Chocolate Truffles

This week at school we are all about "Chocolate Truffles"! What is a chocolate truffle you ask? Well it's a wonderful, heavenly delight that with every bite you can feel being whisked away up in the clouds and feel that wonderful chocolate coat your mouth, mmmm, so yummy...."Calling Melody back from the clouds!"

 Okay now that I am back on earth, a chocolate truffle is a chocolate confectionery usually made with chocolate ganache. Chocolate ganache fancy the name but easy to make, is simply melted chocolate mixed with heavy cream. Beautiful thing the ganache but will be another topic for another day!  Now a days, truffles are made with all kinds of different fillings and flavors. What kinds of fillings? Well I'm glad you asked.  You can fill them with caramel, flavored chocolates (liqueur, coffee, extracts), berries, nuts, fudge, etc.

There are two kinds of truffles, hand rolled and the bon bons.  Hand rolled is straight forward and the easiest to make. I will share a simple recipe located in the "Recipe" tab where you can try to do these, but let me warn you! Once you do these you will not want to stop eating! It's okay next year's  resolution (famous one on the yearly list)....exercise!

Hand Rolled Truffle - glazed with tempered chocolate

Hand Rolled Truffle- dusted with cocoa powder

Anyhow, the other truffles are made with chocolate molds but these I have to tell you take work because it involves tempering chocolate! Yikes!! For those that don't know what tempering is, let me first start out by saying that chocolate already comes tempered when you get it. Chocolate bars, chocolate chips, callets, etc, are all tempered. Tempering is basically melting down the chocolate to a certain temperature (113-115 degrees) and cooling it down to a specific temperature. By doing this it makes it possible to mold and shape chocolate. Three qualities of well tempered chocolate are: Strength, Snap and Shine.

Bon Bons - Molded Chocolate

  Bon Bons - Molded Truffles

If you don't properly temper the chocolate, you won't get that beautiful shiny chocolate but a chocolate that is dry, with lines. So it has it trick. If you are interested in trying tempering chocolate, Ghirardelli has a simple explanation and two different methods to go about it. Best part, they have a video to show you! Yaay!!

Does it matter what kind of chocolate you use? Well yes, you can't usually use the chocolate chips to do this because it contains an ingredient that prevents it from loosing it's shape. That's why when you bake chocolate chip cookies, they don't melt all over your cookie. Now some will say that you have melted it down but it becomes a thick pool instead of a smooth one and can't be used for truffles. There are some quality chocolate chips like  Ghiradelli Chocolate Chips and Scharffen Berger that can be both used for melting and baking.

Which kind should you use?  That's a tough question because everyone has their own preference in taste when it comes to chocolate. Some love the bitter, semi-bitter, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, etc. The ones I personally love to use is Valrhona and Callebaut. I love the quality and taste from these brands but they can be a bit pricey. Baker's chocolate is inexpensive, in my opinion, and can be found in your regular markets, Target, & Walmart. An 8 oz box can run you from $3-$5 depending where you go. And you can use this for this kind of project.

So there you go! Truffles are a delightful thing to try to make and especially to eat! Hopefully you will try this easy hand rolled recipe I provided you in the "Recipe" tab on the top of the page. It's a "Dark chocolate orange truffle".  Enjoy!