Truffles!!!

There's nothing more decadent than rich and creamy chocolate truffles, especially when you throw some unlikely flavor infusions into the mix. Andrew Garrison Shotts book Making Artisan Chocolates (GREAT BOOK! Thanks mom!!) has had me drooling and dreaming for months. Good chocolate is hard to come by here in this part of Mexico, and when my bakery supply shop got a new shipment in of Turin semi and Callebaut milk chocolate (MMMMM!!!!!) I took it as a sign from the universe, and basically spent 3 days making hundreds of truffles, which sold out in a heartbeat. From Andrew's book (...I wonder if he minds me using his first name?...), I made the gingerbread truffles, which I decided to drizzle in white chocolate and rename pumpkin spice truffles because it really brought on a pumpkin pie kind of nostalgic moment. The recipe called for toasted ground rice krispies for the coating, which we don't have here but the chocolate equivalent worked fine. Next time I might try a corn flake / choco krispy blend to cut down on the sweetness factor without compensating texture. The peanut caramel crunch truffle (Peanut Butter Sizzle, p 102) is also to die for, if you like peanut butter. It finally gave me an opportunity to use some of this gorgeous cocoa butter that's been staring back at me every time I open the fridge, and they tasted like very fancy, very expensive peanut butter cups. I decided to reserve some large chunks of caramel for garnish and only partly coat the tops with the ground peanuts.

What's better than chocolate? Hot n spicy chocolate!!! We are in Mexico, after all. One of my customer all time favorites is my hot n spicy dark truffle... basically the dark truffle recipe from the book with chopped up chile de arbol added to the ganache filling. A word of warning, these babies can be pretty hot! A little spice goes a loooooong way, especially if you forget to remove the seeds and veins.... that reminds me of a really funny story...

Now for a word on tempering (don't worry, I had to google it, too). Even though it seems like a lot of extra hassle, I've discovered that tempering the chocolate before coating the truffle centers makes all the difference in the world. You end up with a crispy, snappy, smooth and shiny chocolate that resists temperature changes and really encases the soft centers nicely. Though there's a ton available on the market, you don't really need any fancy expensive equipment for this. I use a rustic double boiler and thermometer and it works fine. Next time I'll go to the trouble of coating the plain truffles before rolling them in cocoa. They were the only ones that became chocolate puddles in a box mid-delivery while I was stuck in one of our many adventurous road blocks in 90 degree weather. The others held up fantastically, so now I'm a believer!