Toasted Hazelnut and Cinnamon Truffles. The chocolate is also infused with cinnamon.

Making truffles for a party I'm throwing on Saturday. Later this week I'm going to make more...I"m debating between chai tea truffles, espresso truffles, rosemary truffles, or chipotle truffles. Maybe I'll make all 4! (But probably only 2, that might be truffle overload, especially cause I'm also making a ganache covered cake, and there's only 20 people invited to the party!)

Hello! I'm looking for a little advice on truffles.

( Trufflage )

Starting with homemade french bread:

( Read more... )

Normally I post food icons here as pensieve_icons, but today I have a real foodie post!

Yesterday was my first chance to go to Alinea, the restaurant ranked #1 by Gourmet magazine.  My SO took me for my twentieth birthday, and we got the 22-course "Tour" meal, plus the foie gras, and I got a special 24th course for my birthday... details are at my journal.  It's very image-heavy, so most of it is under a cut.  Here's a picture of my favorite course as a teaser, though:



Black Truffle Explosion: Romaine, parmesan.  Served on an Anti-Plate.

Again, you can read the whole picture-laden experience here at so_i_go!

I want to make truffles for my boyfriend for Valentine's day, but I've never done anything like this before. I want them to be all dark chocolate, he loves spicy and orange flavors in chocolate, and also macadamia nuts. Does anyone have any good recipes/tips/techniques please? Thank you very much in advance!!


oh and also, I'm going to have to mail them to him... and I'm at a loss for what to do there.

First post - be gentle. :)

So before Christmas I made a batch of orange-scented dark chocolate truffles at the last minute to give as gifts to a couple of people who I'd forgotten, and they came out fantastic. Important to mention that this was my first time making truffles. Ever. They were so easy that I was suddenly intrigued at the thought of exploring the world of these decadent litle chocolates, and was sure I understood the fundamental workings of their fudgy little insides and could handle just about anything they could throw at me. So, being the overzealous idiot I am, I decided to make another couple batches to have at two get-togethers I'm throwing this weekend.

However, instead of being a good girl and following a recipe, since I had an idea in my head and couldn't find what I was looking for, I went ahead and made one (two) up. I attempted to make one batch of dark chocolate with raspberry and a second of white chocolate with pineapple and citrus, both using fruit preserves as their primary flavor base.... and while the ganache tastes delicious for both, it isn't setting up. At all. Its been in the freezer overnight and it still looks rather like thick pudding.

I've made the inevitable assumption that either a) I need to reign myself in on the fruit preserves if I'm going to use them, and deal with the less-intense flavor (because I just kept adding more to try to get the fruit flavor to be more up-front), or b) not use them at all.

However, I now have two big bowls of chocolate ganache in my freezer that are too runny to form into truffle balls.

Is there any way to redeem myself and "fix them? Could I maybe melt in more chocolate? Or are these pretty much a lost cause now? And if so, does anyone have a suggestion for how I could use them?

EDIT: I have some ideas now that I may or may not try out for my parties - I may just do without them and mess around with the chocolate on Monday when I have some free time. Thanks for the help everyone, but I have a related question - since my problem is obviously too much liquid in the chocolate, are there certain things that just won't freeze? I assumed that even with all the fruit mixed in, it'd still freeze relatively solid and I'd be able to work with it while it was cold, but that just didn't happen. I know liquors won't freeze but I didn't use any.... all thats in these things is chocolate, cream, fruit preserves, and some lime zest in the white chocolate ones..... so do some of those ingredients just never reach a frozen state, or is it the combination that messes it up?

Afternoon! My partner, Miss purveyorofchaos, and I are planning on making truffles later. We made a batch of Earl Grey-flavored ones a couple days ago and, while they did turn out tasty, the tea flavor wasn't that strong. I'm thinking that's because a) We're using unsweetened chocolate b) We didn't use enough tea leaves. Does anyone have any advice on truffle making re: using fancy baking chocolate? We added about three tablespoons of sugar to the cream and tea mixture and everything was sweet enough. I guess I'm just looking for advice because almost all truffle recipes call for bittersweet, which we don't have and aren't planning on buying, not with a few pounds of quality unsweetened in the pantry.

Thanks!

Thanks to all who helped me with my question about solidifying honey the other day.  Unfortunately my attempts at forcing crystallization didn't work, but I did manage to come up with something!

I took a cup of cornstarch, about a tablespoon of confectioner's sugar, and whizzed it up in the food processor.  Then I drizzled honey in until it was the taste and consistency I wanted.



I used it to make one of six flavors of truffles for the holiday season!!

Bittersweet chocolate + enough honey to make its presence known is absolutely divine!

Another Christmas gift-giving inspired post. They were so popular with friends and family.

They are best viewed large.  Click the image for larger size.  Recipe over here.

Hi everyone,

I have a bit of a weakness for Rum truffles (no added fruit), and thought I would actually attempt to make a bartch myself. I'm generally quite confident when it comes to desserts/sweets but since I've never made these before I was wondering if any of you could recommend a recipe that worked for you, or just tastes delicious. (Or even by your favourite cook).

Thanks! :)

I'm about to make some truffles for Christmas. I'm planning on using candy molds for an aesthetic touch. They are just simple, round molds, with a very simple design on the bottom [a small spiral, sort of?] - So nothing too intricate needs to be taken into consideration. I bought chocolate almond bark to coat them with because I'm in no mood to fool around with tempering chocolate today. Don't worry about the almond bark coating; the chocolate for the ganache filling is high quality! :) Anyway, I am planning on making chocolate shells in the molds first, letting that set, filling them with the ganache-truffle, then top it off [bottom it off?] with the rest of the chocolate shell.

This is my first time using chocolate in candy molds.

Any helpful tips for smoother sailing?

Popping them out, filling them, etc?


Edit:

My molds are similar to this, only without the cherry pattern.

I know someone here has made chocolate truffles spiked with cayenne, but the LJ search function is failing me.

How much cayenne do you use per how much chocolate?

I'm making truffles this afternoon, and want to include a batch flavored with cayenne. Normally I'd just add cayenne to my usual ganache truffle base to taste. But the cold I've had for the last week has moved to my nose, taking my sense of smell - and taste - with it.

These are meant to be gifts, and I don't want to take the top of anyone's head off, but I'd like them to have noticeable heat.

Cooking without a functioning sense of smell is a real PITA...

ETAThanks for the links, everyone. I wound up using the following proportions:

* 8 oz bittersweet chocolate (70 percent cocoa solids - intense stuff)
* 2 tbps unsalted butter
* 1/2 cup heavy cream
* 1 tsp cayenne
* 1/2 tsp garam masala

The mixture is chilling as I type.

Working with the spices opened up my sinuses enough that I could get a good sense of what these are going to taste like: Dark, bitter and fiery with an aromatic undertone from the garam masala. I plan to roll them in unsweetened cocoa with a little more garam masala.

As I have said before, I don't really like chocolate. I crave it occasionally. But that has to do with the mysterious female hormones and their desire to be perverse. However, I do recognize that chocolate desserts are instantly popular. Especially when they are the only chocolate desserts on the thanksgivings dessert spread. Everyone is fascinated by chocolate. More so when it comes in tiny conveniently portioned morsels. So for Thanksgivings, making truffles was a no brainer.

( Forward to the chocolate )

Nahuatl Tletl Chocolatl

(translation: Aztec Fire Chocolate Truffles, a.k.a. Misia's New Invention)

2 cups heavy cream
1 Tablespoon ground Ceylon cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground Ancho chile
1 1/2 teaspoons ground Chipotle chile

Bring cream to a boil, add spices, reduce heat, bring to a low simmer, and simmer covered for 20 minutes.

Uncover, increase heat slightly, and simmer to reduce liquid volume by one half. Stir occasionally, it helps keep it from forming a skin.

2 pounds 70% cocoa bittersweet chocolate (I used El Rey Gran Saman)

Melt and temper the chocolate. Fold in the reduced spiced cream and 1 T vanilla extract. Let cool to room temperature. Refrigerate until workable.

Form mixture into small (1 Tablespoon or so) balls. Dust with sweet ground paprika, or, if you are interested in heightening the the spiciness further, ground chipotle chile.

Makes lots.


Note:
These are spicy *and* hot, but heat is not the first thing you will experience. The foretaste is complex, slightly peppery, fruity, with a hint of smoke. Only after you've had the chocolate in your mouth for a bit do you start to feel any burn at all, and the burn is mild -- at first you may be thinking "hrm, is that really chile burn I'm feeling?" but after a minute you know it's there, though it is much more of a tingle than a burn (at least based on my tasting of about 1 teaspoon of the truffle mixture; it may become more intense as you eat more). Just saying this so that anyone fearing the heat can have an idea of what they're getting into.

(Cross-posted from my journal)

1 cup whipping cream
1/4 lb fresh ginger, cut julienne
18 oz semi-sweet chocolate
powdered ginger
4 egg yolks
2/3 shot Cointreau
Dutch process cocoa

Infuse the cream with the fresh ginger--takes about 45 minutes. Strain out the ginger. Melt the chocolate. Mix the egg yolks (whipped), cream, Cointreau, and chocolate (add powdered ginger to the mixture if not yet gingery enough), then paddle over an ice bath to cool.

Sprinkle Dutch cocoa powder with a little ginger in a foil-covered cookie sheet. Form the ganache into balls and roll in the ginger-cocoa mixture.

Oh. My. God.

The flavor of these is incredible. You pop one powdery morsel in your mouth and think Mmm chocolate truffle smooth dark creamy yummy chocolate WHOOOOAAAH! OHMYGOD! SPICY! YEAH BABY! SPANK ME! AGAIN! HARDER! WOW! The combination is exciting and your tummy goes all warm when you eat one. I think they may be aphrodisiac.( recipe )