are present. I want so much for there to be the fight left in people to stand up and help move us in the right direction. We must not be fighting to save what we had, that wasn’t working and helped to set up where we are now, we need a new way…

(c) K Wicks

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Autumn reads

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“So you see pictures in your head? That sounds like witchcraft to me!”

And to someone who doesn’t visualise in mind, or have an inner monolgue, it really did.

It was from there I asked more questions and discovered one of us has Hyperhantasia and the other has Aphantasia, and what followed was quite a game changer.

(c) K Wicks