Desserts! Part II - CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES

That's right, I said CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES!!!!!



I was at the library browsing cookbooks and came across Barefoot in Paris. I actually was hoping to find some interesting appetizer recipes (I am drawing a blank for appetizers). After I got this book home, I came across this recipe for truffles and decided to give it a try. It certainly didn't look like it would be as difficult to make as you might think.

My changes: I used 4 oz semi-sweet chocolate and 3 oz unsweetened chocolate. Hey, the unsweetened was on sale! I do enjoy me some dark chocolate and I think this was right on the border of being too bitter. It may not work for some people and I would recommend sticking with the recipe on this one. I used Frangelico in place of the Grand Marnier.

I poured hot cream over the chocolate to melt it, which worked pretty well. The mixture was a little grainy, so I thought maybe it should be heated up to melt a little more. I put the bowl over hot water, but really, it just kept getting worse. I really thought it was over at this point...but went ahead and added the remainder of the ingredients and it smoothed out.

It was really hard to roll the balls without getting the chocolate too warm. I wish I could have done better, but not really sure how to make them better looking. The recipe says to roll them in cocoa, then in powdered sugar, but I would recommend just sifting the powdered sugar on the truffles. I think it would the presentation would be better.

This ended up being pretty easy, and although it was time consuming, the individual steps didn't take all that long. I would definitely make this again for company. I could see it working well when a cake would just be too much...a chocolate truffle (or two) would be a great little sweet to serve with coffee or port at the end of a heavy meal.