Hectic Holidays Finale

Wow, I can't believe that we're done with truffles. After a few days respite, I have to say that truffles are relatively easy to make and were rather cost effective as far as gifts go. This in no way means that they're not time consuming, however. My friend and I started well before Thanksgiving researching books, testing recipes and finding a cheap supplier of high quality chocolate (the best prices are available on the Internet, hands down). We used the bittersweet Valrhona chocolate and got a good deal from Chocosphere. Also, starting in December, we met at least twice a week (sometimes 3 times a week) until this past weekend to make enough truffles for both of us to give to those on our Christmas lists, which was around 300 truffles. We also got a lot of support from our boyfriends who were requisitioned into bringing us more supplies and being our guinea pigs for new flavor combinations.

Here is my take on the whole adventure:

After scanning through several books and magazines, my friend and I settled on 2 different recipes, one coming from Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales from a Life in Chocolate by Alice Medrich and the other from The Gourmet Cookbook by Ruth Reichl.

The first recipe called for:
1 lb. chocolate (55 - 75% cocoa), chopped into small pieces
10 tbs. unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup espresso or water
Dutch-processed cocoa powder

The process for this recipe was listed in my post from Dec. 12.

The second recipe called for:
11 oz. chocolate (55-75% cocoa), chopped into small pieces
2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
Dutch-processed cocoa powder

In this recipe, you bring the cream to a boil and pour it on top of 8 oz. of the chocolate to melt it. Then you set the mixture at room temperature until it become solid enough to hold a shape. Then you spoon the mixture into a pastry bag and squeeze out truffle-sized balls of chocolate to freeze, thus producing mostly round truffles. The chocolate was then put into the freezer for 15 minutes. Lastly, melt the remaining 3 oz. of chocolate in a bowl in the skillet of barely simmering water and dipped the chocolate into it to form a hard shell.

We had to sidestep some of this recipe for time and equipment issues. First, we decided to put the melted chocolate and cream mixture into the refrigerator to cut down on time. Second, I didn't have a pastry bag (I should, I know, but time and money and time), so my friend and I shaped the chocolate with spoons. If I make this recipe again, I would get it even colder and use my hands to shape the truffles. With the other recipe we used an ice water bath to keep our hands cold enough to handle the chocolate without it melting. I think that this approach would work with this recipe too. Or I could just buy a pastry bag, but I'm stubborn like that.

I have to say that I do prefer the recipe from Bittersweet to the Gourmet one. It's by far the easiest and the most easily adaptable. Also, as far as taste goes, there's something in the first recipe that just hits the right notes. Chocolate and espresso are a great combination. (Not that I'll be eating truffles for a while, though. There is such a thing as too much chocolate.)

In the end, we ended up making truffles dusted with cocoa powder, cocoa powder and chili powder, crushed macademia nuts, crushed pecans and shaved white chocolate. We also made some batches with a half macademia nut on top, ones with drizzled white chocolate and ones with a hard chocolate coating. We did try the strawberry jam balls dipped in chocolate but they weren't stable enough (the jam spilt out when it started to melt) and my friend thought that jam tasted was too strong.



After we finished all of the chocolates, my friend and I boxed them. We made around 40 boxes between the two of us. We then wrapped them in paper and ribbon.