truffles.

last night jess, rebekah and i took a chocolate truffle making class at ackc, a fantastic chocolate confectionary shop of delight. i have frequented ackc a few times, but have only tried their sinful chipotle hot chocolate, appropriately named the Lucy. This clip might be a bit too accurate of what we ladies were trying to get away with when the teacher turned his back.

our teacher for the night and owner of ackc had a vast knowledge of chocolate in all its forms, tastes and glory. after some interesting points about chocolate milk fats, backgrounds and origins of chocolates worldwide, questions from the crowd and too many samples we got cracking on the actual making of the truffles.

the method for making truffles is simpler than i anticipated but it is by no means easy. unfortunately i didn't take pictures during the class and i can't share the actual recipe from the class because well i paid for the class and i'm unsure on the legalities of it all. however, i will tell you that the recipe basically involves tempering (all this means is melting at a slow rate, so about 50% of your microwave's power) chocolate, adding in heavy cream and/or butter before cooling, forming and decorating. BUT, there is so much more to it than that!

for our first truffle we made a white chocolate blueberry truffle infused with cardamon. the method for this was tempering the white chocolate, warming heavy cream infused with cardamon (simply add cardamon to cream and then strain to remove herbs), adding to white chocolate with some softened butter and cooling. once cooled, these were rolled into balls and dusted with powered sugar.
the next type of truffle we made was a chocolate peanut butter truffle. this time we used half dark and half milk chocolate. these chocolates were tempered together, before butter and of course peanut butter were added. once cooled these lovelies were bathed in milk chocolate ganache (the temperature for this is vital and ackc had this amazing tempering machine that i would love to get my hands on but would most likely take over my teeny kitchen with its girth, so i will likely be using a microwave for this step as well when i try this at home) and topped sweetly with a salted peanut.
the last chocolate was a dark chocolate truffle with cream cheese. same method again, first temper dark chocolate, but then equal parts butter and cream cheese. the cream cheese really gave the chocolate a nice glossy texture and even creamier taste. i was suprised how much i enjoyed this one. once cooled, these were formed into balls and bathed in dark chocolate before being rolled in black sesame seeds. what a lovely texture this gave the truffles!
all in all this was a delicious night to spend with friends! i'm hoping to actually make this solo one night in my own kitchen and will report with further results.

and look how many chocolates i got to take home! and i was not one of the sneaky greedy people in the class who just kept filling their bags with vigor, this was the standard truffle-taking home amount. only thing is now i am kicking myself that i left all truffles at home on counter when i am at work and there is no chocolate anywhere. booo!