Chocolate Truffles

The other day I texted my friend, the food yenta (ill tell you about her in a second) and told her I was making chocolate truffles and then I proceeded to tell her that they were so easy to make.  Well...Not so much!

Here I thought I had a yummy treat to make that would be easy.  The recipe looks easy and straight forward but as I went through all the steps I realized this was not so easy.   I had to change the way I was handling the truffle because they were melting in my hands and then they were not forming the way I wanted them to.   Okay I will stop complaining...

They are delicious and I have to keep my family away from the finished truffles or I will have none left for gifts which was my reason for making them.

The Food Yenta and I went to high school together and she has a food blog as well. She started her blog well before me and has quite a following.  She and I tend to email and text each other about what we are making or going to make and we swap recipes too.  You should check out her site it is really great.

www.thefoodyenta.blogspot.com

Anyway...Here is what you will need for the truffles:  (if dare you try them...just kidding)

• 6 oz milk or dark chocolate, measures to be about a cup (this should be high quality chocolate)
• 3 oz bittersweet chocolate, 2-3 blocks
• 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
• any flavoring you desire (see below)

Here are some variations I used for flavoring:

• 1 tsp plain vanilla extract 
• peppermint oil, just a drop or two
• 1/2 cup peanut butter, added after the ganache was created

Now chop up the chocolate with a sharp knife.  The smaller the pieces of chopped chocolate the quicker it melts.  Place the chopped chocolate into a glass bowl.

Bring the heavy cream to a boil.  Keep mixing the heavy cream until it becomes really bubbly.  At this point you want to add any extract or oil you will be using for flavoring.  If you are doing the peanut butter you will add the peanut butter to the smooth ganache.

Now pour the hot cream over the chopped chocolate and mix thoroughly.  You want the mixture called Ganache to be smooth.

I found that the melting process went a lot smoother, no pun intended, if I placed the mixture over a double boiler and mixed thoroughly. You will have to mix with a spatula for a couple of minutes to get the desired consistency.

This is what it should look like.

Let the ganache come to room temperature and then cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 4 - 24 hours.

When the time is up on cooling the ganache it will look like this.

With a teaspoon scoop out the ganache and roll in your hand to make a ball.  Place the ball a baking sheet covered with wax paper.

Warning:  This is VERY messy.  Your hands will start to melt the ganache, which is not a good thing. 

So i started to run my hands under cold water and then drying them and then rolling a few more truffles.  I probably rolled two or three and then had to cool my hands off again.

Once you have rolled all the ganache place the baking sheet in the fridge or the freezer until cold again.

At this point you could just take the truffles out of the fridge/freezer and just roll them in cocoa powder.  But I feel any good truffle is covered in hard chocolate.  So if you want a hard outside for the truffles see below.

Melt some chocolate in a double boiler.  It can be dark chocolate, milk chocolate, or even white chocolate.  When the chocolate is melted, I was told to dip the truffle in the chocolate using a dipping fork.  

The fork is used to retrieve the truffle from the chocolate and then you are supposed to let the chocolate drip off before placing the truffle on wax paper.  Well folks that was a disaster.  The truffle started to melt because the chocolate was warm and when I tried to retrieve the truffle the fork penetrated the truffle.  

What a Mess!

So I started over with the whole game plan!  Thanks to the pioneer woman who just posted how to make truffles, I used her chocalatiers technique..here it is! 

( I apologize that I have no pictures to show, but I was literally elbows deep in chocolate and could not use my camera).

Get two latex free gloves and place some of the melted chocolate into the palm of each hand.  Pick up one truffle at a time and roll the truffle in your chocolate covered hands.  ( I told you I was deep in chocolate)  Now place on the wax paper.  Do this until all the truffles are covered.  Place in the freezer for a few minutes.

One example of a chocolate covered truffle.  

This one is the Peppermint Truffle.

Chocolate Truffle

(I just added some chocolate sprinkles over the top to help decipher the flavor)

Peanut Butter Truffle

Place in a pretty white box and wrap a bow around it and you have a very special gift!

I will post Raspberry truffles and Pistachio truffles soon!