Making truffles....OT?

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Hi Chari

They are simple to make, basically any firm ganache, flavored (liquers,=20 etc), molded and coated.

The chocolate needs to a couverture (quality chocolate), the butter (if=20 any) needs to be fresh and unsalted.

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Titel: White Russian Truffles Kategorien: Candies, Chocolate, Holidays, Ethnic Menge: 6 Portionen

788 Gramm Milk chocolate ; divided 1 Tasse Whipping cream 1/4 Tasse Kahlua

1. Chop finely 1 lb of the chocolate. Melt in a double boiler to 120 degrees. Measure the cream into a 3-quart saucepan and bring just to the boil. Remove from the heat and cool to 120 degrees. Add the chocolate to the cooled cream and stir until the mixture is smooth.

2. Stir the Kahlua into the chocolate, mixing well. scrape onto a baking sheet and refrigerate until firm.

1. Finely grate the remaining 3/4 lb of the chocolate. (This is easiest to do using the grater blade of a food processor.) Remove the filling from refrigeration and form into small rough balls. Place on a baking sheet lined with wax paper.

2. Roll the truffles in the grated chocolate, pressing gently to adhere.

1. Refrigerate overnight. Remove from refrigeration 15 minutes before serving. Note: these truffles do not hold well at room temperature.

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Titel: White Chocolate Truffles Kategorien: Candies, Chocolate Menge: 36 Portionen

360 Gramm White chocolate ; coarse -chop 1/3 Tasse Whipping cream 2 tablesp. Orange liquer 1 teasp. Grated orange zest 1 1/4 Tassen Confectioner's sugar

1. Melt white chocolate with whipping cream in heavy, medium saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly. Whisk in liquer and zest until blended. Pour into pie pan. Refrigerate until mixture is fudgy, but soft, about 2 hours., 2. Shape about 1 tablespoon of the mixture into 1 1/4 inch balls. To shape, roll mixture in your palms., Place balls on waxed paper. 3.Sift sugar into shallow bowl. 4.Roll balls in sugar, place in petit four or candy cases. 5. Truffles can be refrigerated 2-3 days or frozen several weeks. Makes about 35 truffles. From Best recipes: Simple, Easy Candy recipes.

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Titel: Chocolate Praline Truffles Kategorien: Candies, Chocolate Menge: 48 Portionen

DIANA LEWIS VGWN37A

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=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D TRUFFLES =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D 180 Gramm Semisweet chocolate 1/4 Tasse Unsalted butter 2 1/2 tablesp. Orange liqueur 2 tablesp. Heavy cream 1 Orange grated peel

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praline powder: oil a cookie sheet and set aside. In a heavy 1 quart sauce pan, melt the sugar over low heat cook untill it reaches 310 on candy thermometer and begins to carmelize. Add the almondss and contunue cooking until candy becomes rich brown. Pour hot mixture on to cookie sheet and cool till hard bread into pieces and grind into a fine powder, in a blender or food processor. TRUFFLES: Melt chocolate over hot water in the top of a double boiler. Stir in butter, liqueur, cream orange peel and praline powder. Place mixture in fridge and allow to cool until thick enough to shape (about 1 hour) Form into balls 1/2 inch in diameter. Place in a single layer on a cookie sheet and freeze till firm. COATING: Sprinkle cocoa on a waxed lined cookie sheet. Melt chocolate over hot water. Allow to cool to luke warm. Put a dollop of luke warm chocolate in your hand and quickly roll a frozen truffle in it. Thinly coat each truffle, then roll in cocoa. Store in an airtight container. Makes 4 doz.

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Titel: Chocolate Amaretto Truffles Kategorien: Ghirardelli, Candies, Chocolate Menge: 15 Portionen

120 Gramm Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet ; -Chocolate 1/4 Tasse Butter 1 tablesp. Amaretto liqueur 1/2 Tasse Finely chopped nuts

DIRECTIONS: Melt broken chocolate; remove from heat. Stir in Amaretto. Add butter, a tablespoon at a time, beating with a wire whip until smooth and creamy. Chill 5 to 10 minutes to firm mixture. Drop by teaspoon and roll into nuts. Keep truffles refrigerated until ready to serve.

Source: Recipes from Ghirardelli Chocolate Company of San Francisco From: Sallie Austin

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--=20 Sincerly,

C=3D=A6-)=A7 H. W. Hans Kuntze, CMC, S.g.K. (_o_)

, chefcmcchef.com"Don't cry because it's over, Smile because it Happened"_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/=20

Nice recipie, but why titled "white ....."? Did you mean to use white chocolate??

irax.

It's been a while since I posted my recipe, so I will repost. For reference, this is an edited version of the article "Re: Truffles recipe needed" I posted to rec.food.chocolate in 1997 ( snipped-for-privacy@inficom.com). So you can look up the article in Dejanews if you want.

Chocolate Truffles

16 oz. bittersweet chocolate. I recommend the following chocolates, in order of preference: Guittard (the BEST! If you can find it, buy as much as you can.) Valhrona Guanaja 70% cocoa solids, Callebaut, Ghirardelli. Be sure to look for the "bittersweet" label. 8 oz. heavy cream. Be sure the label on the carton says "heavy". "Whipping" cream will not work very well. Also look for "pasteurized", not "ultra- pasteurized". (optional) 2 tbsp. unsalted butter. The heavier the cream you can find, the less necessary this will be. With most U.S. creams, adding this will make a big improvement. Either grate the chocolate using a box grater, holding it while grating with a folded paper towel, or cut it (and the butter) into small pieces and put them in a bowl. The grating method works best but is *extremely* tedious. Heat the cream in a small saucepan until it is just barely simmering. Be sure not to overcook or the cream will acquire a foul taste. Immediately, pour the hot cream over the chocolate shavings (and butter) and stir gently just enough so that the chocolate melts completely and is reasonably well mixed. Chill until the mixture just starts to stiffen. You can do this in the refrigerator, but your fridge must be *absolutely* odour free or the mixture will pick up the odour. If you have the patience, it's better to just set the mixture aside in a cool spot. When the mixture has cooled to this point, whip to the desired consistency. This can be anywhere from not at all to really thoroughly whipped. Unwhipped is extremely dense, while fully whipped is light, almost like a super-rich chocolate mousse. I whip a small amount, enough to lighten the extreme heaviness of pure ganache, but not enough for it to become light and airy. Set aside again and cool all the way. If you are working with a strongly whipped mixture, be sure it's near-frozen before proceeding. Powder your hands with cocoa. Working quickly, shape pieces of the mixture into little balls by scooping out with a melon baller or spoon and quickly rolling in your hands, and cover with cocoa. Set on wax paper. If you want to cover the resultant confections with chocolate, proceed as follows: Chill the truffles you have at this point in the refrigerator. Be absolutely sure you've gotten rid of all odours. Melt an additional 16 oz. of the same chocolate you just used. (or more for a thicker shell) Now, you need to "temper" the chocolate. To do this in the classical way, get a big marble slab and a palette knife. Pour about half to 3/4 of the melted chocolate out on the slab, and spade it around on the slab until it just barely begins to solidify. Immediately transfer it back to the rest of the chocolate and stir gently in. If you don't have a marble slab or don't want to buy one, you can also temper the chocolate by pulling some of it up the sides of the pot. Then you spatula this around until it starts to solidify, then push it back into the rest of the chocolate, stirring until the mixture becomes smooth. Now, pull the truffle centers out of the refrigerator. Dip each one very quickly in the chocolate. A first, thin coating followed by a thicker coating works well and minimizes separation between center and shell. Chill everything again. The recipe makes about 30 truffles. Practice and patience are key. Initially, you probably won't get as good results as the good commercial brands but after a few tries you'll be doing it like the pros.

Thanks to you all for your recipes and suggestions! Have a happy holiday season, Chari

This is getting harder and harder to find. I went to five different supermarkets, and they ALL carried only ultra-pasteurized. Sheesh.

Mostly, I suspect, because the manufacturers aren't educating or informing the consumers. They're putting the cream (or milk) on the shelf in cartons that look exactly identical, in every detail, other than the words "ultra- pasteurized" instead of "pasteurized" somewhere on the label in small print. Futhermore, even if the consumer spots this, it's not coming with any fanfare or any materials indicating what the difference in processing methods is, or that the prefix "ultra-" is significant in any way at all. They're being quietly put on shelves. Worse, the consumer may look at the "expires by" date, note that it's much later for ultra-pasteurized, and conclude that the product must be fresher (even though there's no way to know - ultra-pasteurized have much longer shelf lives and thus expirations way further in the future.) The retailer is almost invariably going to prefer the ultra-pasteurized, because it increases the shelf life and thus decreases waste due to cartons remaining unsold beyond their pull date. The consumer is essentially blind and usually oblivious to the fact that a change has been made - they assume it's the same product. They may well notice the taste difference and the fact that cream is more difficult to whip, but again, most of the time, they'll probably dismiss it as their imagination - after all, why would identical-looking product suddenly be different?

But while this works for the retailer and the producer in the short run, it actually backfires in the long run. Consumers aren't fooled forever, and after months of product that just doesn't taste or whip like it used to, they start to get the idea that something's wrong. And since it's worse than it was, they'll start buying less. They may be sufficiently motivated to look for alternatives. And if they find them, they'll buy them. A great case in point happened with one of my local supermarkets. Organic Valley heavy cream in the pint cartons is pasteurized and has a higher milkfat content than other creams. Furthermore it has no stabilizers, emulsifiers, thickeners, or other additives. This local supermarket happened to stock various other creams. Then at some point a few years ago, they started to carry Organic Valley. Buying it in their store a few months thereafter, I mentioned to the manager "this cream is the best out there". And the manager responded "Yeah...everybody knows that." Turned out it outsells every other cream by multiples. On major holidays it always sells out, while other creams sit on the shelf unbought. They have no problem turning over their stock long before the expiration dates. It goes to show you that customers notice things more than producers might often think, and it pays to carry quality because it usually sells itself. Trying to cut corners by saving money might seem attractive in the short run, but it's a fool's bargain in the long run.