Third Culture Kitchen

Truffes au Chocolat
Makes 25-30

This recipe is for classic truffles rolled in cocoa. Not healthy, but very tasty. The better quality chocolate you buy for this, the better the truffles. Buy chocolate that doesn’t have much fat or sugar added. Semisweet chocolate contains enough sugar to make the truffles suitably sweet for European (and probably Asian) chocolate taste. Americans may find the truffles unusually lacking in sweetness. Hand-made chocolate truffles are a completely different thing to store-bought chocolate candy. They are not supposed to be very sweet, but instead they should contain high-quality chocolate with many aromas and flavors and good-tasting fats. Although chocolate is eaten a lot during Christmas (my Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without chocolate), chocolates are eaten any time of year. A perennial classic is a cup of coffee of some kind (Brewed or espresso, with or without cream, milk or sugar) and a truffle.

Just the recipe

6 oz. semisweet chocolate (175 g)
3 tbsp milk (45 ml)
6 tbsp butter

Melt and stir together the chocolate and milk over very low heat. Be very careful to not heat too much, or the chocolate will burn and turn into little lumps. The thicker the bottom of your pot, the better, to protect from accidental overheating. Add the butter. Stir briefly until the butter has melted and the mixture is well mixed. Remove from heat. Refrigerate 4 hours or even overnight. If you refrigerate overnight, the truffles will be a little harder to shape.

Form into small balls, using teaspoon or your fingers. Mixture may seem stiff at first, but quickly softens from heat of fingers. You can cut the truffle mixture with a knife into bite-size pieces and then squish them into balls.

Roll balls in cocoa powder until totally coated.

Put each truffle in a little paper ‘container’ or on some other flat surface. The more the touch each other or something else, the more the cocoa gets absorbed into the chocolate. It’s supposed to stay on top.

Truffles will keep about a week in refrigerator, a day or more at room temperature.