Atlanta visit and Chocolate Truffles

Last weekend I went to one of my folks’ house in Atlanta. They have two kids and a lovely home. I had a good time there. We went to the World’s Largest Aquarium (Georgia Aquarium), World of coke, where you can taste coke from different parts of the world and to a beautiful temple. We had great fun. Specially, the BAPS temple and aquarium were awesome. That’s the beautiful temple I have ever seen so far. It was built of marble and the architecture was amaaazinggg. The aquarium was wonderful. I saw a variety of aquatic life. I should definitely mention about the whale sharks, beluga whales and manta ray.  It was like a tour to the ocean. I took lots of pictures. Oops! I forgot to mention about the near-by falls that I went for. That was beautiful. I felt like diving in and take a shower, just like the olden days in India.

Okay, now I will tell you where these truffles came from. I wanted to make something simple and yummy, specially for the kids. So I was browsing for some ideas and suddenly one of my friend told me that she is planning to do ‘Chocolate Almond Tart’ from food-network. Eureka! here I got the recipe for truffles from food-network. Truffles are made of chocolate, cream and honey and dipped in nuts and cocoa dust. When I say chocolate, honey, cream and nuts, my mouth waters.

There were many versions but I picked the easy one and made a few alterations. You can check the food network website for the video of making truffles. You can refer these two links, Chocolate Truffles from food network kitchens and Chocolate Truffles from Alton Brown. I adapted the recipe from food network kitchens and followed Alton Brown’s method of preparation. It is really simple to make these truffles. It is pure heaven when it melts in your mouth and your kids will love it. I can guarantee that you will no longer buy truffles from outside. I made round shaped truffles. You can also use icing cone and make different shapes of truffles as shown in the food network website.

Ingredients:

• Semisweet chocolate chips – 1/2 pound
• Hershey’s Milk chocolate bar – 1
• Heavy cream – 1/3 cup
• Quality honey – 2 tbsp
• Unsalted butter, at room temperature – 2 tbsp
• Unsweetened cocoa powder – 1/4 cup
• Ground sugar – 1/2 cup
• Fennel seeds – 1/4 tsp
• Skinned almonds – 1/4 cup
• Pistachio – 1/4 cup

Method of Preparation:

Preparation of Truffle coating:

• Scrape the skin off the regular almonds or you can buy skinned almonds from the shop.
• Grind pistachios and skinned almonds to a coarse powder. There should be tiny pieces of pistachio and almonds.
• Grind 1/2 cup of sugar to a fine powder. Remove 1/4 cup of sugar from the grinder and add unsweetened cocoa and grind them well.
• Add the remaining powdered sugar according to your taste. Now add the fennel seeds to the mixture and make a fine powder. Cocoa coating is ready.
• Now keep the almond, pistachio and cocoa coating in 3 different trays.

Preparation of Chocolate mixture:

• In a thick bottomed vessel, add heavy cream followed by honey. Keep it in low heat and mix them well.
• When it is combined well, increase the heat to medium. Keep stirring in-between.
• Now, take the chocolate chips in a glass bowl and microwave it for a minute and half.
• Remove it and mix it using silicon spatula/batter scrapper. If you don’t have one, you can use the normal spatula that is suitable for mixing.
• If you don’t have a microwave oven, you can follow this method: Boil water in a flat bottomed vessel. Take the chocolate chips in a glass bowl and keep it in the vessel. The bowl should fit into the vessel but it should not touch the bottom of the vessel. Chocolate should be melted with the steam coming out of the boiling water. We follow this procedure because chocolate should not be melted under direct heat. It will be burnt.
• Now remove the heavy cream and honey mixture once it starts boiling and add it to the chocolate chips.
• Mix them well and add butter. Combine them well till it becomes a shiny, smooth batter.
• Transfer it to a flat bottomed glass tray and refrigerate for an hour.

Preparation of Chocolate Truffles:

• After an hour, remove it from the refrigerator and scoop it using small scoop or any round headed spoon of desired size.
• Keep the chocolate scoops in a tray and refrigerate them for 15 minutes.
• Take the scoops out and shape them into balls and arrange it in a tray.
• If it sticks to your palm, just don’t worry. Refrigerate in-between for 3 to 4 minutes and continue doing.
• Once all the balls are done, refrigerate them for 15 minutes.
• In between, melt the milk chocolate in microwave or using the same procedure mentioned above.
• Take the melted chocolate in a wide spoon and roll the refrigerated balls one by one in the milk chocolate and roll it in the almond or pistachio or cocoa coating.
• Yummy truffles are ready. Try it, it will melt in your mouth with the nuts/cocoa dusting.
• Store them in a container and refrigerate it.
• You can put it in the paper baking cups and serve chill.

Yummy……isn’t it?