hello this is chef john from food wishes die economy with chocolate truffles
that's right for this year's edible gift idea i decided to go with this all-time
classic confection and if you've never made homemade truffles before these are
way easier than you think and really do make for an impressive gift and by the
way i ended up doing a very holiday ish gingerbread spice version here which is
what shops called pumpkin spice when we don't want to be made fun of but please
know this method will work no matter how you want to flavor your truffles so with
that let's go ahead and get started by adding some dark chocolate chips to this
bowl and in case you're keeping score at home this chocolate is 63% cacao which I
only mention because I really enjoy saying cacao and as far as amounts go
this is exactly 326 grams or just slightly under and the reason known the
exact weight is so important is because we want to add exactly 60% of that
weight in cream so we'll enter 326 grams of chocolate and then multiply that by
60% which of course is 0.6 zero which means if we round up we need 196 grams
of cream so we'll go ahead and place our pan on the scale and zero it out and
then we will simply pour in the cream until we have exactly how much we want
and what's great about this method is you can start with any amount of
chocolate and then using this simple calculation you'll know exactly how much
cream you have to add in okay so take that people who say math is never fun
sometimes it's fun and this is one of those times and that's it once our cream
has been weighed out we will head to the stove and place that on medium heat
because before we pour this over the chocolate we want to heat this up until
it just begins to simmer which is probably going to take a couple minutes
and if we want to multitask while we're waiting we can go ahead and add whatever
flavorings we want to our chocolate which for me is gonna be some ground
ginger some cinnamon a pinch of freshly ground black pepper an instead of just
eyeing it I want exactly a pinch which is why I'm using this freakishly small
measuring spoon set to get exactly one pinch and then last but not least we'll
give it to small shakes of cayenne oh and like I mentioned earlier if you're
not into these flavors you just go ahead and add the ones you
- I mean you are after all the Ganesh of your ganache which by the way is what
this mixture we're about to make is called and at this point we'll head back
to the stove to check our cream which we want to pull off the heat as soon as it
starts to simmer which is exactly what mine was doing
here and then once that does happen we'll go ahead and quickly and carefully
pour that over our chocolate and then we'll give the bowl the old shake of
shaken although there really was more of a
swirl and then what we'll do is let this sit for exactly two minutes which will
be just enough time for that chocolate to melt into that hot cream and then
after two minutes we'll go ahead and grab a whisk and we will carefully start
stirring so as not to splash any of that cream out of the bowl and when we first
start doing this it's not gonna look good in fact it's gonna look like
something's gone tragically wrong but it hasn't just keep whisking and in just
about a minute or so it will turn into one of the most beautiful sights and all
the culinary world and if everything's gone according to plan you're gonna end
up with a very thick very glossy what we call in the business a chocolate ganache
which I think we'd all agree has a lot of panache and whenever I do this I get
a little bit sad knowing that there's people walking this earth that will
never ever experience this transformation themselves okay do not be
that person and then what we'll do once at set is take a spatula and clean the
sides of our bowl at which point we're gonna cover this
and let it sit out at room temp until it's firm enough to scoop and yes you
can pop this in the fridge to firm it up quicker but sometimes that makes it too
firm and it won't be quite as easy to scoop but anyway suit yourself
and since my kitchen was freezing I just left mine out and that's it once firm we
can go ahead and scoop out whatever size portions we want and for this I like
using a sorbet scoop which gives me about one tablespoon per portion and
then to get these really smooth we generally want to give them a little
roll between our hands which is a little hard at this point because they still
are a little bit sticky so once scooped I do like to pop them in the fridge for
about 15 minutes just to firm them up and then we will pull those out and give
them a quick roll in our hands of smooth amount and by the way I will say this
up is technically optional because once you coat these in the chocolate which is
our next step that coating will generally hide any flaws oh and I should
mention usually we want damp hands when we roll things but this time no okay in
this case dry hands make smooth balls but anyway we'll go ahead and give those
a roll at which point they are now ready to coat melted chocolate so we'll head
back to the stove where I have a bowl placed over hot water which has been
placed over the lowest heat setting you have and then into that we're going to
add a couple cups of chocolates but not all at once
all right we're gonna reserve about a quarter to a third of a cup to add later
but anyway what we'll do is just let that sit and melt which is gonna take a
few minutes and while I was waiting I went ahead and grabbed a nice crispy
gingersnap and my microplane because what I'm gonna do after I dip my
truffles it's great a little bit of this over the top which is not only gonna
taste nice but it's also kind of sort of gonna look like gold dust but anyway
let's go back and check our chocolate which is now pretty much melted so we'll
go ahead and give it a stir and then to finish our coating chocolate what we'll
do is go ahead and dump in the rest of those reserved chips which again was
like a quarter to a third of a cup or so and we will stir those in and just as
soon as those disappear this chocolates ready to use and by the way I believe
this technique is called seating s EE D ing and what it does is temper the
chocolate so that once it cools and dries we end up with a texture that's
nice and firm and crisp oh and as we dip these I do like to keep the chocolate on
top of the hot water so it doesn't cool down and get too thick and there are
lots of methods for doing this with the bare fingers being the most basic oh and
there shouldn't be any chocolate on the Silpat I'm not sure what happened there
but anyway we'll go ahead and dip these in chocolate and then we'll let most of
the excess drip off although I was a little bit impatient with this one and
as these get placed onto the pan I like to take my finger and give the top a
little bit of a swirl just to give that top a little more visual interest
speaking of which while these are still nice and wet I'm going to go ahead and
grate over some of my gingersnap to create that gold dust effect I mentioned
earlier and again that's just because of the flavor of truffle I'm making or if
you're doing a coffee truffle you would use some ground coffee
or for an almond truffle you do some sliced almonds or a citrus flavor
truffle you do some candied peel alright so you get the idea oh and if you're not
into having chocolate all over your fingers let me show you the alternative
fork and spoon method which is not quite as fun but is neater and all we do is
simply hold that truffle with our fork and spoon copious amounts of the
chocolate over with this spoon and then after letting the excess run off we'll
go ahead and transfer that onto the pan and then even with that method I do like
to give the top a swirl but of course swirling tops is your business and once
that was done I went ahead and dip the rest and for the record this recipe is
going to make about 18 but I only did 12 in the dark chocolate because I wanted
to try to dip a few in white chocolate which you will see later and then very
important once our truffles have been dipped in chocolate and decorated we
have to let them sit out to cool and dry until that outer layer of pure chocolate
hardens completely so there's not much to do for the next hour or so except
wait although if you want once these are partially firm you can trace around the
base with the back of the knife not the blade the back otherwise you're gonna
cut your silicone mat but if you were kind of messy doing these like I was by
going around the base with the back of a knife like this once these are fully
hardened we can lift them off the Silpat and they will have a nice clean bottom
edge so this is optional but it does give them a little more professional
look but regardless of whether you trim the bottoms or not we have to let these
sit until that chocolate hardens completely at which point it should
really sound like this if you tap it with a metal spatula so mission
accomplished and these are now ready to grab for the official taste and what
makes for a proper truffle is the magical combination of that semi soft
luxurious ganache inside covered with that hard crisp pure chocolate shell
okay so those contrasting textures it really makes a truffle what it is and
yes you can refrigerate these and the texture will get firmer but even at room
temp that ganache inside should be firm enough to hold a tooth mark which for me
personally is the visual sign your ganache is perfect and of course you can
just go ahead and eat all these yourself or in keeping with our annual edible
gift theme you could pop a few in a nice-looking
box or a box like this and give that to the chocolate lover on your gift list
which I predict will be greatly appreciated
Owen as I mentioned earlier I did save some so I could try them dipped in white
chocolate which I thought would make a nice presentation mix with the dark
except because white chocolate is so much sweeter I don't think it worked
quite as well with those spices we used okay especially the cinnamon which gives
us more of a sweeter profile although I have to admit they did look nice with
those beautiful contrasting colors but anyway no matter how you code things or
what exactly you flavor these with I really do hope you give them a try soon
so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts a printable written
recipe and much more info as usual and as always enjoy
you