The International Bed and Breakfast Pages
| Cooking with Chef Doug Email: chefdoug@ibbp.com |
Holiday gifts from your kitchen is a great way to show friends that you are thinking of them during the season. With many chocolate lovers on everyone's list, this recipe is sure to please. The chocolate truffle mixture, also referred to as Ganache, is a wonderful combination of chocolate and cream that creates a melt in your mouth experience that every chocolate lover is sure to enjoy. This basic truffle recipe may be infused with many different flavorings and can be coated with a simple coating of cocoa powder or can be covered with tempered chocolate.
Happy Holidays and Enjoy!
Chocolate Truffles
Ingredients:
For the Ganache, you will need
1/2 cup Cream
1/2 pound Semi-sweet or Bitter-sweet Chocolate, finely chopped
For the Coating, you will need
3 Tbsp Cocoa Powder, Dutch Processed
Procedure:
For the Ganache:
1. Pour cream into a heavy pot, bring it to a boil, then remove it from heat.
2. Add chopped chocolate and stir until all of the chocolate is melted and incorporated.
3. Pour into a bowl and refrigerate overnight.
4. Using a small 1-1/2 inch diameter ice cream scoop or a spoon, scoop the ganache and roll it into round balls using your hands.
5. Freeze balls for about 4 hours.
For the Coating:
1. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. Roll the frozen ganache balls in cocoa powder.
3. Using a fork, lift the truffle out of the cocoa powder and place onto the parchment paper.
4. Keep truffles refrigerated until ready to serve.
Optional Ganache Flavorings
You can add any of the following flavors, for a twist on the basic
recipe:
Mocha:
Stir 2 to 3 tsp espresso powder ( to taste) into the cream before
adding chocolate.
Grand Marnier:
(When using a liquid flavoring such as Grand Marnier, increase
the amount of chocolate by 2 oz. ) Add 2 Tbsp of Grand Marnier
after the chopped chocolate is added to boiling cream and incorporated.
Other Flavorings:
Experiment with other flavorings such as infusing mint, citrus
peel etc into the hot cream. Also try other liqueur flavors, keeping
in mind to increase the amount of chocolate by 2 oz per recipe.
Optional Coatings
Instead of cocoa powder, you can try any of the following coatings:
3/4 pound Semi-sweet or Bitter-sweet Chocolate, chopped fine;
or
1 pound Semi-sweet or Bitter-sweet Chocolate, chunk; or
1 lb Finely chopped nuts, walnuts, pecans etc. to coat immediately
after dipping
1. Using a double-boiler or an oversized stainless steel bowl over a pot of simmering water, melt 3/4 of one of the coating chocolates to about 115 degrees F (use an instant read thermometer). Use a rubber spatula to mix chocolate.
While melting the coating chocolate, make sure that you don't
2. Remove chocolate from the heat and wipe the bottom of the bowl to avoid getting any water into the chocolate.
3. Stir in the remaining block of chocolate until mixture reaches 88 degrees F
4. Keep the temperature of chocolate at 88 degrees by placing the bowl on top of a heating pad and turning it on and off as needed. Keep in mind to stir the chocolate frequently during the dipping process.
5. Drop a cold ganache ball into the coating chocolate.
6. Using a dipping fork or a regular fork, coat entire ganache ball then remove from the bowl and place onto the parchment paper.
7. Continue this process until all the ganache is coated.
Notes:
Chocolate may be purchased from Food Distributors. Typically found in 10 pound blocks. See http://www.flash.net/~awardco/Suppliers.htm for a list of chocolate suppliers.
A simple way to chop chocolate is to use a serrated knife.
Start 'shaving' the chocolate block from a corner, turning the
block of chocolate to the next available corner.
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