Truffles
(From the former Cocolat Bakery in Berkeley)
Mike and I used to buy these and share them—the original truffles were almost as big as golf balls and sold for a couple dollars each. After we moved to Chapel Hill, I read an article in the paper about Cocolat (now unfortunately out of business) and it included the recipe. I adapted the original recipe, and I make them smaller. One important note: use the best chocolate you can find. Trader Joe’s has blocks of bittersweet chocolate that are excellent, or if you can find Ghiradelli chocolate, that’s good too.
1 cup (1/2 pint) whipping cream
10 oz. semi-sweet/bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small pieces
3 T. unsalted butter (cut into small pieces)
1/8 cup rum, brandy or other liqueur
14 oz. semi-sweet chocolate (or 10 oz semi-sweet; 4 oz unsweetened)
Chop the first 10 oz. chocolate into small pieces. Set aside. Heat cream over medium heat just until it comes to a boil. Remove from heat, add the butter, stir until it’s almost melted, then add chopped chocolate, stir until melted. (If butter and chocolate don’t melt, put back on the heat very, very briefly) Mixture should be thick and smooth like pudding. Pour into a bowl, whisk in the liqueur, cover and refrigerate overnight.
Next day, form teaspoon size amounts of the chilled chocolate mixture into balls, place on cookie sheet covered with waxed paper. (Use two pieces of waxed paper, each covering about half the sheet) Place into freezer and leave at least six hours or until solidly frozen.
Melt remaining chocolate in a double boiler,(See notes on ingredients for directions on how to make a double boiler) then pour about half of it onto a dinner plate. Remove half the frozen chocolate balls from the freezer and dip them, one at a time into the melted chocolate. Be sure to use one hand for dipping, the other stays clean for picking up chocolate balls from the tray. Otherwise, you just have a big mess. If melted chocolate starts to harden, put it back into double boiler and re-melt. Any leftover chocolate can be re-melted to use as coating for other batches of truffles. Store truffles in layers separated by waxed paper in a cookie tin or plastic container with a tight fitting cover in the refrigerator. They keep at least a month and are a yummy dessert with champagne on Valentine’s Day