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magidWednesday, the Truffle-Master came over to make truffle guts with me. He brought a very nice kitchen scale, a pint of frozen cream (I'd just bought one, which wasn't enough, as it turned out), and many pounds of Callebaut 6040 chocolate chips, which has less cocoa butter than normal for the amount of cocoa mass (if I've gotten that correct), so more intense chocolate flavor.
He weighed out chips in three containers, then heated the first pint of cream. When it was quite warm, he poured it into two of the three containers, making equal weights of chocolate and cream (I start to debate getting a serious kitchen scale myself). We stirred each until the heat of the cream melted the chocolate, then considered the flavoring options I had around the house. What we ended up with for these two were alcohol-based, using two tablespoons of Amaretto di'Saronno in one batch, and two tablespoons of Kahlua in the other. (I'm glad I still have that huge bottle of kahlua from way back when; I believe there's now a question about its kosher status.)
The third batch was flavored differently. Once the cream was defrosted, we infused it with lavender I picked off the shrub growing in the kitchen. Except that I didn't know how much to use, and erred on the safe side. We added a couple of lemon tea bags to the mix, and that still wasn't very effective (though it did add a lot of ideas for next batches; chai truffles? rooibos truffles? and so on...), so I double-checked, and I found I did have a couple of teaspoons left in the pint of vanilla extract I'd thought finished long ago. Yay! That went into the mix as well. After a while (half an hour?) the lavender leaves and blossoms and the tea bags were fished out of the cream, and the presumably-infused cream poured over the chocolate in the third container and stirred to encourage chocolate meltage.
Once the three were fully combined, I let them sit out overnight before covering them (paper towel, then plastic wrap) and putting them into the fridge to await truffle forming. Thus three ganaches were made.
Motza'i Shabbat, the Truffle-Master returned, and the rest of the process happened. I had started rolling the ganache into small not-quite-spheres (it's tricky rolling things that have a tendency to melt in your hands, but yummy to clean up from afterward :-). It took a while. In the meantime, he melted more of the Callebaut 6040 in my bain-marie (read: double-boiler, essentially). Once it was fully melted (and there was enough of it melted for the coating), he took it off the heat and added more chips to provide the seeds for the chocolate to coat properly. Once they'd melted, it didn't take long at all to dip the truffles (using a fork to fish them out of the chocolate bath). The first batch, the Kahlua, didn't have a topping; I couldn't think of anything that would match, particularly. After he'd finished dipping them, the Truffle-Master drizzled more chocolate over them. And then that tray went to chill in the coolest room in the house, which is actually outside my apartment, in the unheated back stairway. (I'm glad I got the shelves up again this summer.)
After that the Amaretto truffles were dipped, and halfway through, I realized I had sliced almonds that could decorate the top. So half of these have almond bits atop them. And the vanilla-lemon-lavender ones were topped with crushed bits of chocolate nibs, so all the varieties were distinguishable.
There was dipping chocolate left in the pot, so a bag of crystallized ginger was dipped, too, and some banana. Yum.
I brought an assortment of truffles to the chocolate party that evening (the original impetus for the truffle making), and to the xmas party nearby as well. They were well-received in both places, though I felt a bit of a fraud, as people attributed them to me alone, when I relied on the expertise of another. Though if I get a scale and some excellent chocolate, I might start experimenting myself...
He weighed out chips in three containers, then heated the first pint of cream. When it was quite warm, he poured it into two of the three containers, making equal weights of chocolate and cream (I start to debate getting a serious kitchen scale myself). We stirred each until the heat of the cream melted the chocolate, then considered the flavoring options I had around the house. What we ended up with for these two were alcohol-based, using two tablespoons of Amaretto di'Saronno in one batch, and two tablespoons of Kahlua in the other. (I'm glad I still have that huge bottle of kahlua from way back when; I believe there's now a question about its kosher status.)
The third batch was flavored differently. Once the cream was defrosted, we infused it with lavender I picked off the shrub growing in the kitchen. Except that I didn't know how much to use, and erred on the safe side. We added a couple of lemon tea bags to the mix, and that still wasn't very effective (though it did add a lot of ideas for next batches; chai truffles? rooibos truffles? and so on...), so I double-checked, and I found I did have a couple of teaspoons left in the pint of vanilla extract I'd thought finished long ago. Yay! That went into the mix as well. After a while (half an hour?) the lavender leaves and blossoms and the tea bags were fished out of the cream, and the presumably-infused cream poured over the chocolate in the third container and stirred to encourage chocolate meltage.
Once the three were fully combined, I let them sit out overnight before covering them (paper towel, then plastic wrap) and putting them into the fridge to await truffle forming. Thus three ganaches were made.
Motza'i Shabbat, the Truffle-Master returned, and the rest of the process happened. I had started rolling the ganache into small not-quite-spheres (it's tricky rolling things that have a tendency to melt in your hands, but yummy to clean up from afterward :-). It took a while. In the meantime, he melted more of the Callebaut 6040 in my bain-marie (read: double-boiler, essentially). Once it was fully melted (and there was enough of it melted for the coating), he took it off the heat and added more chips to provide the seeds for the chocolate to coat properly. Once they'd melted, it didn't take long at all to dip the truffles (using a fork to fish them out of the chocolate bath). The first batch, the Kahlua, didn't have a topping; I couldn't think of anything that would match, particularly. After he'd finished dipping them, the Truffle-Master drizzled more chocolate over them. And then that tray went to chill in the coolest room in the house, which is actually outside my apartment, in the unheated back stairway. (I'm glad I got the shelves up again this summer.)
After that the Amaretto truffles were dipped, and halfway through, I realized I had sliced almonds that could decorate the top. So half of these have almond bits atop them. And the vanilla-lemon-lavender ones were topped with crushed bits of chocolate nibs, so all the varieties were distinguishable.
There was dipping chocolate left in the pot, so a bag of crystallized ginger was dipped, too, and some banana. Yum.
I brought an assortment of truffles to the chocolate party that evening (the original impetus for the truffle making), and to the xmas party nearby as well. They were well-received in both places, though I felt a bit of a fraud, as people attributed them to me alone, when I relied on the expertise of another. Though if I get a scale and some excellent chocolate, I might start experimenting myself...
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-12 01:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-12 02:01 pm (UTC)OTOH, some newly-ground coffee beans might be a good topping (though a challenge in my kitchen, as I have neither coffee nor coffee grinder, not being one of the Coffee Nation).
no subject
Date: 2005-12-12 02:01 pm (UTC)mmmmmmmmm
:)
no subject
Date: 2005-12-12 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-12 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-12 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-12 05:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-12 06:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-12 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-12 06:21 pm (UTC)I haven't gone looking for kitchen scales (yet?), but that should be easy enough to find at a reasonable kitchen store or department store.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-14 08:11 pm (UTC)Callebaut 60-40NV is the stuff to use for the truffle guts. It is a 60% cocoa mass chocolate, but instead of adding cocoa butter to the chocolate liquor, they add defatted cocoa powder. This means relatively less cocoa butter and more intense flavor.
The cream can be standard heavy cream, although I happen to have a spot in my heart for the Shaw Farm cream. http://www.shawfarm.com/ and available in Arlington at Wilson Farms. Good cream does help the flavor.
For dipping, you can use the 60-40NV, although it really is not ideal. The problem is that without the cocoa butter the chocolate is very thick and hard to work. Instead we used the 50% semisweet, which is much smoother. I think that I would like something richer, and will be playing with the Callebaut 70-30, which is also a very fluid chocolate, and I will probably mix it with the 60-40NV to get a somewhat thicker coating.
For scales, I've been quite pleased with this beastie http://www.saveonscales.com/product_kd600_professional_digital_kitchen_scale.html which seems to work quite well at a nice price. The scale seems kind of lightweight, and I just bought it a month ago, so I don't know how long it will last.
-Electric Truffle Roommate
no subject
Date: 2005-12-15 06:44 pm (UTC)(I'm thinking of dipping more ginger, which is enormously wonderful.)
(Oh, and passing on more kudos from other friends on the truffles, too :-)
no subject
Date: 2005-12-15 06:41 pm (UTC)