With my dairy allergy, certain treats are forbidden unless I make them myself. Chocolate truffles is one of those things. They always look incredible, and I've always wanted them, but I've never been sure about trying to make them. This year I threw caution to the wind and tried it out, using the Alton Brown recipe from Food Network. I don't even know how to begin to describe them. Let's start with the texture. The one I ate was rolled in toasted coconut. First on the tongue is the crunchy coconut, then as you fully bite into the truffle, you have the snap, the sharp give of the chocolate shell, then you are falling into the creamy smooth but firm ganache center. It's like cream cheese only smoother, fuller. And the flavor! The coconut adds less coconut taste than you would think and more of an almost warm flavor, a light caramel flavor from being toasted. The outside layer of chocolate is semi-sweet chocolate, smooth and slightly sweet but still richly chocolate. Then the ganache is like falling onto a velvet pillow of dense chocolate flavor, not really sweet but not quite bitter, perfectly balanced with all the other flavors and feeling sinfully rich in both flavor and texture. Wow. Feet. Socks. Knocked off.
Okay, okay, now that I've whetted your appetite, here's the "how" part of the truffles. Like I said, I got the recipe from Alton Brown (www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/chocolate-truffles-recipe/index.html) but I've made so many changes and want to show you exactly how I did this, so you can find the original recipe at the above link, and I'll give the recipe as I did it (complete with photos) below.
10 oz Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate (60% cacao premium baking chips)
3 T. Blue Bonnet margarine
1/2 c. Silk soy creamer
1 T. light corn syrup
1/2 c. Hershey's special dark cocoa powder
1/2 c. toasted sweetened coconut flakes
1/2 c. toasted finely chopped pecans
8 oz. Hershey's semisweet chocolate chips
parchment paper
mini muffin papers
1. Place the bittersweet chocolate and margarine in a medium size glass mixing bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds. Remove and stir.
Microwave for 30 seconds again. Remove and stir. Set aside.
2. Heat the soy creamer and the corn syrup in a small saucepan over medium heat until just simmering. Remove from the heat and pour the mixture over the melted chocolate mixture; let it stand for 2 minutes. Using a rubber spatula, stir gently, starting in the middle of the bowl and working in concentric circles until all the chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth and creamy.
3. Spread the mixture (ganache, pronounced guh-nosh) into an 8x8 glass baking dish, spreading it fairly evenly, and refrigerate for 1 hour. It will be very smooth and very shiny.
4. Using a 1 tablespoon scoop (like a mini ice cream scooper, one of my absolute favorite kitchen tools and one I found at Target), scoop the ganache into level scoops and place them on a parchment paper lined board or cookie sheet. When all of the ganache has been scooped (I got 24 balls), refrigerate them for 30 minutes. (In this picture, you can see that two balls in the lower left have already been re-rolled to become smooth balls.)
5. While the balls are chilling, melt the semisweet chocolate using the following method. Put the chips in a medium glass bowl. Warm up a heating pad. We don't have a traditional heating pad, so I warmed both a buckwheat heating pad and my stone dish warmer. Alton Brown recommends the heating pad for melting the chocolate. One reviewer belittled this idea and got out the classic double boiler. My problem with the double boiler is that it often gets the chocolate above the 94 degrees Alton says is the upper limit for when you no longer get the snap of the chocolate when it cools. That's fine for when I'm doing chocolate covered pretzels, but I wanted the snap for the truffles. So I warmed the heating pad and sat the bowl of chocolate on it. I then got some pie plates out and put the coating materials in each pan: 1 for toasted coconut, 1 for toasted finely chopped pecans, 1 for cocoa powder. In about five minutes, the chocolate had really begun to melt. I stirred it a bit, then got the ganache scoops out of the refrigerator.
6. Roll the ganache scoops in between your palms to roll them into tight, smooth balls. The ganache will have the consistency of Play-Doh. Roll three balls, then wash your hands with cold water. Keep repeating until all 24 balls are done. If you do not wash your hands, your hands magically get sticky on the fourth ball. Washing with cold water keeps your skin cool to minimize stickiness too. The hand washing is a bit tedious (and boy is our well water cold in December!), but it works really well.
7. Stir the melting chocolate again until it is completely smooth, scraping down the sides as you stir.
8. Now for coating. I had gotten out a soup ladle (Alton recommends an ice cream scoop) which then looked too big, so I switched to a gravy ladle. I double checked the temperature of my melted chocolate with a candy thermometer - 90 degrees. I sat the ladle in the bowl of chocolate (leaving the bowl of chocolate on the heating pad), scooping some chocolate onto the ladle. I rolled the balls in the chocolate on the ladle, first trying to roll with my fingers, then trying a fork, finally going back to my fingers and just dealing with the chocolate build up (my hands were still cool, so the chocolate was actually cooling and hardening on my fingers). One of the recipe's reviewers asked what Alton had been thinking, as she was burning her fingers doing the chocolate coating. I have no idea what in the world she was doing. The chocolate should be less than body temperature, so it should not hurt to touch it! Because it is so barely melted, it's sticky and thick, so watch out. I had chocolate fingers to say the least, and I never did get a silky smooth coating on any of the balls. As each ball is coated in chocolate, roll it in the coating of choice. I found it worked very well to drop it into the coating, then use a fork or spoon to pour coating over the ball, then roll to really coat. This is not a race, but you can't dawdle. The cool ganache balls will harden the barely melted chocolate fairly quickly. If you want the truffles to have an extra coating besides the chocolate, you have to do it right after you cover it in chocolate. From start of rolling the scoops into balls until finishing the last coating on the last truffle, it took me 50 minutes, and this was my first time doing this recipe.
9. As each truffle was coated, I placed it in a mini muffin paper, the perfect sized "cup" for each truffle. This should help to keep coatings separate, should make serving easy, and just look nice. They are also very, very inexpensive! Alton Brown says to leave each truffle in the coating for 10-15 seconds, but I didn't see the need for this. It might be to keep from distorting the shape of the truffle, but to be honest, my first attempt has produced slightly bumpy truffles, so I wasn't particularly concerned about that aspect.
10. Allow the truffles to set in a cool, dry place for at least 1 hour, then store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. However, truffles should be served at room temperature; serving cold will result in a more firm ganache, and honestly, the velvety texture of room temperature ganache is not to be missed!
*A note on toasting: I toasted both the coconut and the chopped pecans in my oven at 450 degrees (although I've toasted at 350 degrees in the past, this is flexible, I happened to be making tater tots for C's lunch). I spread each in separate baking dishes, then placed in the oven. The coconut takes longer, maybe 15 minutes while the pecans took 5-7 minutes, shaking the pan or stirring them every few minutes. Keep an eye on them, as they look like nothing is happening and then suddenly start to brown. When each are golden and fragrant, they are toasted. You can under-toast, but don't over-toast!
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