cook's kitchen: truffles!

mmm, melt in your mouth, sinfully rich, eyes lolling back in you head from pure pleasure... the essence of a chocolate truffle. Mind you it would be impossible for anything combining chocolate, butter and whipping cream not to be delicious... so what better reason to make them at home!


































After having spent hours painstakingly forming balls of chocolate with my hands for Christmas gifts, as directed by Joy of Baking, I happened to see Jamie Oliver doing a more freeform version on a holiday marathon that look like a much simpler way to go (basically just dropping spoonfuls of the cocoa/butter/cream mixture into the coatings rather than rolling and forming each one).

The ingredients and method don't change much across recipes - what makes truffles special is starting with a really high quality chocolate, the liqueurs you add (though I had some issues with the liquor trying seep back out...) and the coatings you choose (icing sugar, cocoa powder, crushed nuts, hundreds-of-thousands...). Truffles will keep for a few weeks in the fridge or a few months in the freezer.

Enjoy!