(Not Just) Chocolate Truffles, Part II
December 16th, 2005
(Don’t know what the “Part II” is about? Go and read Part I.) The original recipe uses
- 400g good quality dark chocolate,
- 20cl whipping cream and
- 40g butter.
I decided to use half the amount of chocolate and went for a large (250g) bar of Rausch Amazonas (60% cocoa solids) minus some six pieces. I then followed the recipe, breaking the chocolate apart (I was lazy and only broke off the pieces, which I regretted later because the chocolate took quite long to melt), bringing the cream (30% fat whipping cream) almost to a boil, pouring the cream over the chocolate and finally mixing in the diced butter.
I used crushed butter cookies (Butterkeks), chocolate granules (Schokostreusel, like these), unsweetened cocoa powder and icing sugar (Puderzucker) for the toppings.
As mentioned in Part I, I used cayenne pepper, cinnamon, a sweet masala mixture from the organic supermarket, vanilla and salt (fleur de sel, to be exact) for flavouring the ganache itself. I can’t really say anything about the amounts I used; it was pretty much “use what feels right”.
And here’s the summary:
I think the truffles would be nicer with slightly less dark chocolate. Next time I’ll try Rausch Santo Domingo with 55% cocoa solids.
Toppings:
| usage | looks | taste | |
|---|---|---|---|
| butter cookies | works well | pretty | ok |
| chocolate granules | difficult to get to stick to the truffles | quite pretty | nice |
| cocoa powder | works well | pretty | nice |
| icing sugar | difficult: take what seems to be the right amount and it’ll be all melted away 10 minutes later | not too pretty | ok |
Flavorings:
| cayenne pepper | I don’t really know; I think I didn’t use enough (and here I was afraid it might have been too much) |
|---|---|
| cinnamon | Nice. Goes well with the cocoa topping. |
| masala | I’m not sure. But the mixture is a bit too heavy on aniseed (I think) for my taste. |
| vanilla | Not nice. I should probably have used proper vanilla essence. |
| fleur de sel | Not nice. But I think I just used way too much. |