Brigadeiro

Today I learned how to make brigadeiro.  It's a chocolate ball rolled in chocolate sprinkles, and is one of my most favorite Brazilian sweets.  You can't go to any kind of party here and not find it. 

My mother-in-law made a batch today and let me into the kitchen to help. 

It's surprisingly basic for how good it is, and reminds me of how fudge is made.  Just two cans of condensed milk, about 1/2 a cup of butter and three giant heaping spoonfuls of cocoa. 

Stir continuously on low heat until it boils.  Take off after it thickens, about another five minutes.  I, of course, did the stirring.  Sneaky mother-in-law.






Look how small that stove is!  It has four burners, but no room for anything else.  I don't know how my mother-in-law does it, but she gets four pans going on that stove almost every day.

Pour onto a buttered platter to cool.

The platter is on the sink counter.  See that lip that runs around the edge?  It allows for the counter to flood, and you just use a squeedgie to get the water off.  Which is super handy when you're washing dishes by hand (oh, dishwasher, how I miss you).  It's also the only counter space in the whole kitchen, so you have to squeedgie it dry when you want to make, say, gnochi, which requires lots of flour. 

Spoon a bit of the chocolate into your hands and roll into a ball.  Then roll the ball in a bowl of sprinkles. 








We put the kids to work.  Gabi's in the yellow dress.  The other girl lives one floor below, and she and Gabi play together every time we come.  Friendship didn't stop them from fighting over who got more sprinkles to roll their balls in, so I pulled out another bowl and made things even.

Keep going until your hands feel like they're going to fall off.  Even then we had a few more to go until we were done. 







As you can see, things got pretty messy, especially when we threw a baby into the mix.  Mason grabbed a ball off the plate and got his first taste of chocolate.  From the fit he threw when we took it away from him, we're going to have another sweet tooth on our hands. 

We went to a birthday party a few days ago, and I was popping these things like there was no tomorrow.  I'm so excited to know how to make them myself!