Chocolate Truffles

I can’t believe how long it’s taken me to discover, but chocolate truffles are really easy to make. And they really don’t take long, outside of rolling each individual ball (though you can cut down on that time by either eating them before you roll them, or just making rectangular truffles). I got a lot of compliments on the ones I made this weekend, so here’s what I did. I loosely followed the recipe in the Good Housekeeping Chocolate! cookbook I got from my bridesmaids.

Chocolate Truffles
1. • 8 ounces chocolate, about 75% sweet (In other words, some combination semisweet, bittersweet, and unsweetened. I used about half a bag each of Ghirardelli bittersweet, with 60% cacao and Nestlé Chocolatier dark, with 53% cacao. The recipe calls for 8 ounces bittersweet or 6 ounces semisweet and 2 ounces unsweetened.)
   • ½ cup heavy or whipping cream
   • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, broken into pieces (The recipe called for 3, but I don’t generally unwrap a new stick of butter for that one tablespoon.)
   • about ½ cup of something to coat your truffles, like cocoa powder or finely chopped nuts (We had ground almonds, so we used that and supplemented it with cocoa powder.)
2. 1. Bring the cream to a boil over medium-high heat. Turn off the heat and stir in the chocolate until it’s smooth. Stir in the butter until it disappears. Pour into a container lined with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least a few hours.
   2. When you’re ready to roll them, peel the slab of chocolate off the plastic wrap and cut it into 32 pieces. Make your hands as cold as possible and roll each piece into a ball. Roll each ball in the coating of your choice.

If you don’t like my instructions, or you like to look at pictures of what you’re cooking, go here.

Mary Ann asked if I thought I could make these truffles spicy. While I've heard a lot about spicy truffles and salty truffles recently, I haven’t ever tried one. But after doing a little research, it sounds like you could add between ½ and 1 teaspoon cayenne or chili pepper to the mix to spice these up. I’m thinking about coating them in powdered milk or cinnamon the next time I make them. You could also dip them in melted chocolate .