Hectic Holidays Part I

Christmas has always been one of my favorite times of the year. I really enjoy preparing for the holiday, finding the perfect tree and gifts for friends and loved ones, decorating and wrapping presents. Every since I was a child, I have enjoyed the sense of anticipation that comes with Christmas.

For the last few years, however, I have become increasingly tired of the commercial push that starts well before Thanksgiving these days to buy Christmas presents. I have also found myself less patient with the crowds at the malls. Initially, I started to do more of my shopping online and through catelogues or picking up gifts for people whenever I traveled out of the country. This year, I thought I would do something different: I wanted to handmake my presents.

At first, I wasn't sure what I wanted to make. I figured that, since I do like to cook, I would probably end up making something edible. Then a friend of mine called and asked if I wanted to try to make truffles with her. After our first batch, we decided that truffles would be our Christmas presents this year.

We found a great deal online for over 6 lbs. of Valrhona and started our truffle making in earnest on Thursday of last week. We started out melting 1 lb. of chocolate with 10 tablespoons of butter. I placed the chocolate and butter in a bowl and put that in the middle of a skillet with some barely simmering water. Melting chocolate is really quite mesmerizing.



Next, we mixed together 1/2 cup espresso and 2 large egg yolks. We then mixed this into the chocolate.



We strained the mixture through a fine-meshed sieve and set in a 9x13 in. baking tray lined with parchment paper and placed the tray in the freezer for 1 hour.

While the chocolate mixture was hardening, my friend and I played around with mixtures of nuts, spices and cocoa powder with which we wanted to coat the chocolates. We ended up deciding on 2 different finishes for that batch of truffles, a mixture of chili powder and cocoa powder for 2/3 of them and a coating of crushed macademia nuts for the rest.



We made over 100 truffles over the weekend (about 3 batches of the above recipe) and have about half of the chocolate left. The plan over the course of the week is to make truffles out of the rest in various shapes and sizes and with different types of decoration and finishes. We're also going to experiment with jam-filled chocolate covered truffles. I will keep you updated on the progress/frustration of this venture. By the end, I predict that we'll be experts at making truffles. Whether or not we'll be so tired of chocolate that we won't ever want to work with it again is another story.