Fenrisulfr
Member
I recently posted a recipe for English toffee, one of the easiest candy recipes that I know. Truffles, on the other hand, are sort of my specialty but only made for very special occasions as they can take up to two days to make given the variations that I use. It's absolutely worth it, though. It's almost amazing how dissatisfying those Lindt truffles are after having the real thing. I always love making these for friends. The first time I did, I believe the response was "Oh my god, how did you make this? It's like a chocolate orgasm!" And of course, nothing but good things could ever come from chocolate orgasms.
Basic Milk Chocolate Truffles
1 cup of heavy cream
1 pound of milk chocolate (Hershey's symphony bar is good for this)
~1/2 pound of high quality milk or dark chocolate.*
1) With a sharp knife, chop the 1 pound of chocolate into thin shards or shavings and place into a large heat proof bowl. Make sure to cut on a cutting board or baking sheet, this can get messy.
2) In a saucepan, bring the heavy cream to a boil over medium heat. Stir almost constantly to avoid burning.
3) Immediately pour hot cream over chocolate shavings.
4) Let stand ~5 minutes.
5) Stir the melted chocolate and cream together until completely combined. It may not seem like it will mix at first, but keep at it. If the chocolate is not entirely melted, heat over a double boiler. This chocolate mixture is known as a ganache, and depending on the ratio of chocolate to cream, has a wide variety of uses.
6) Place the ganache in the fridge. Chill until solid, this may take several hours.
7) Line a baking pan with wax paper.
8) Scoop portions of the ganache, form into truffle sized balls and place onto the baking sheet. You may want to wear some disposable gloves.
9) Place baking pan in the fridge for about fifteen minutes to half an hour.
10) Meanwhile, melt and temper your high quality chocolate using a double boiler. This is the trickiest part of the recipe. For a guide on how to temper chocolate, click here.
11) Coat each ganache center in the tempered chocolate, place back on baking pan.
12) Return enrobed truffles to the fridge until chocolate coating is solid.
*Rather than coating the truffles in tempered chocolate, this recipe can be made much simpler by coating the ganache centers in cocoa powder and omitting the half pound of high quality chocolate and skipping steps 10-12.
There are almost unlimited alterations, substitutions, and additions that can be made to this recipe to produce different sorts of truffles. For dark chocolate truffles, simply replace the milk chocolate with dark chocolate and use slightly more cream. Mint chocolate truffles can be made by mixing some mint extract into the ganache when liquid. A personal favorite of mine, a mocha truffle, can be made by creating a 50/50 dark and milk chocolate ganache and inserting a few high quality espresso beans into the ganache centers when forming them into balls, then coating the truffles with a dark chocolate shell.
Mocha truffle (sorry for the fuzzy photo):
Basic Milk Chocolate Truffles
1 cup of heavy cream
1 pound of milk chocolate (Hershey's symphony bar is good for this)
~1/2 pound of high quality milk or dark chocolate.*
1) With a sharp knife, chop the 1 pound of chocolate into thin shards or shavings and place into a large heat proof bowl. Make sure to cut on a cutting board or baking sheet, this can get messy.
2) In a saucepan, bring the heavy cream to a boil over medium heat. Stir almost constantly to avoid burning.
3) Immediately pour hot cream over chocolate shavings.
4) Let stand ~5 minutes.
5) Stir the melted chocolate and cream together until completely combined. It may not seem like it will mix at first, but keep at it. If the chocolate is not entirely melted, heat over a double boiler. This chocolate mixture is known as a ganache, and depending on the ratio of chocolate to cream, has a wide variety of uses.
6) Place the ganache in the fridge. Chill until solid, this may take several hours.
7) Line a baking pan with wax paper.
8) Scoop portions of the ganache, form into truffle sized balls and place onto the baking sheet. You may want to wear some disposable gloves.
9) Place baking pan in the fridge for about fifteen minutes to half an hour.
10) Meanwhile, melt and temper your high quality chocolate using a double boiler. This is the trickiest part of the recipe. For a guide on how to temper chocolate, click here.
11) Coat each ganache center in the tempered chocolate, place back on baking pan.
12) Return enrobed truffles to the fridge until chocolate coating is solid.
*Rather than coating the truffles in tempered chocolate, this recipe can be made much simpler by coating the ganache centers in cocoa powder and omitting the half pound of high quality chocolate and skipping steps 10-12.
There are almost unlimited alterations, substitutions, and additions that can be made to this recipe to produce different sorts of truffles. For dark chocolate truffles, simply replace the milk chocolate with dark chocolate and use slightly more cream. Mint chocolate truffles can be made by mixing some mint extract into the ganache when liquid. A personal favorite of mine, a mocha truffle, can be made by creating a 50/50 dark and milk chocolate ganache and inserting a few high quality espresso beans into the ganache centers when forming them into balls, then coating the truffles with a dark chocolate shell.
Mocha truffle (sorry for the fuzzy photo):
