This was my first go at making truffles! I will admit, I was scared to make these silky smooth chocolate drops of heaven. I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to roll the same size truffles, get the chocolate to melt right, get them to taste right, stay together...the list went on. I was so surprised at how easy they are to make. I feel like I have missed out on years of truffles and how many flavor combinations could I have tried by now?! I can say that I am now hooked and I will be testing many more flavor combinations in the future.
I spent hours looking for different truffle recipes, flavor combinations as well as tips and techniques. Here is a list of ones I saw over and over again ant that helped me:
1. A truffle is chocolate! With that being said, the chocolate you use makes the truffle. The chocolate has to be chocolate that you would enjoy eating. You do not have to buy the most expensive chocolate you can find, but the cheapest won't give you that rich chocolate flavor you are looking for. I used Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips.
2. Keep your hands COOL! Especially if you are rolling your truffles by hand. For my first batch, I had a bowl of ice water and a towel next to me. I would chill my hands every 2-3 truffles. For my second batch I had a pound of frozen hamburger to hold onto for a few seconds between truffles.
3. Be Quick! Roll and top as you go unless you are topping with a chocolate coating. The quicker you move, the better your truffles will hold their shape.
4. Make what you like. There are endless topping and flavor combinations. Use what you have on hand, what your craving or whatever intriguing find you can snag at your local shops. If you like milk chocolate, use milk chocolate or dark or any combination. There are no rules, keep tweaking your recipe until you have a taste and consistency you like.
I did not use a recipe! I looked at a countless amount of basic truffle recipes. I realized that finding a ratio that I liked was probably going to take a few tries of adjusting ratios of chocolate and cream/fat. I noticed some recipes called for butter and some did not and the ratio of cream to chocolate ranged from 1:4-3:4. I decided I would start right in the middle with a 1:2 ratio of ounces of cream to weight ounces of chocolate. I also decided I would add some butter to my batch. I think it added a wonderful silky texture to my truffle, with out it I don't think there would have been enough fat to create that texture. I was so pleased with this batch I'm not sure how I could top my base gnash.
I split my gnash into two batches of 1/3 and 2/3. I added about 1 tablespoon of coconut milk to the 1/3 portion. I had this left over from my Banana Coconut Tres Leches Cake. I also coated this batch in two different chocolate topping. The first coating was a little thinned gnash. The second, was some hard chocolate shell. I then rolled some immediately after dipping in sweetened coconut shavings. The others I just sprinkled a few shavings on top after dipping them.
The second batch I left as just plain gnash and rolled them in various toppings. A few I dipped in the thinned gnash (those are the larger ones). I had three toppings: Ghirardelli Sweetened Cocoa Powder, sprinkles and Toffee Crunch Ice Cream Topping from Wilton.
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| A possible Valentine's Day treat box. |
1 12oz bag of Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
6 oz heavy whipping cream
1 tbsp unsalted butter
Thinned gnash for dipping
Melted Hard Chocolate Shell for dipping
Sprinkles for topping
Toffee Crunch Ice Cream Topping for topping
Ghirardelli Sweetened Cocoa Powder for topping
Bring cream just to a boil in small sauce pan. Add chocolate chips to a bowl along with the butter chopped into small pieces. Pour the heated cream over chocolate. Let sit for 2 minutes. Stir until smooth (I had to microwave my mixture for two 10 second intervals to fully melt all of the chips). I then poured the mixture into two pie tins and placed in the fridge for 2 hours.
After the gnash was chilled I used a melon baller to scrape up the chocolate. I rolled it smooth and the rolled in toppings or dipped into chocolate using forks to retrieve them. I placed them back on pie tins lined with wax paper and placed them back in the fridge to finish setting up.
A few thoughts on the chocolate coatings:
I could not get my chocolate coating smooth, I let the water in the double boiler come to a boil and scorched my chocolate. It tasted good so I added some more cream to thin it out and decided to use it anyways. If these were not a test I would have melted a new batch, but for this test batch it worked just fine. I did love the extra crunch the chocolate shell coating added to the truffle. I will be experimenting with creating a hard shell on future truffles. Also next time I will place the dipped but not coated truffles on a wire rack to stop pooling around the bottom.
I hope this inspires you to try making truffles and calms any fears you too have about making your own truffles.
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