Date delicasy with chocolate

Dates are great!
I want to share with you this amazingly easy yet so very tasty date delicacy recipe.

Date delicacy

Pitted dates 250 g. / 8,8 oz.
Unsalted butter  190 g. / 6,7 oz.
Brown sugar   90 g. / 3,2 oz.
Rice Krispies   2 1/2 - 3 cups
Dark chocolate    300 g / 10,6 oz.

1. Cut the dates into 2 - 3 pieces each (not necessary). 
2. Combine dates, butter and brown sugar in a casserole and cook over medium or high heat stirring the mixture carefully now and then. 
3. When the dates are soft and falling apart, take the mixture of the heat and stir well until it holds together like a dough.
4. Now stir in the Rice Crispies. 
5. When all is well blended transfer the mixture into a large and shallow tin pan and flatten it out using the back of a tablespoon. Make sure to press well down on the mixture to condense and flatten it.
6. Cover the pan and freeze.
7. Melt the chocolate in a metal bowl over boiling water. Spread the chocolate over the frozen mixture and freeze again.
8. Before serving cut the date delicacy in small square pieces or use small cake cutters to make shaped pieces. 

This is a very simple recipe and its easy to change it to your liking so try using white or milk chocolate as topping or change the cereal to cornflakes. 

Enjoy

Tessellation boxes: Square twist

It's fascinating about origami how just a simple change of a fold or a crease can give a completely new and unexpected result. I have been working with the very basic design of the traditional Masu box and by applying a single tessellation technique to the sheet folded into the lid I got an incredible number or different designs. In my last post I showed you some of the box-lids I designed from the 90-degree pleat intersection tessellation technique. In this post are images of some of the boxes I designed and folded with another tessellation technique called the Square Twist.
The square twist is very common in origami tessellations and quite easy to do after you have wrapped your head around it once. For the boxes below I both apply the technique in rows (the pink box) and in in layers (the other three boxes). 

Organic box: three layers of square twist on a grid of 32 x 32.

Propeller box: two layers of square twist on a grid of 16 x 16.

Pyramid box: three layers of square twist on a grid of 32 x 32.

Diamond box: three square twists on a grid of 26 x 32.

After last months box folding adventures I have loads of different gift boxes to use for all occasions. If you are interested in making boxes yourself here below is a video tutorial I made of one of my designs from my last blog post. Like all the other boxes the sheet for the lid is pre-creased and folded to make the cross and then folded the same way as the traditional Masu box. The box isn't difficult to make, the first try might take some time but after that the folding will run smoothly.

Until next time. Happy folding!