Lily’s Blog, Dragon Absconded!
Baking Until I Drop

Thank yous go to Jamie for introducing me to the wonderful world of making my own truffles!
(Please tell me if I’m missing any important details as I’m doing this by memory!)

Now, on with our story:

Truffles are pretty easy to make…well mostly.

Your basic chocolate truffle requires these ingredients:

• 1 lb of chocolate, chopped coarsely
• 1 1/2 cups of whipping cream
• 4 tblsps cocoa powder or icing sugar
• 1 1/2 lb of chocolate, chopped coarsely, for tempering

This will make about 60 truffles. I’m told you must get the little paper cups to put them in so that they look pretty!

Now the how to:
I’ll break it up into stages.

1. Making the truffle cream:
   1. Melt 1 lb of chocolate in a double boiler (or if you don’t have one…improvise). I think you have to make sure the water in the outer pot doesn’t touch the base of the inner pot (the one with the chocolate. Make sure it doesn’t burn and keep stirring.
   2. Boil the cream
   3. Now mix the cream and the melted chocolate together until it’s all chocolatey and well blended.
   4. Now you cover it securely and put it in the fridge or freezer for a few hours.
2. Making the truffle centres:
   1. Line trays with parchment paper.
   2. Take the truffle cream out of the fridge and use a melon baller (or fill a pastry bag and make mounds) to scoop out little mounds of chocolate. You can pick whatever size you’re comfortable with and put them on the trays.
   3. When you’re done, put them in the fridge or freezer again, covered securely, for a few hours.
   4. Take them out again and use either your hands or gloves for this. Dust your hands with cocoa powder and roll the mounds into ball shapes and put them back onto lined trays.
   5. Refrigerate again for a few hours
3. Tempering chocolate and coating the truffles:
   1. Melt two thirds of the chocolate in a double boiler and remove when done.
   2. Add the remaining third of chocolate in thirds to the melted chocolate, mixing well to ensure all chocolate is melted before adding the next batch. Voilà! Tempered chocolate!
   3. Take the trays out of the fridge and dip each truffle in the tempered chocolate, trying your best to evenly coat it and shake off excess chocolate. Then put them back on lined trays
   4. If you want to decorate them with something, make sure to do it before the coating sets, so put your beans, rinds, m&m’s on after coating about 4 truffles or so.
   5. Cover the truffles securely and put them in the fridge to set for about 15 minutes.
   6. Take them out and put them in the paper cups.
   7. You want to store them securely remember!

Things to remember:

• You might need to use different lined trays or change the linings!
• If the chocolate gets too soft to scoop out, or too hard to coat the centres or just not right…you can always retemper them or rerefrigerate
• It’s chocolate! If you use good chocolate it’s not too hard to go wrong. Even if it doesn’t come out right…CHOCOLATE NEVER GOES TO WASTE

Now..clicky for pictures of me doing these lovely things :-)

Continue reading Chocolate Truffles