Bakertan's Chocolate Factory: Part 1

Tomorrow will be the Blogger's meetup initiated by Pei-Lin. At the thought of meeting up with other fellow food bloggers, I feel kind of excited. Afterall, this is my first meetup and I always thought it would be great to meet up like-minded people sharing the same passion for food and its preparation.  

Each of us is supposed to bring along one homemade food item for the potluck. I have long decided that I would be doing chocolate truffles. Since everyone knows how to bake and is pretty proficient at it, I decided not to do any baked goods. Cooking is out of the option as I only have that few kitchen tricks up my sleeves, hardly worthy to be brought along for the potluck. Furthermore, a potluck would signify an excess of food. Chocolate truffles are hardly filling and hence would be a good idea for an after-meal dessert.  

The first time I made chocolate truffles was ages ago, dating back to about one and a half years back. Back then, my best friend was leaving Singapore for China on an overseas exchange. Hence, I made some Bailey's chocolate truffles for his farewell. My maiden attempt turned out well. Making Chocolate truffles seems like an easy affair with few ingredients to handle. However, it is time consuming having to chopped chocolates finely, melt the chocolates, make the ganache, refrigerate the ganache, scoop the truffle centers and coat them with chocolate. The weather is definitely not on my side since Singapore is humid and warm all year round. We only have one season here and that is Summer.

In total, I made 3 different flavoured chocolate truffles to bring along to the meetup: green tea white chocolate truffles, rum and raisins truffles and lastly plain dark chocolate truffles. Out of these, the green tea truffles took the longest time to prepare. I started with the green tea truffles first and gained some practice. Making the rum and raisins truffles became much easier afterwards. For the plain chocolate truffles, I used a simple chocolate mould to differentiate them from the rum and raisin truffles, since both are covered with dark chocolate.

Rolled green tea truffles centers

Notice that the truffle is sweating due to condensation.

Green tea truffle speckled with matcha powder. The idea is inspired by this website

Reminds me of mooncakes. Anyway Mid-Autumm will be coming soon..

Truffle centers actually look like pandan lotus paste

I chose 3 of the not so good looking ones and sampled them. Taste is not too shabby. Those who do not like white chocolate probably will not appreciate the sweet milky caramel taste.

Thats all for now regarding tomorrow's  preview. Will take more pictures on the remaining truffles soon....

Green Tea Truffles ( recipe adapted from Truffles: 50 Delicious Decadent Homemade Chocolate Treats by Dede Wilson)

Serving size: 11 pieces

Equipment and materials:

1) 2 Heatproof bowls
2) Spoon
3) 2 Fork
4) 3/4 inch or 1 inch Melon baller (optional)
5) Measuring spoon set
6) Baking/parchement paper
7) Foil/paper mini cupcake liners
8) Saucer
9) Clingfilm
10) Baking trays
11) Diposable food gloves
12) Knife for chopping chocolate

Ingredients:
50 ml heavy cream (whipping cream)
120g white chocolate, finely chopped (use the best quality you can afford)
1/2 to 1 & 1/2 tsp matcha powder
120g white chocolate pistoles or finely chopped
a little matcha powder to sprinkle on green tea truffles

Method:

Making the chocolate ganache: Place 120g of finely chopped white chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Place cream in a saucer and heat it till it is almost coming to a boil on medium heat. Off the flame and remove the saucer. Pour the cream over the finely chopped white chocolate and allow chocolate to sit for a while in the heated cream. Stir gently to allow chocolate to melt and blend in with the cream. When chocolate is blended with cream, the resulting mixture will be cream coloured. The mixture cream chocolate mixture is known as a white chocolate ganache.

If white chocolate is not completely melted: Place heatproof bowl over a saucepan filled with water. The bowl should fit snugly onto the saucepan and the base of the bowl should not be in contact with the water in the saucepan. Bring the water in the saucepan to a low simmer on low heat. This is known as a double boiler. Stir the white chocolate and cream mixture until the white chocolate melts completely to obtain a smooth ganache.

Cooling and flavouring ganache: Remove heatproof bowl from the heat and allow ganache to cool. Add in 1/2 tsp of matcha powder to the cooled ganance. Mix evenly. Add more matcha powder to taste if required. White chocolate is very sweet so strike a balance between the green tea flavour and the milky sweetness of the white chocolate. Allow ganache to cool. Place a piece of clingfilm over the bowl and press onto the surface of the ganache. Refrigerate ganache till firm.

Shaping matcha white chocolate ganache balls: When ganache is firm, use a melon baller to scoop out rounded (slightly heaped) portions onto a tray lined with baking paper. Return to refrigerate these portions for 10 minutes or till firm. Using the disposable food gloves, roll the portions into round balls. Refrigerate for another 10 minutes or till firm.

Coating ganache balls with white chocolate: Melt remaining 120g white chocolate in another heatproof bowl using the double boiler method on low heat. Using the tines of 2 fork, dipped the round ganache balls into the melted white chocolate to coat. Lift the dipped ganache ball up from the melted white chocolate. Rotate and transfer the coated balls at the same time between the 2 fork to ensure ganache balls are well coated all around. Transfer coated ganache balls to a tray lined with baking paper. While chocolate coating is still soft, sprinkle a pinch of matcha powder randomly on top of each coated ganache ball. Allow the white chocolate coating to set at cool room temperature. Alternatively, refirgerate coated ganache balls untill firm.

Storing chocolate truffles: Line truffles with mini cupcake papers and store truffles at cool room temperature covered or in the refrigerator for several days. Serve truffles at room temperature, not chilled and directly from the refrigerator to enjoy the flavour.

Notes:

1) It takes some practice to melt white chocolate. White chocolate has to be melted using low heat over a double boiler and constantly stirred gently. If the water in the double boiler comes to a strong boil, the heat may cause the white chocolate to burn. Burnt white chocolate is dry and cannot be melted anymore. From experience, white chocolate is the hardest to melt among all chocolates.

2) As an alternative, roll the ganache balls onto matcha powder. It will work fine too.

3) Another alternative would be to roll the ganache balls onto grated white chocolate. This was the intention in the book by Dede Wilson