Making European-style pastries used to intimidate me. They look so dainty and delicate and I’m always worried that I’m too heavy handed to execute them. Well, I’m slowly overcoming the fear. I started with the simplest project — panna cotta. As I became more comfortable with the language and techniques, a tarte Tatin, chocolate souffle, apple strudel and budino. Earlier today, I made chocolate truffles.
What is a truffle? First, let’s not confuse a chocolate truffle with the highly-prized fungus called the truffle. In the confectionary world, a truffle is a small piece of sweet made by chilling ganache or something akin to a fudge, depending on which part of the world you’re in (see the three main types of chocolate truffles), shaping the chilled mixture and rolling them in cocoa powder, nuts or anything that fancies your imagination. You can even dip them in melted chocolate.
The ones I made, based on a recipe from Saveur, fall under the Swiss truffle variety. There are only three ingredients — dark chocolate, cream and butter. Somewhere between soft and chewy, the dark chocolate truffles are decadently rich and crazy delicious. Seriously.
Recipe: Dark chocolate truffles
Ingredients
- 1 and 3/4 c. of dark chocolate morsels
- 1/3 c. of cream
- 6 tbsps. of butter
- 1 generous pinch of rock salt
- 1/2 c. of finely chopped walnuts (or whatever nuts you prefer)
- 1/4 c. of sifted cocoa powder
- 1/4 c. of sifted confectioner’s sugar
Instructions
- Heat the cream in a sauce pan until simmering (do not boil because the cream may curdle). Turn off the heat. Add the chocolate, salt and butter. Stir until smooth.
- Pour the mixture into a shallow bowl and chill until firm — four hours, in my case.
- “Firm” means the mixture can be shaped.
- When the chocolate mixture is firm enough, start preparing whatever you want to coat your truffles with.
- Sift the confectioner’s sugar into a bowl.
- Sift the cocoa powder into another bowl.
- Put the chopped nuts into a third bowl.
- Using a teaspoon, scrape the chilled chocolate mixture to form one-inch balls.
- Coat some of the chocolate balls with the chopped nuts.
- Roll some in cocoa powder.
- Roll the rest in confectioner’s sugar.
- If the still unshaped chocolate mixture starts to soften, chill for about 30 minutes then start scraping and shaping again.
- Keep the truffles in the fridge in a covered container.
- Now, if you want to give your friends a bunch of homemade dark chocolate truffles for Christmas, I suggest you use colorful paper cups.
- Arrange the truffles in a single layer in shallow containers. Keep them chilled (an ice chest is advisable) during transport.
Preparation time: 20 minute(s)
Cooking time: 5 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): about 25 pieces
Wow! This made me crave with choco truffles. What brand of choco morsels did you use? If i’ll make this I want to use your trusted brand
The morsels were from Cooks Exchange. It’s just the house brand.
Yay, something to try tomorrow.
For the cream, is it heavy cream or would all-purpose cream work?
Thanks!
I just used all-purpose cream.
Oooohhh..thanks Connie! there’s a cooks exchange here in glorietta. will definitely drop by and buy some. if my truffle becomes successful, I’ll surely give this as a gift to colleagues. I have a lot of chopped almonds at home that I bought from the recent S&R sale so, I’ll try using it.
S&R had a sale?? Oh my, I missed that.
I will definitely try this, Connie. Thanks for the recipe!
Hi connie,
It was the sept sale i was talking about. Next one would be march.
Gosh, this is bad to read on an empty stomack! Damn, your whole blog is bad to read this early in the day
great recipe! Thank you!
ha ha ha!
Whenever you mention butter in your recipe, are you referring to the salted or unsalted? I found a bag of Nestle’s dark chocolate morsels in my frig. Can I use this brand?
In baking, it’s always unsalted UNLESS otherwise stated.
Re Nestle: why not?
I don’t understand why recipes would call for unsalted butter and then add salt. Why not just use salted butter and then add a little less salt? Doesn’t make sense.
Can you measure the amount of salt in 1/2 c. of salted butter? Or in 1/4 c. of salted butter?
If unsalted butter is used, whatever the amount, I can measure the exact amount of salt.
Common sense.
No, it’s not common sense. Your recipe calls for a “generous pinch of rock salt” which doesn’t have an exact measurement. It’s not 1/8 tsp or 1/4 tsp of salt. That means you can also just use salted butter and then add a “not too generous pinch of salt”.
But whatever. It’s your recipe anyway.
Wow, common sense really isn’t very common.
Will surely make this for Christmas dinner
I’m also planning to plant some surprises in the middle of the truffle like M&Ms, nuts, peanut butter, and candies just so the kids wil have so much fun munching on these yummy treats 