Chocolate Truffles

I spotted a recipe for homemade chocolate truffles in the BBC Good Food magazine. I thought I'd have a go at these to make a more personal gift than bought chocolates to our host friends for the Christmas Day and Boxing Day parties.

Chocolate Truffles
Makes about 50 chocolates

280g good quality dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids)
284ml pot double cream
50g unsalted butter

Cocoa, chopped nuts, coconut, melted chocolate etc for coating your chocolates.

• Chop the chocolate and tip into a large bowl (I used the food processor for the chopping)Heat the butter and cream gently in a saucepan, until the butter melts and the cream reaches simmering point.
• Remove from heat, and pour over the chopped chocolate.
• Stir the cream mix and chocolate together until smooth.
• If desired, add any flavourings at this stage - e.g. bourbon, Grand Marnier, coconut rum. The mixture could of course be divided into different bowls to allow a variety of flavours. I didn't add any alcohol to my truffles this time, as I wasn't sure if they would be shared with children.
• Chill the mix for at least 4 hours.
• Shape the truffles. The recipe suggested using a melon baller. Great idea - if you can find a shop that sells them! I instead used the ½ tsp size from my set of measuring spoons, which worked reasonably well instead.
• Coat the trufles immediately after shaping. And place on a sheet of greaseproof paper and chill again.

• I used dessicated coconut (dry toasted in a non-stick frying pan), chopped nuts, cocoa. Nicest of all was a really good white chocolate with macademia nuts, chopped in the food processor and then melted. I don't usually care for white chocolate, but this was much less sickly than Milky Bar, plus as a coating it balanced out the richness of the dark chocolate truffle centre.
• The truffles keep for three days in the fridge, or up to a month in the freezer. They can be eaten straight from the freezer as they don't freeze solid.

The chocolates were delicious and much complimented. I did manage to save a few for us too! I'll definitely make them again, but will try to source a melon baller in the meantime as I'm sure this will make the process a bit less fiddly.