The truffles!
I have been playing around with the truffles for about a week now.
The ratios are simply 1:1 of chocolate & cream for a thick ganache
1.5:1 or 2:1 for a very thick ganache that you can whip & use as a filling
or 1:2 (1:1.5) for a thinner version for pouring
I find the 1:1 gives a great all round result.
All these ratios are for dark chocolate between 65 – 85 % cocoa solids.
Why is this important ? It’s the cocoa solids along with the fat in the cream that thicken the ganache. Using a chocolate with less cocoa solids than this will make for a very soft result which maybe ok for pouring but it will remain sticky. When used in truffles, like when I made truffles with a 48% chocolate, the truffles were light and creamy and tasted lovely but unless eaten within 10min of coming out of the fridge they’d just go way to soft!
So my conclusion is that to use a flavored chocolate with low cocoa solid content you have to add some very high cocoa solid content chocolate to balance.
That’s what I did.
I used 75 gm of flavored chocolate (Lindt orange intense) at 48% and 25 gm of bittersweet 85% chocolate, both finely chopped and added 100ml of hot cream.
They came out great! Not too stiff, not too soft and lighter in texture.
I used cross multiplication to calculate how much of the both I needed to reach the equivalent of 70% cocoa solids:
?gm x 85% + 100gm x 48% = 100gm x 70%
becomes:
?gm=(70-48)/0.85 = 25.88
So I used 100gm of the flavored chocolate plus 25gm of the 85% chocolate and added 100 ml of the hot cream.
Ignore the above if you are using straight 70% chocolate and use a 1:1 ratio of chocolate vs heavy/whipping /double cream.
So on to the truffle making:
You will need:
- good quality dark chocolate (see above)
- heavy cream (see above)
- coatings of your choice (I used desiccated coconut, dark cocoa powder & chopped roasted almonds)
- Chop the chocolate finely and place in a bowl.
- Heat the cream till its hot bot not boiling – right when it starts to have little bubbles around the edge.
- Add the hot cream to the chocolate and leave it till the chocolate has melted – just takes a few minutes for a small quantity.
- Now stir gently with a spatula till it becomes a uniform chocolate color.
- At this stage you can stir in things like crushed almond flakes, dessicated coconut, I added berry granola before and it was yummy. Just 2 or 3 tablespoons.
- Leave to cool and set. Then place in the fridge to be completely set.
- When you are ready to make the truffles arrange a few small bowls with your “coatings” to toss the truffles in. I used dessicated coconut, lightly crushed/chopped roasted almonds and dark cocoa powder.
- Using 2 teaspoons; take a full teaspoon of the ganache and round it lightly with the other spoon, then with the tip of the other spoon push the ball of ganache in your tossing bowl. (You can just spoon out a bit with clean hands and roll it between your palms, and drop it in the tossing bowl, but its a bit messy 🙂 )
- Toss it gently in your “cover” of choice then remove and place it on a plate. You can lightly round it between the palm of your hands if its out of shape. Repeat with the rest of the ganache. Makes about 15 truffles.
- If it’s warm, you can place them in the fridge till you are ready to serve but take them out 15 min before serving.
Riham's Messy Kitchen! 