Homemade Chocolate Truffles
I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. I decided to make chocolate truffles this year, after taking a year off from making them. If you have a touch of OCD, these are not a project that you should go into lightly. It’s very messy and can be time-consuming, but I will tell you that the end result – and raves – are entirely worth it.
The truffles that I make are enrobed, meaning I dip my ganache in a hard chocolate coating, before sprinkling them with toppings. I see many recipes for just the ganache rolled with toppings, so feel free to stop at the ganache part, if you’re so inclined. I’m going to give you the “master” ganache recipe, but then I’ll tell you how I customized it in different ways. Feel free to customize these your own way; remember – do NOT be afraid to play with your food.
It’s a good idea to have toothpicks on hand, to help with the enrobing process.
Homemade Chocolate Truffles Recipe
Ganache:
- 8 ounces good-quality bittersweet (60%) chocolate (I use Ghiradelli – very easy to find and delicious)
- 1/2 cup heavy (whipping) cream
- 2 tablespoons flavored liqueur, such as raspberry or orange
In a glass bowl, break the chocolate up into small pieces. In a small saucepan, heat the cream until bubbles form around the edge. Remove from heat and let sit about 1 minute. Pour half of the cream over the chocolate and let stand about 4-5 minutes. You don’t want to add all of the hot cream at once or your chocolate with break and separate.
Slowly begin stirring. At first, this will look like a gloppy mess, but just keep stirring. After a couple of minutes, the chocolate and cream will come together beautifully. Make sure you’ve stirred until everything is completely blended. Slowly add the rest of the hot cream while continuing to stir. Your ganache should be creamy and smooth. Add your flavoring. Refrigerate overnight.
Remove ganache from refrigerator. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or waxed paper. Using a small spoon, scoop a bit of the ganache into your hands and roll into a small ball. Place ball of ganache on baking sheet and repeat making balls with the remainder of the ganache. Tip: having a bowl of ice water handy to dip your hands into will keep your hands chilled and prevent the chocolate from melting. You’re still going to end up covered in chocolate, but this helps. Some people recommend wearing food-safe gloves, but I find them hard to work with. Try whatever you think works best for you.
Place tray of ganache balls in freezer for about 30 minutes.
In the meantime, place your dark and white chocolates, below, in separate glass dishes, breaking them into squares.
Assemble your toppings, below, and have them ready to go.
Chocolate for Enrobing:
- 16 ounces dark chocolate
- 16 ounces white chocolate
Assorted Truffle Toppings:
- Finely chopped nuts (pecans, almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, etc.)
- Shredded coconut
- Coarse sea salt
- Cocoa powder
- Colored or metallic sprinkles
Microwave chocolates on low, at 30-second intervals, stirring each time after the first minute. Do NOT overheat your chocolate and do NOT get any water at all into it. It usually takes me about 2 minutes total to melt each flavor. The final round there should still be tiny bits of chocolate in the bowl, that melt as you’re stirring.
Let melted chocolate stand and cool for a few minutes before beginning the enrobing process. (otherwise, the minute you dip your ganache balls into the chocolate, the balls will begin to melt)
Remove ganache balls from freezer and, stabbing one with a toothpick, dip and roll the ball completely in the melted chocolate. Holding the ball above the chocolate, let excess chocolate drip from ball.
Slide a fork under the ball and hold it, while removing the toothpick. Using the fork and toothpick, gently place the ball back onto the baking sheet.
Sprinkle immediately with your choice of topping.
Repeat with remainder of balls.
That’s it! It’s quite a process but they’re beautiful and delicious!
Some ways that I customize them are the flavorings that go into the ganache:
- Pure vanilla extract (2 teaspoons)
- Pure almond extract (1 teaspoon)
- Kahlua (3 tablespoons)
- Espresso or very strong coffee (3 tablespoons)
And, of course, if you’re not a fan of dark chocolate, play around with milk chocolate and semi-sweet chocolate.
Use your imagination and your own taste to customize them however you like.
As you can see, mine are far from perfect – a little oddball in size and such – but no one ever seems to care….trust me.
Happy Holidays to all of you and enjoy the season!
Impressed, as always!
Growing up, my family lived in a very old cabin-like house. Like most old homes, we dealt with critters in the wintertime. One year, my mom made several pounds of chocolate candies to give out as Christmas gifts. The next morning – they were gone. The only explanation we could come up with was a herd (?) of mice carried them off and had a chocolate feast.
They carried off ALL of it? I’d have a stroke after all the time it takes to make these damned things.
We live in a wooded area, so we deal with critters in our garage in the wintertime. With 2 cats and a dog though, we always swear we better never have a mouse in the house or they’re all getting kicked outside.
The only critter eating these inside my house is my husband, and they’d disappear overnight quite easily, if I let him. 🙂
ALL of them. I want to say 40 pounds. I am not kidding. My mom cried she was so angry. But these critters also included LARGE critters. When I was 12, we had a Border Collie who caught a large critter that was coming sneaking into the kitchen at night.
Needless to say, we lived by a wooded area too. And needless to say, now that I am married, I chose NOT to live near the woods!
40 pounds….I’d probably cry for a week! We get just about every critter you can imagine in our yard, which is a challenge with my veggie gardens every year. There’s a lot to be said for not living near woods. A lot.
A lot! Like the time some mice made a nest in the engine of my mom’s Honda Accord (we didn’t have a garage). I will spare you the details. Let’s just say her mechanic said it was the most disgusting thing he had ever seen!
I’ve heard stories like that and how bad of a mess they can make of your car! Luckily, we’ve been spared that ordeal…so far.
Talk about OCD. We made truffles this year and I finally got all the chocolate off every single white cupboard and drawer in the kitchen. The hard part was the fact the cupboards and drawers are bead board. Happy New Year
You are right on with the chocolate everywhere, John! Your comment literally made me laugh out loud…I’m still finding chocolate on things. 🙂 Happy New Year to you too!
These look adorable – I love how they range from cute to sophisticated. But I would treat them all equally if I got a chance – trust me, I would eat them all 🙂
My husband takes care of the “eating them all” part. Ha!
Ohh! I love them — especially the ones with sprinkles. Years ago one of my girlfriends and I made truffles for our families for Christmas. We made 6 different flavors (most all included booze). It took all day from morning to midnight and therefore was the last time I made them! But yours are so pretty it might be time for round 2. =)
Yeah, they’re a time-suck, for sure! It’s why I can’t find the time (or energy) to make them every single year. They sure are good, though!
Homemade truffles are well worth the effort. I never mind if they are all a little different as our friends know that they are homemade. Yours look delicious and would be perfect with a glass of Champagne for New Year’s eve…I hope your New Year is wonderful.
Thank you so much, Karen! I think everyone enjoys these truffles, even the oddball ones. I hope your New Year is wonderful, too!
“Enrobed.” What a perfect word. These truffles look like the kind of thing that would cause a person to keel over and die — with a smile.
Thanks, Charles! I’m not sure that’ they’re keel-over-and-die good but they’re pretty damned good. 🙂 Happy New Year!
Lovely post and photos
Thank you, Alex!
Really I don’t know what’s wrong with me – – I enjoyed your “About” page thoroughly and then spent a good five minutes trying to discern how to leave a comment there and couldn’t figure it out. Ever. This has to be something more than menopause that I’m battling! Anyhow, you have a lovely blog! And of course, then I had to click on “Sweets” under the pretense of being persistent to leave you a comment, but we both know the ulterior motive was to see just how to make these gorgeous little sprinkly balls!! And how did this lunatic find your blog, you fleetingly might wonder? I saw lots of clever comments from you at The Underground Writer and then the one I loved the most had had you thinking the acronym FAD (from Facebook Addiction Disorder) was terribly ironic. I did too! And finally, my adorable two year old Shih Tzu is named Lola. If that’s not a ton of commonality, I surely don’t know what is! 😉
Take care,
Stephanie
Well, thank you for finally just giving up and commenting on my chocolate truffles post! I’ve disabled the comments on my “about” page, as it seemed people mostly just wanted to link back to their own blogs from it, and not really read the page, apparently. I love, love, love The Underground Writer, so how fun that you found me there! Equally fun that your dog is named Lola, so yes, it seems we have a ton of commonality. 🙂 I can’t wait to check out your blog and am so glad you connected! Thanks so much! Lesley