You have not lived until you've had a chocolate truffle. This is one candy that you can be very
creative with visually, get out a little
white chocolate. Flavor some of it with
raspberry or
hazelnut, your call. Match
coffee (
Kahlua) with
chocolate,
caramel with
hazelnut, this is totally up to you. Get out a bunch of spoons so you can
drizzle and
polka dot everything, you can't go wrong. As a covering you can also use just
cocoa,
almonds (or other nuts, crushed), and just about anything else you'd put on
ice cream. For the liqueur I'd suggest something with a
fruit flavoring or
amaretto or the sort.
Another note is that there are no actual truffles in this recipe. This may seem strange, but it's not. They're very expensive and hard to get, but there are recipes that contain them. I encourage someone to node one, but I've never had the opportunity to make them so I don't have one on hand. But as far as those that contain real truffles the truffle is in the middle of the ball.
8 ounces of semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup whipping cream (32% milk fat)
1/4 cup unsalted butter
4 tsp favorite liqueur
All the garnishes are left out here, before you start get a few things that you like together. You'll have plenty of time, this isn't one of those that you have to rush through, but you want to make them soon before you serve them. That's just a usual candy rule, very little candy will last over a day after it's made.
Stirring occasionally put the chocolate and cream into a pot over warm heat until the chocolate melts, add the butter. Cool and add the liqueur, then put it in the fridge for a few hours or until it's cold. spoon it out now and make small balls, about the size of the end of your thumb.
The rest of this you'll want to practice a little and take your time with. Have a baking sheet available, melt a little bittersweet or unsweetened (baker's) chocolate. Dip the ball in a spoon and drop it onto the baking sheet. Give it a little while until you can handle it and roll it in cocoa, then roll half of it in almonds. Drizzle it with something, it will look very good. Make sure you leave someone for the guests.
For the next few you can dip them in chocolate, dust them with powdered sugar and dip the top in white chocolate. For another you can dip it in white chocolate twice, then drizzle it with bittersweet. White with coconut works too, cocoa drizzled with bittersweet is incredible. No one will be able to keep their hands off of them, experiment and enjoy.
As a small note, I've been meaning to try something. Liqueur frozen into a tiny ball, or some kind of flavoring pressed into the middle of the ball, so that it becomes a liquid later. If anyone wants to try this and tell me how it goes, I'd be delighted to hear. As an addition if you have candy molds you can drop a little of something into that, add the truffle and then fill the rest with melted chocolate. Experimentation is the key.