ruffled with truffles

The first time I made chocolate truffles I looked like a parody of someone making chocolate truffles, I had more on me and everything else than I actually had on a plate. I wish I was young and cute because the chocolate on my cheek would have really scored points with the cute police. Now granted this was over ten years ago and I havent been young and cute in at least 15 years so I looked like a chocolate, grubby mess. A lot has changed since that time. I no longer get chocolate everywhere and in fact I make these while I am doing other things since I know the whole timing process now. Did I fail to mention that they are easy to do and they make fantastic gifts? Well, they are easy - the second time - that's for sure. This was three years ago so there is a bit of a track record - bad photos - it was before I cared about the photo quality. Let me reiterate - there is a cooling process throughout - the chocolate ganache warms and is unstable. What is the Ganache, some of you are asking - the Ganache is the cream and chocolate and butter that you make in the next steps. Did I forget to say that once you mix chocolate butter and cream you have a ganache? I am so bad at including french words when necessary - New Years resolution - 'incorporate more french cooking terms' - there - done!



The recipe for the ganache is so simple - ready here goes: take 14 ounces of dark chocolate crumbled into pieces and I like to add one and a half cups of the best powdered dark chocolate you can find to add a more rich chocolatey chocolate and save a half a cup to be used later for coating the truffles (I used Scharffen Berger) one cup of heavy cream and 3 tablespoons of butter. Warm the cream to near boiling and pour over crumbled chocolate pieces, powder and butter stirring until it melts and its glossy - cool in the fridge.



When its cool and stiff form into balls, I used a melon baller, and dip into melted chocolate (I forgot to mention that you need to melt 8 ounces of chocolate in a double boiler) after dipping roll around in additional dark chocolate powder or nuts or coconut or some flavored salts. Keep cool and enjoy at your leisure. I coated a few with some dried chile pieces, and I used ground up candy cap mushrooms and some with mint and sugar, some with szechuan buttons and salty sugar some with orange zest and others with black garlic nibs, some were left plain and even others with mukhwas because I am just that way!



Here is the whole graduating class picture.



Here are some of the standouts starting from the front and working clockwise: Plain chocolate powder, minty sugar, candy cap mushrooms, black garlic, red chile, szechuan buttons with salty sugar and in the center is orange zest.



The best of show had to be the one with mukhwas. Crunch and exotica in every nibble, look at all the delights surrounding this mini globe of chocolate fun. Experiment with flavors, find what you like and go for it!