Chocolate Truffles For Samuel's Farewell

Made these chocolate truffles with Bailey's irish cream chocolate ganache centre for my best friend Samuel who flew to Shanghai earlier this month. I was very excited when i was reading up recipes for chocolate truffles. It seemed to be easy to make these truffles, but in actual fact one has to be familiar with the characteristics of chocolate before doing these chocolate confections.

I learnt that there is a great deal of knowledge when it comes to handling and storing chocolates. When subjected to sudden temperature changes, white streaks will appear on the surface. This would not affect the taste of the chocolates though. What alarms me is that chocolates should not be stored in the fridge. They should be stored in cool places wrapped in layers of foil.

When melting chocolates and setting them, one may want to considering tempering the chocolates to ensure the chocolates set well with glossy appearances. Dark chocolate and couverture chocolates are easier to melt as compared to milk chocolates and white chocolates. For dark chocolates, i use a double boiler to melt them. As for milk and white chocolates, it is easier to use the microwave oven to melt them without causing them to burn.

The taste of these truffles turned out pretty good. One thing i learnt is that these truffles taste best when they are left standing for 30 mins after taking out of the refrigerator. When eating straight from the refrigerator, the chocolate confections will not develop their full flavour. The irritating thing about making these lovely confections is our humid and warm weather. The truffles soften easily when subjected to room temperature and it is unwise to stack them as they might end up in a dark brown mess. I had to rack my brains to wrap these truffles and ended up wrapping them in translucent plastic wrappers and place them in a circular box.

It certainly is a good idea to present these delicate treats as gifts. Hmm maybe i will attempt make truffles for gifts for Xmas.

Here is a great book to read on chocolate truffle making- Truffles, candies & confections by Carole Bloom. Loaned this neat read from the National Library.