Q: Trick or Treat? A: Treat! Chocolate Mint Truffles!
I know it's not recommended to give out homemade candy for Halloween, but I think it’s all right for a food blog. This video recipe for chocolate truffles just went live on About.com, so I'm posting it today as my treat to all you readers ringing my virtual doorbell, and expecting something nice. Hey, I don't want anyone to TP my blog!
As you'll see in this video recipe, making truffles is super easy, if you follow a couple simple steps. These are peppermint flavored for that special holiday flavor, and would make a great gift for 
anyone on your holiday shopping list. This recipe is awesome even if you make it plain, with no extra flavoring, just the deep, dark chocolate and cocoa. Or, if you like, add a teaspoon of whatever flavor you prefer, orange, berry, and coffee, being some of the obvious choices. One important tip, if you do decide to make these; buy the highest-quality chocolate you can get your hands on. It really makes a difference. There are all sorts of online guides to the best brands and types, so my jet-lagged brain and I will not bother with specific recommendations. Happy Halloween! Enjoy!
Ingredients:
1 pound dark, bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate (high-quality!!)
1 cup heavy cream
1 tsp peppermint extract
cocoa, as needed
44 comments:
you have nice teeth. :)
Looks so easy, I'm going to try it.
Happy Halloween Chef John! The truffles look awesome, will definitely try it!
Appx how many of these melon baller sized truffles will this 1lb choc recipe produce? I'm thinking of making some for my company's holiday party that I am in charge of setting up. Would need about 140.
the scoop i used made about a 1-ounce truffle (about 2 tbsp each) since the recipe makes 2 pounds of ganache, I got about 32 truffles. These are very rich, so smaller ones are OK. I suggest making 1 recipe and doing a test count. Btw, since you are doing so many, you can spread the ganache while soft into a plastic wrap lined baking pan. When its cold and firm, turn upside down and cut squares with a knife and throw them into the cocoa. You can make nice small squares this way.
Hey Chef John, They look great. I love making truffles, these sound fabulous.
Holy Toledo, just in time! After 2 weeks of eating nothing but potato chips for supper you're back! Image my and my 3 year old's delight of having truffles for dinner! Truly something different!
Now, what's for dessert...
Glad you're back (as is my dentist). Congrats to your sis. And good luck with About.
Scott - Boston
Hi Chef, welcome back! Great video but I am guessing you also mean to use a high quality cocoa powder as well as the chocolate being of high quality (and I presume you mean 60-70% or better)?
yes, for the solid a high grade chocolate os a must. But, for the cocoa it really doesnt matter all that much, as long as it coats it and looks like dirt! Of course, my readers would use nothing but the best.
Dear Guru (aka Chef)
Sorry to ask a stupid question, but what would you consider as a high grade chocolate?
Also would it work if you add Rum/brandy into the mix?
Thnx!
Grasshopper
It has to do with the percentage of cocoa. The better chocolates have higer amounts of the good stuff Here is a good article on the subject,
http://www.chocolate.com/chocolatier/chocolate-by-the-numbers.html
Also you can add some liquor, but only a very small amount or the ganache will be off. Thats why a teaspoon of extract works better. If you add enough rum to make it taste like rum, it may be too soft to form.
Hi Chef John, welcome back. I was craving for something salty so at first glance, I thought the round balls were some sort of meat balls; beef balls, fish balls....
:-)
i totally see your point.....my chocolate mud is now sitting in the fridge, it's impossible to roll the mud into a ball without dirtying your hand
I bought an 11lb block of callebaut semi-sweet (55%)for candy season this year. It makes a nice product for the masses, that is while I might like it to be a a tad higher, my audience (family/friends) think the 70% is too much so I have opted for this tweeneer that seems to satisfy everyone pretty well.
A girl at work was asking how I made them, so I gave her a link to this page (Hi Angie)great demo!
Well, Anon, as Homer would say, Mmmmmmm.....chocolate mud.
Larry and others, I used a 60% I believe.
"Hi Angie" Cool, people are doing "shout outs" on my blog now! I must have arrived.
Hi chef John, amazing blog, wonderfull truffles !!! Piece of advice please: can I use some milk chocolate? And put some Baileys cream instead of mint?
Thanks !
thanks! Please see comments above RE: other flavorings. Extracts work best.
RE: milk chocolate, im no candy expert, but most milk chocolate doesnt have as high a percentage of cocoa solids to give the same results as dark.
If any readers care to give Ginette more in depth explaination please feel free. Im not a milk chocolate fan, so Ive never tried it. The key is the % of cocoa.
Hi Chef John, I'm Larry's co-worker. I think these truffles are excellent!!! I can wait to make them.
Good luck!
so u can't make white chocolate version...
do u need to add butter... i've read some recipes and they have butter but ur recipe doesn't have it...why is that?
fiona
never tried white, but I doubt you could use this recipe for the reasons already discusses above.
Butter? Does it need it? I don't think so, but some recipes call for a chunk to be added to make them even richer.
any other extract suggestion? I've got a mint aversion eheh but they look great
they all work...what do you like? Use that. orange? almond? etc.
Hey Chef, I'm having a hard time scooping the truffles. I refrigerated the ganache overnight and this morning I tried to use a melon baller. I get about 4 truffles that come off the melon baller clean, and then after that they get stuck, so I throw the ganache back in the fridge, clean the melon baller and put it in the freezer, come back to it 20 minutes later. The next atempt I get about 5 that I can scoop clean. Then they're sticking again. What am I doing wrong?
probably nothing, they will stick. especially with a melon baller, the sorbet scoop i used has a trigger to relase the balls. Just do 4-5 and rinse the scoop in hot water and do more.
Or, let the ganache warm up to room temp. Press it into a plastic wrapped pan, chill til firn and use a knife to cut into squares. Then you can dust like that, or roll and dust. That's also a fater method. just doesnt have the official truufle shape,
Thanks. I ended up scooping them and kind of gathering them into uniform sized clobs, throwing them back in the fridge to chill for 30 minutes, and then dropping them in cocoa and rolling them by hand. It was messy, but delicious. I have a study group that meets on Tuesday nights and I brought the truffles with me. They were of course, amazing and everyone was so impressed with my skills I need to find a tiny scorbet scoop with a trigger for the next time. Thanks again. I swear, if I ever win the Lottery, I'll donate half of my winnings to the site.
Thanks! The lottery may take a while, can't you take a quick trip to vegas instead?
If I went to Vegas, I guarantee I would have less, not more money.
Aren't those choco. blocks 4 oz. ea.? Because you had 2, 2x4=8, and you need 16 for a lb.
There are 4 bars there.
waited till yesterday to make them as a chocoholic friend was coming over for dinner. Boy oh boy, these are good. Rolled half in cocoa and the other in chopped peanuts.
Would you recommend using 1 tsp of fresh o.j. for orange truffles?
no... use orange extract instead. See other comments re: flavorings
For what it's worth :
I tried putting a peanut in each one before dusting them, but I could barely taste the peanut.
Next, I tried to roll them in finely crushed peanuts, and although much better, it still didn't give me what I was looking for. Oh well.
The cocoa :
I tried to dust the truffles in Ghiradelli's : Sweet Ground Chocolate, and found it good but a tad boring.
I then tried them dusted with Nestles : Nesquik, which turned out much too sugary.
A 50/50 blend of them both did the trick.
Scott - Boston
Instead of rolling them in the cocoa, could you melt down chocolate and dip them in that and let the chocolate harden? Or would it just turn the truffle into liquid? Thanks!
that works fine. as long as they are cold when dipped
Made these a few hours ago and it dident go that well. First of all I dident know that using dark chocolate would make it taste like "Dark chcolate" I thought the cream would kind of make it taste like milk chocolate, I was wrong.(I'm not a fan of dark chocolate) Secondly, the cocoa I used was, ehm, not very good. ..
In the end I decided to throw it away :(
Can you use milk chocolate ?
And also they turned out to be very , soft, should I leave them in the fridge longer ?
not really, this is a dark choc recipe. (see comments above RE: milk chocolate doesnt have same make-up as dark) the ganache should be cold when you work with it.
Do you think it would be possible to use creme de menthe instead of peppermint extract?
I've never tried it, but extracts are much stronger than liquors.
WOW!
I found your site a few days ago, but today I tried to do these Truffles and they are superb!
I think they are done right because I can see my teeth!
Great work dude!
Hi Chef!
Just a simple question... I live in Singapore and the supermarkets here doesn't sell peppermint extract so I used vanilla essence instead. Will it make a very big difference in terms of taste?
Thanks! =)
yes, they will not taste like mint. ;-) They will just be plain truffles, nothing wrong with that.
I made this for my mom on her birthday, she LOVED it! Thanks, chef John!
I'm a 15 year old guy living in Iceland and discovering your site has really fired up my passion for cooking.
Again, thank you!
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