February 17, 2010
Creamy Nut Truffles
Filed under: The Black Arts
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If your past four days have been anything like mine, you're going to need an army of these truffles, too. (You can thank me for the recipe later.)
This is one of my mother's recipes that I've adapted from her handwritten notes. It makes approximately 48-50 truffles (depending how generous you are with your teaspoon measurements). I chose a more laidback approach to truffle making which is noted below.
INGREDIENTS:
* 1 cup (170g) bittersweet chocolate pieces
* 1/2 cup whipping cream
* 1/2 cup (100g) butter, softened
* 1 cup Rice Chex cereal, crushed to 1/3 cup
* 1 egg white
* 3/4 cup hazelnuts, finely chopped
* 1 1/3 cups powdered sugar
* 2 tbsps your choice of liquor (Rum, Whiskey, Frangelico, Amaretto, etc.)
* 2 2/1 cups Rice Chex cereal, crushed to 1 1/4 cups
* 2 tbsps unsweetened cocoa powder
METHOD:
Combine chocolate pieces and cream in a 2-quart saucepan. Cook over low heat until chocolate pieces are melted. Remove and cool slightly. Beat in butter. Add 1/3 cup cereal, egg white and nuts; mix well. Beat in sugar and liquor. Mix thoroughly. Pour into 8 X 8 X 2 inch lightly buttered pan. Freeze until firm.
Combine remaining 1 1/4 cups cereal and cocoa in bowl. Shape rounded teaspoons of chocolate mixture into balls. Coat with cereal mixture. Place balls on plate. Cover and refrigerate (I usually put them in the freezer). Let stand at room temperature for 10 minutes before serving. Refreeze chocolate mixture as needed to keep firm.
MS. GD NOTES:
Oh, Christ, where do I begin? To make these truffles gluten-free we used Rice Krispies cereal, and our choice of booze was Frangelico. (<- The friar's got a hold of me something awful.) RE: the use of Frangelico; I upped the original amount of 1 tablespoon to 2 tablespoons with no disastrous consequences.
I'm going to come out and be completely honest with everyone - my mom's method of truffle making? Crackhouse crazy. Making a tray of homemade chocolate for someone's a gentle labor of love, so why fucking rush it and compromise the quality? SORRY MOM; YOU CRAZY.
(I CAN SAY THAT NOW BECAUSE SHE'S BEEN DEAD FIVE YEARS, OR SOMETHING. OR MAYBE FOUR. I FORGET. <- LOL, I CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER THE DATE OF MY OWN MOTHER'S DEATH. SERIOUSLY. EVEN WORSE THAN THAT? I LAUGH HYSTERICALLY WHEN I REMEMBER THAT I DON'T REMEMBER WHEN SHE DIED.)
Italics and I divided truffle making over the course of two days. On the first day we used a water bath to melt the chocolate, but rather than pour the chocolate out into a buttered tray and throw it in the freezer for a few hours, we left the chocolate mix in the bowl, covered it with clingfilm and stuffed it in the fridge overnight.
On day two I formed teaspoon heaped balls and rolled the naked truffles in the cereal/cocoa coating. Once finished, I packed the truffles away in a Tupperware box (I tipped in the leftover coating to help keep the chocolate from touching) and they've been living in the fridge ever since. (But not for long...)
