If you’re looking for a special Valentine’s gift for a chocolate lover in your life, look no further. These truffles are simple to make and delicious to eat. Give them a try…I think you’ll be glad you did.
Ingredients:
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chopped fine
1 cup semisweet chocolate chopped fine
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
Toppings: chopped & toasted nuts, cocoa powder, powdered sugar, etc.
Chop the chocolate fine and put into a medium bowl. Heat the heavy cream in saucepan until just beginning to boil, meaning a few bubbles around the outside but not yet fully boiling. Pour the heated cream through a strainer onto the chocolate. Use a wire whisk to stir the chocolate and cream together until the chocolate is melted. Add vanilla and stir to combine. All chocolate to cool completely. Use a cookie scoop (or spoon) to form truffles. Roll truffles in desired topping and store in the refrigerator. (Recipe adapted from a little Ina Garten, a little Alton Brown and a little BHG…meaning I couldn’t decide which to use so I used what I liked of each.)
Notes:
- The quality of the truffles depends on the quality of the chocolate….but any chocolate will do. Even if you use chocolate chips, the recipe will work, but be sure to chop them a bit as well to help the melting process.
- You can add other flavors in addition to the vanilla. One of my favorite flavors to add is prepared coffee, but we made these for my husband, who doesn’t like coffee. Another great addition would be a little cinnamon, which (like coffee) brings out the flavor of chocolate. Add it to your next mug of hot chocolate and see what I mean!
- Toast the nuts…it brings out the flavor. (We used toasted macadamia nuts!)
- The cookie scoop rocks! I went out and bought one just for this and was so glad I did…For the first time in my life, something I cooked came out uniform in size and shape….love it!
- Make these for teachers’ gifts and put a few in a treat bag with a pretty ribbon…so simple and so sweet!
- Oh, and you CANNOT just go and dip these in melted white chocolate as I had hoped to do (how delicious would that have been?)….they will melt. Next time, I will try Alton Brown’s suggestion of dipping an ice cream scoop in the chocolate and rolling them around in it to coat….if you’d like to try it, he explains it here.