Sharing is Caring!
You know the absolute one thing that brings people together? Food.
Every single person has to eat to live and most every person truly loves food. For thousands of years, humans have shared recipes, spices, and cooking techniques with one another.
(Seriously, the oldest written recipe ever discovered was for a recipe for lamb stew from ancient Babylonia around 2000BC).
Many anthropologists say that globalization like it is today would never have occurred without the spread of trade with our foods. Food has literally brought our world together and given us the amazingly diverse and flavorful lives we have today.
It’s crazy to think sometimes that today, sitting in my kitchen in the Rocky Mountains I’m sharing a recipe that was originally created in Brazil and now is enjoyed by people all over world.
With covid still preventing us from getting “back to normal” (whatever tf normal even means), traveling has been something many of us haven’t been able to do as much.
That doesn’t mean we can’t still appreciate food and life in other places though! With these pretty briagerios, you can bring some of the sweetness from Brazil to your home no matter where you are.
Disclosure: Some of the links below may be affiliate links. This means that at no extra cost to you, I may earn a small commission if you use the links. To learn more click here.
[convertkit form=1162783]
Tips for perfecting this Brigadeiro Recipe
Low Heat for Success
Keeping your heat low is important to prevent the fudge balls burning.
And of course that leads us into the next important tip.
Don’t Stop Whisking!
If you stop whisking, the mixture will burn. You will be sad and your sunflower Brigadeiro recipe will be sadder. These aren’t hard to make but they are easy to eff up. So just don’t stop stirring.
Cooling Tips
Sure you can leave it on the counter and wait several, SEVERAL hours. This is the very traditional way….but tradition had no refrigerators. So bro. Just stick it in the fridge for two hours.
Leave the container uncovered to prevent condensation from gathering and making the brigadeiro uncomfortably wet and sticky.
Making your sunflowers
As you can see in the video below, I used one of these handy dandy chocolate piping bottles from Amazon.
Use chocolate melting wafers and a little food dye to get a tasty and pretty sunflower. Make sure you allow the chocolate to melt fully so that it is perfectly smooth before piping or else your bottle will get clogged and you will have a big mess to clean up.
Also, much like you, the sunflowers probably won’t be perfect, but just like with you that’s what makes them uniquely beautiful and perfectly imperfect.
(Awwwww.)
Don’t Rush
Don’t rush thickening time.
Don’t rush piping the sunflowers.
Don’t rush perfection.
Also, don’t rush eating these…they are sweet. Like super sweet and eating too many, too quickly will give you a tummy ache.
Materials for Your Sunflower Brigadeiro Recipe
Ghirardelli White Chocolate Melting Wafers
I always recommend these melting wafers over any other candy melts. They’re still affordable but they taste so much better than most others in this price range *cough cough*, like Wilton, *cough*.
Of course this means they aren’t pre-colored.
So LISTEN. Don’t use regular white chocolate and color it. Use the melting wafers.
When you color plain old white chocolate with food coloring, it isn’t going to harden up and you’ll be left with a gummy, disappointing sunflower.
Save yourself the struggle and get the Ghirardelli wafers, they’re easy to color and taste good.
Yellow Gel Food Coloring
Gel food coloring is more vibrant than liquid food coloring and requires less to use. I use the lemon yellow from this pack which fulfills all my food coloring needs for the most part.
Mini Silicone Cupcake Liners
You can use paper truffle liners or mini cupcake liners but I prefer the silicone because it removes any risk of the sunflower petals sticking to the paper.
They’re also reusable which is great. AND they’re adorable. How can you go wrong honestly?
Chocolate Jimmies
Because we’re doing so much rolling for this recipe you’re probably going to have sprinkles leftover. That’s fine. It’s not that you can’t use them on all your other desserts, right?
Chocolate Piping Bottles
I find these to be just a bit less messy and much easier to work with when it comes to making the sunflower than piping bags or anything else.
Dark Chocolate
To balance the sweetness of the sweetened condensed milk, I really like to use dark chocolate.
Plus, dark chocolate has a lower fat content than milk or white chocolate which is important for you to get the right consistency for rolling your balls.
Endangered Species Chocolate is my favorite chocolate to use in baking because not only does it taste good, it also does good by helping with wildlife conservation!
(In case you hadn’t guessed, this is the brand of chocolate I used for this recipe. If you can get it, I highly recommend you try it)!
Sunflower Brigadeiro Recipe: The Major Motion Picture
Related Recipes:
Leftover Buttercream Truffles
Jello Sea Glass Candy
Pumpkin Bread Truffles
Made this recipe? Take a photo and tag us on Instagram (@handheld_eats) or let us know how it was in the comments below!
Sunflower Brigadeiro Recipe (Brazilian Fudge Balls)
Ingredients
- 14 oz sweetened condensed milk one can
- 2 tbsp butter (plus a little more for rolling)
- 4 oz dark chocolate chopped finely
- pinch of salt
- 1½ cups Chocolate Jimmies
- 5 oz Ghirardelli white chocolate wafers
- yellow gel food coloring
Instructions
- In a small saucepan, heat the sweetened condensed milk, chocolate, butter, and salt over medium heat.
- Whisk consistently until everything is well combined.
- Once everything is melted together, reduce heat to low. Continue to whisk constantly to prevent the mixture from burning.
- One the mixture becomes thick remove from the heat and pour into a heat safe container.The consistency should not be a thick as fudge but thicker than custard. This will take about 10-15 minutes. DON'T RUSH PERFECTION! Transfer to a heat safe container, like a glass Tupperware.
- Allow to cool for 45 min – 1 hr. See Notes**
Sunflower Petals
- While you wait for your brigadeiros to cool, melt your white chocolate wafers. Add a few drops of yellow gel food coloring and mix well until fully blended.
- Pour the chocolate into either a piping bag or these handy decorating chocolate bottles.
- Next use either a truffle wrapper, paper mini cupcake liners, or some mini silicone cupcake liners and pipe a sunflower shape around the rim. *See Video for visual example*
- Allow these to cool fully before moving onto finishing your brigadeiros.
Finish the Brigadeiros
- Fill a small bowl with your chocolate jimmie sprinkles.
- Grease your hands lightly with butter and scoop tablespoon sized balls of fudge. Roll them into balls and drop them in your sprinkle bowl. DON'T roll them in sprinkles quite yet. The butter on your hands will stick to all the sprinkles and you'll make a huge mess.
- Scoop about 6 balls at a time before rolling in sprinkles. Wipe the butter off your hands and then roll the brigadeiros so they are completely covered.
- Remove the sunflower petals from the silicone cupcake liners and place a brigadeiros in the center. Enjoy!
- Store extras in an airtight container and in the fridge.
Notes
Nutrition
[convertkit form=1162783]
Final Notes…
Say good bye to summer this year with some delicious international Brazilian fudge balls. Because at least this way your taste buds can travel when you can’t.
So once you’ve tried this Sunflower Brigadeiro recipe, let us know! What did you think?
Take a photo and tag us on Instagram (@handheld_eats) or let us know how it was in the comments below!
And since you’re already here, why not check out some of our other dessert recipes to keep that sweet tooth satisfied!
Sharing is caring! Do you know someone who would love this recipe!? Share this post with them!
