Chocolate Truffles with Candied Orange Peel

Chocolate Truffles with Candied Orange Peel

Easier then you think...

Ingredients:

16 oz of semi-sweet Bakers Chocolate

3/4 Cups heavy whipping cream

1 tsp of real vanilla extract

4 tbsp of soft butter

1 tsp of strong coffee (optional)

Flavoring...

Use 1/4 cup of your choice of flavoring

Orange Juice

Beer/Alcohol

Coffee

Jams/Jellies

Soft Fresh Fruits

Shell:

To coat my chocolate I used 3 bags of Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Flavor Melting Wafers

Other suggestions:

Powder Sugar

Refined Cocoa Powder

Tempered Chocolate

Confectioners Coating

Powdered suger mixed with cinnamon, nutmeg,pumpkin pie spice, or any other combination of spices

Orange Peel

Thinly shaved orange peel, with white part scrapped off

Sugar

Water

To make the inside of the truffle...

Chocolate Ganache

In a food processor, pulverize bakers chocolate until almost a powder. Heat heavy cream on stove top until it just starts to bubble. Turn the food processor on high and slowly pour in the warm whipping cream until mixture runs smooth. Then add butter, vanilla, coffee, and 1/4 cup of flavoring. Mix until smooth and texture is silky.

(The key to a great truffle is the ganache center. If the texture of the truffle is not smooth and silky but comes out rough and grainy, the mixture has broken. To fix this mix the broken ganache with a tablespoon or so of heavy cream the is roughly the same temperature as the ganache until smooth and silky.)

Pour ganache mixture into a clean bowl or dish, cover with plastic wrap and allow to sit at room temperature until firm 4+ hours. You can speed this process up by placing it in the fridge, however, the ganache may take on a grainy texture.

Once your mixture is firm enough to handle you are ready to form it into balls.

I put on clean plastic gloves and used a spoon to scoop the ganache out of the bowl and rolled it quickly between my hands. I made mine on the smaller side and placed the rolled balls onto sprayed parchment paper.

I let mine rest for 20 mins to firm up again before dipping in chocolate.

After several tries with the chocolate coating, I found the best method was to melt small batches in the microwave and as the chocolate starts to harden, add more chocolate wafers to the bowl and reheat. When melting the chocolate over the stove, my ganache center started to melt into the coating which made it hard for the chocolate to harden fully.

Let cool, and EAT! The truffles can be stored in the refrigerator for up to a week. They are served best at room temperature.

Candied Orange Peel:

Jacques Pepins Candied Orange

Thinly slice your orange peel with a vegetable peeler and scrap off any white that is left. Blanch 2 times by bringing water and orange peel to a boil, drain, and repeat with fresh water. 

Then in a small pan bring about a cup or more of sugar(depending on how much you are making) and water (enough to cover the oranges) to a boil. Allow sugar to crystalize and thicken while the liquid reduces for about 10 mins. When done, roll in sugar and allow to cool. Store in air tight container to keep from hardening.

Note: Before I made these Truffles I watched several you tube videos and read tons of blogs and recipe books before developing my own method.