"SHF" news and stories

Sugar High Friday was hosted by David Lebovitz this month and, to no one's surprise, the food blogging event was a chocolaty one. David's theme was Chocolate By Brand and he instructed all the participants to work with just one brand - any brand - of chocolate to learn about the nuances that belong specifically to that manufacturer. Entries have closed at this point, but the best part of any food blogging event is the roundup, where readers can get easy access to tons of great recipes, all in one place. David has started his roundup now and already has parts one, two and three posted, with four to follow shortly.

His own entry was a Chocolate Idiot Cake, made with Scharffenberger Chocolate, that is dead easy to make. Tsokolate submitted a Chocolate Monkey Bread. Jumbo Empanadas dipped some grapes in chocolate for faux truffles and Café Fernando's submission was a Chocolate Caramel Pot de Crème(pictured), with Côte d'Or Culinaire chocolate.

White truffles may be in season, but the theme of this month's Sugar High Friday, the popular sweets-oriented food blogging event, was the more chocolaty - and perhaps more indulgent - type of truffle. The roundup of all the participating blogs was just put up by Johanna, the passionate cook and host of this edition of the event. If you want to try your hand at making truffles, all of the entries will provide lots of inspiration. Some of the recipes include Hazelnut Nougat Truffles, S'mores Truffles, Kahlua Truffles, Strawberry Balsamic Truffles (which use dehydrated berries for flavor) and Salted Caramel Fudge Hearts, just to name a handful. The black on black truffles pictured above were made by Veronica's Test Kitchen and are a classic truffle recipe, using high quality chocolate, cream and a little bit of butter. The truffles are rolled on cocoa powder to keep them from sticking together, as well as to simulate the earth that the other kind of truffles are found in.

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Last month, the worldwide food blogging event Sugar High Friday took it to the extreme with frozen and chilled desserts. This month, host Delicious Days chose the theme of Jams and Jellies, just in time for preserving the fruity (and veggie) goodness of summer's produce. There were almost 60 participants, with recipes, stories, and best of all, photos, of jams and jellies made with everything from apricots to jalapeno peppers. If you're trying to figure out what to do with that basket of late-season peaches you picked up at the farmers' market, take a peek!

Something I have never attempted is making jam or other forms of preserving the summer bounty. But if you have all the gubbins and are a dab hand at getting the temperature to the correct level for setting or just fancy giving it a go then head over to Delicious Days and get your creations listed for Sugar High Friday.

SHF is one of the longer running and most popular blog-events and has reached round 22 with this jam making theme. The host is the superbly designed and entertaining read that is Delicious Days. Full details of how to enter are on the website.

Those of us who have not attempted to make jam before might need a pointer to some decent instructions. Anyone recommend a decent recipe/instruction book or blog post on the subject; I'll be most greatful.

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So maybe you weren't so tempted by desserts made with soy. Or maybe you were and you're still on a Sugar High.

Well, for the month of July, Sugar High Friday is letting those of us in the northern hemisphere cool off in the high heat of summer with the theme of Ice Ice Baby. Sugar High Friday is a worldwide food blogging event created by the Domestic Goddess in which food bloggers create a dessert or other sweet treat with a given theme as a guide. For this 21st edition, food bloggers will be making sweet treats that are chilled or frozen, and posting them on Friday, July 28, 2006.

I'm beginning to think I should have gotten that ice cream maker attachment for my stand mixer...