Truffle Adventure

       Sometimes I think I watch the food network too much :) I had some heavy cream left over from making ice-cream and have been wondering what to use it for. Truffles randomly came to mind so I went to my computer to search the web for an easy recipe. The one I found had only three ingredients; chocolate chips, cream, and vanilla. Easy enough right? I went to work and melted the chocolate chips with the cream. When it was all melted and smooth I turned off the heat and added the vanilla. I then put the concoction in a bowl and popped it in freezer to cool and harden it. After impatiently waiting I pulled the semi hard truffle out of the freezer and scooped out balls to be dipped in either cocoa powder or chopped walnuts. I even sprinkled some salt onto a few plain ones. Here's how they look!

  The top two on the right have kosher salt on top while the other seemingly plain ones have an alder wood smoked salt sprinkled on top. The others either have cocoa powder or walnuts. 

                  Here's the link to the recipe that I used: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/basic-truffles/  

  

   I'll let you in on the tweaks that I made to the recipe. I just used regular semi sweet chocolate chips instead of the bittersweet. It called for 1/3 cup of cream but I had a little extra so I think in the end I added about 1/2 cup of cream. I also added 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla instead of the 1 tsp. 

   The things that Ill do differently next time is divide the cream/chocolate mixture and try adding different extracts like orange or mint or raspberry or maybe even almond. Im also going to make the balls smaller. More bite sized. These are a little hard to hold cause they melt in your fingers as you're eating them. I might even try using milk chocolate chips. I wonder how that would turn out.

    Tips to consider:

* Use a rubber spatula when mixing the chips and cream. 

* Be patient and make sure the mixture is nice and creamy. The chocolate chips like to leave little bits that take longer to melt.

* Lightly toast the nuts. I had frozen walnuts so I just chopped them up and put them in a pan over low heat stirring frequently to get them crunchy instead of mushy

* Experiment with different toppings

    So there you have it. A really simple way to make decadent chocolate truffles! Enjoy!

~KayLynn