This was easier than I thought it'd be, and the flavor possibilities are endless! I made two batches. One's flavored with wildberries jam, the other with peppermint oil.- 2 cups chocolate chips (use the best chocolate you can find, or it's not worth the trouble)
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- flavoring agents (I'll explain)
- coatings (also explained later)
First, decide if you want to flavor the cream. You can use fresh mint leaves, slices of ginger, or even something more unusual like tarragon or rosemary. Basically, if it's a fresh herb you'll want to put it in the cream while the cream's still cold.
Heat the cream over medium heat until it's just below boiling. Pour over chocolate chips and let sit for five minutes. Stir to melt the chocolate, and place the bowl over a double boiler only if the chocolate refuses to melt.
Now is your second chance to add flavor. For example, a tablespoon or two of jam, three tablespoons of a liquer, a teaspoon or two of vanilla, a few drops of peppermint oil, etc.
Let the chocolate cool until it's hard enough to hold shape. Using your fingers or two teaspoons, form the chocolate into irregular shapes. I like to make my truffles small because I don't like holding a second half of a truffle while I eat the first half.
As you shape the truffles, drop them into your choice of coating. Cocoa powder, powdered sugar, superfine granulated sugar (for a little crunch), finely chopped nuts, or sprinkles are good coatings.
I haven't learned how to temper chocolate, and I'm too impatient to roll perfectly round balls, so the other kind of truffle (soft inside, crispy shiny outside) is for now out of reach for me. Maybe some other time!
Here's where I get all Martha Steward on you. See what I did here? A cute piece of paper, and the box immediately goes from "re-used takeout box" to "kind of cute." Now I can write a little message on it when I take it to a BBQ on Monday.
6 comments:
Pei couple of questions,
Would chopped up chocolate bars work?
Do you remove the fresh herbs prior to heating up the cream or leave them in there?
Thanks
Problem Child
Yes, chopped up chocolate bars would work. If you have a scale, there are a lot of recipes on line giving clear directions. I'm happy to sort of eyeball it because for truffles it doesn't matter too much to me if it's a little on the soft side or a little on the hard side. You can experiment, too. If you let the chocolate sit at room temperature and it remains soupy for a few hours, re-melt and add more chocolate. If it gets too hard, re-melt and add more cream.
You leave the fresh herbs in the cream as the cream heats up, then remove them before you pour the cream onto the chocolate.
Circling the block? That doesn't sound legal at all.
But your truffles look HELLO AWESOME.
Thanks Pei,
Following your recipe, I made some fabulous orange flavored truffles for a friend's birthday party.
Problem Child
Yay! I love when recipes work for more than one person.
What orange flavoring did you use (juice, peel, oil, etc.)?
I used Simply Organic's orange oil which I bought from whole foods, and I also added a touch of grand marnier (bought, not home made like yours :)).
For the coating, I mixed cocoa powder with crushed glazed walnuts to give it a crunch.
Problem Child
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