Chocolate Truffles

Ok, so I know I said that my next post would be about the sections in The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts that I skipped over; however, this weekend I'm stranded in Pennsylvania without my book and pretty much all of my baking "gear" (ingredients, pans, good oven, etc.).

In case you haven't read the About section, I work near Pittsburgh and live in Chicago (work 12 hour shifts for 5 days, go home for 5 days). It's definitely got it's perks (read: having 5 days off for every 5 days I work is awesome!!), but I'm always anxious to get home to be with my Hubby, David. And luckily, I get to be back in Chicago full-time in November! In the mean time there's more work and less play to wrap up our project out here in Pennsylvania.

Which leads me to this week's project....chocolate truffles!

Every now and then I experiment making various truffles, and since I don't want David and I eating all of them, I bring them in to work. At this point, everyone's been bugging me to make more truffles. So since I don't have time go to go home this weekend, I thought I'd oblige them.

Chocolate truffles are possibly the easiest dessert to make. It still baffles me that they cost so much, but then again, they are delicious!

Here's my recipe for a plain chocolate truffle (adapted from JoyofBaking.com):

• 3.5 oz. heavy whipping cream
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 chocolate bar
• coating of your choosing (cocoa powder, hot chocolate mix, sprinkles, etc.)

From this recipe you can obviously add to or alter as you see fit. I'm still experimenting, but to bring in to work, I've decided to make 4 different types of truffles:

1.) Super Dark Chocolate
2.) Super Dark Chocolate with Honey Peanut Butter
3.) Dark Chocolate with a Dulce de Leche center
4.) Dark Chocolate with Nutella

For each of these combos, I start with the original chocolate truffle recipe and then add to it. First, I chop up a bar of chocolate into tiny bits.

Super Dark Chocolate with 85% cocoa liquor

(If you're going to add peanut butter, Nutella, a liquor, or something extra, this would be where to add it...into the chocolate bits. I didn't measure how much peanut butter I added, but it's probably about 2 heaping spoonfuls)

  

I heat up my butter and heavy whipping cream just until it begins to boil.

Mmm....cream and butter!

Then I pour the cream and butter into the chopped chocolate and don't touch it for 4 minutes. I always find this to be the hardest part because it's so close to being delicious chocolatey goodness, and you just have to sit there...waiting to stir it! But it's worth the wait because once it's sat there, slowly melting the chocolate, you whisk it all together and get this gorgeous chocolate ganache.

Pre-truffle ganache

Simply pop this in the fridge for an hour or so (just long enough for it to set), and then use a metal spoon to begin making small balls of chocolate.


WARNING: You WILL get messy! Make sure to take of all rings and/or bracelets and try to resist the temptation to lick your fingers...too often ;)

Once they're in a somewhat malleable ball form, roll them in your desired coating (I used chocolate sprinkles for this one) and put back in the refrigerator to cool.

Dulche de leche chocolate truffles

Analyses:

1.) Super Dark Chocolate -- Made with 85% cacao, this truffle was coated in Hershey's Dark Chocolate Cocoa Powder, making it Super Duper Dark Chocolate!

Although I'm not the biggest fan of this extremely bitter chocolate, most of my co-workers really liked it...some even calling it their favorite of the four!


2.) Super Dark Chocolate with Honey Peanut Butter -- Made with 85% cacao, added Skippy Peanut Butter with Honey, and coated with a combination of hot cocoa mix and Hershey's Dark Chocolate Cocoa Powder.

This one's always a winner with just enough peanut butter to be able to taste it, but not enough to overpower the chocolate.


3.) Dark Chocolate with a Dulce de Leche center -- Made with 60% cacao, Stonewall Kitchen's Dulche de Leche Sauce was piped into the center, and it was coated with chocolate sprinkles

These were the first ones gone and my own personal favorite (although I'm a sucker for anything with caramel or a caramel look-alike). For piping the dulce de leche sauce into the center, I recommend forming the truffles sans coating, letting them cool, and then gently jabbing a piping tip into the center of the truffle. Coating this one with chocolate sprinkles worked well, hiding any overflow of dulce de leche that managed to sneak out.


4.) Dark Chocolate with Nutella -- Made with 60% cacao, added Nutella, and coated with Hot Chocolate mix

This one was suggested to me by a co-worker, and although delicious, sadly you can't taste the hazelnut flavor because it is over powered by the strong cocoa flavoring within the Nutella and the chocolate bar.

Fresh Fruit Tart with Pastry Cream

I love tarts! I love how colorful and immaculate they look! I love being able to eat fresh fruit for dessert without it just being a boring bowl of fruit. So in order to get to the tart section of the book, The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts (by the French Culinary Institute), I may have skipped over a section or two that I'll write about later (flour, sugar, leavening agents, etc. and how they affect the end product).

There are 3 different types of tart doughs:
1.) Pâte Brisée (read: short pastry crust)
2.) Pâte Sucrée (read: sweet short pastry crust)
3.) Pâte Sablée (richest short pastry crust)

For my first tart, I chose the Pâte Sablée, or shortbread dough, which was delicious and tasted just like eating a shortbread cookie! Below is a time-lapse video of making the dough (bear with me as this is my first time making a time-lapse video as well as my first time editing one). Also, check out my brand new kitchen scale! So far I'm a big fan.

 

  Shortbread Dough Time-Lapse

After the dough was the Crème Pâtissière, which is basically a gelatinous custard that tastes deliciously of vanilla and not at all like eggs! This recipe called for whole vanilla beans, and since this is a learning experience, I bought some (ridiculously expensive) whole vanilla beans for the first time in my life. They were so fragrant and easy to use. I even love the way the pod seeds decorate the custard. You never get that with vanilla extract!

Crème Pâtissière spread out, covered,
and cooling between plastic wrap and aluminum foil

Once both the tart dough and the Crème Pâtissière cooled, it was time to assemble the tart. I had the hardest time rolling out the dough without it sticking to the counter or just crumbling. When making the dough, the consistency looked good, but once it got to the point of rolling it out, it didn't work quite right. In retrospect I think it may have been because I coated the counter with flour to prevent the dough from sticking. In the future I plan on using shortening, which will prevent it from sticking to the counter without drying out the dough.

After several attempts, I gave up on the flour and decided to roll out the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap. I tried to avoid this method since the book subtly mentioned that this is pretty much the cop out way of making a smooth pastry dough. However, without this technique I don't think I ever would have been able to get the dough into the pan.

Once in the pan, the dough should be punctured with a fork several times to prevent the formation of air pockets...I forgot to do this. My excuse is that I was too upset with the dough to even think about anything but getting the tart in the oven as soon as possible in order to devour it!

I spread the cooled Crème Pâtissière over the uncooked tart shell, sprinkled it with graham cracker crumbs (this part seems odd, but it really adds a wonderful flavor and little crunch), and super carefully placed it in the oven. The recipe had the tart in the oven for an hour, but after 45 minutes the outside crust was beginning to brown so I whisked it away to add the best part....fresh fruit!

The now baked tart shell + Creme Patissiere was gorgeously dressed with a variety of my favorite fruits: raspberries (my absolute favorite), strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries (these were really good at filling the gaps between the other fruits).

Delicious, warm fresh fruit tart (although still in the pan)...mmmm!

Paint the fruit with an apricot glaze to make them nice and shiny, and voila!

Delicious tart!

Gorgeous light brown outer crust

Analysis of Product:

• Delicious when warm, but not as good after a day or two because the fruit gets a little old and mushy.

• The middle of the tart shell was still a little doughy. Next time I'll leave the shell in the oven for the entire recommended time (1 hour), but will protect the edges by wrapping the edges of the pan in aluminum foil.

•  Rolling out the dough was tricky because it kept sticking to the counter as well as crumbling, something that is quite the predicament. It seemed too dry, but I would add water and it would do the same thing. Next time I will use shortening instead of flour to coat the counter. This should at least not help dry the dough out more.

• The top could have used a few more berries to fill in tiny holes, but overall I think it looked delicious!

And the most important part in the analysis....

My guests loved it! 2 pieces each! Yumm!!

Next Up: Reverting back to sections I skipped + more tarts! (half the book is tarts...although all very different)