Halloween Spider Truffles

I am planning this year's halloween party food and decided to share my usual halloween potluck dish here: Brazilian chocolate truffles (brigadeiro), dressed like spiders. The recipe is easy. I have already posted it here. You only need to add the following ingredients:

1 tube of black ready-to-use icing (you can buy the Wilton brand here)
1 bag of candy buttons (you can buy them here)
black candy sprinkles

Preparation:

Follow the recipe as described here.

Then decorate:

Roll the truffles in the black sprinkles. Put them in the candy cups. Arrange the truffles in a dish before starting the rest of the decoration.
Add a little drop of the icing on the flat side of a candy button. "Glue" the candy button on a truffle. This is one "eye". Repeat this process until you have all the truffles with 2 "eyes".
Then carefully add a round drop of the icing on each eye.
Finally, spread some icing on the truffles, creating the legs.

Grilled Cauliflower in Curry

I had this idea the other day, based on some cauliflower salad that I buy sometimes from Whole Foods (I believe their cauliflower salad contains also some garlic and almond flakes). It was simple and easy to make, and my son loved it. I served it with barbecue steak, brazilian style (the only spice in the meat was coarse salt).

Ingredients:

1 whole cauliflower
1 tbs curry powder
3 tbs olive oil
salt

Preparation:

Cut the cauliflower in florets. Discard the leaves.
Mix the curry powder, salt and olive oil in a large bowl. Add the cauliflower florets and mix well, so that the florets get all covered with the curry paste. Let it rest in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
Grill the cauliflower, turning once, for a a few minutes (around 10 minutes) until they are softer and lightly darkened.
Serve.

Easy Creme Brûlée

I made this recipe the other day to my "craving gourmet son". Sometimes he feels like eating some difficult to find things (unless I make them!). So after a week of begging I had him help me bake it. This is a French dessert. It's also a Spanish dish, it's called "catalan cream" in that country. Brûlée means "burned", because the sprinkled sugar on top is burned. You can use a cook's torch to burn the sugar. I don't know the other way, using some metallic utensil.

Ingredients:

3 egg yolks

100 ml (3 oz.) milk

1 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon sugar to sprinkle

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 250 oF.

Mix the egg yolks, milk, cream, sugar and vanilla. Pour in porcelain ramekins (or other oven-safe cup). Place the ramekins with the cream in a rectangular cake pan and bake for 35 to 40 minutes.

Once out of the oven, sprinkle the remaining sugar over each ramekin with the cream. Using the kitchen torch, burn the sugar until it turns golden. Let them cool for a while, or take them to the fridge for a couple of hours before serving. Note that if the creme brûlée is in the fridge for too long, the burned sugar is no longer crunchy.