Truffles

Photographer: Adam
Makes around 90 truffles

These truffle recipes come to us from Sophie (a.k.a. Fabulous Sophie (because she is)), our marketing guru Sydney-side.  When I first started at Fisher & Paykel, Sophie was based down here in Dunedin, and she always brought a little ray of sunshine (and glamour) into the office.  I have fond memories of these truffles made into the most spectacular Christmas tree configuration (completely doused in glitter!) for my first Fisher & Paykel Christmas.  This time around, and without Sophie on site to persuade us to do something more adventurous, we went for a more sophisticated look, piling them up with cherries and sprinkling with grated chocolate to make a beautiful addition to any Christmas table.

Truffles also make great gifts; the Ginger truffles would be the easiest as they won’t melt at room temperature, unlike the Baileys chocolate truffles, which will start to melt as they come up to room temperature – even more reason to wolf them down quickly!

The best tip Sophie has included is to powder your hands with icing sugar when rolling the truffles.  It really does help stop them sticking to your hands.

– Lauren.

Anyway, over to Soph:

“Christmas is without doubt my favourite time of the year.  Gaudy decorations covering everything from homes to stores and entire streets, giving the perfect gifts (and of course receiving them!), parties with friends and with colleagues, and of course the anticipation of summer holidays all add a certain spark to December.  Food plays a large part in my family, and at this time of year things go into overdrive.  I definitely feel less guilty going into the silly season with a couple of extra gym sessions up my sleeve!  While the traditional turkey and ham feast is always delicious, in my opinion there is nothing like Christmas baking.  I know fruit mince tends to divide people, and the abundance of Christmas mince pies, Christmas pudding and Christmas cake around can often be greeted with disdain, but I think there is nothing quite like having a pantry full of all these goodies and free rein to indulge in it all.  Truffles, however, seem to create no such rift and I have never found them to be anything other than universally well received.  I think they are a perfect bite-sized morsel of sweetness, just the thing to take the edge off when those sugar cravings strike after Christmas dinner.  My word of caution to anybody endeavouring to make either of these recipes is best of luck refraining from eating a good quantity of the mixture and/or ingredients while you are making them!”

INGREDIENTS

Baileys chocolate truffles
250g milk chocolate
250g white chocolate
200ml fresh cream
50g unsalted butter
25g liquid glucose
25ml Baileys liqueur
icing sugar to powder hands
250g milk or white chocolate for rolling truffles in (I used some of each for variation)
Dutch cocoa for rolling truffles in

Ginger truffles
250g gingernut biscuits
50g unsalted butter
¼ cup brown sugar
¼ cup condensed milk
¼ cup desiccated coconut
¼ cup finely chopped crystallised ginger
extra desiccated coconut to roll truffles in

METHOD

Baileys chocolate truffles
1. Break both types of chocolate into small pieces and set aside.
2. Place the fresh cream, butter and glucose in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and heat until 90C or just below boiling point.
3. Remove from the heat and add the broken chocolate, stirring until the chocolate has melted.
4. Pour the truffle mix into a baking tin lined with greaseproof paper (the size of the tin is not important, however a 20cm square tin is recommended).
5. Leave to set for at least 8 hours in the refrigerator.
6. Cut into 2-3cm squares with a sharp knife. Remove any greaseproof paper at this stage.
7. Using the icing sugar, powder the palms of your hands and roll the squares into round, even balls.
8. Place the balls onto a sheet of greaseproof paper and put back in fridge.
9. Melt the final quantity of chocolate used for coating truffles over a low heat on an electric cooktop, or use a water bath if using a conventional gas cooktop.
10. Dip the truffles into the melted chocolate using a skewer or spoon, letting the excess chocolate drip off. Repeat until all 2/3 of the truffles have been covered in chocolate.
11. Place the truffles back onto the greaseproof paper and put back into the fridge to set.
12. Roll the remaining truffles in cocoa, and place in fridge with chocolate covered truffles until ready to serve.

Ginger truffles
1. Crush gingernut biscuits. A food processor is best, otherwise between two sheets of greaseproof paper with a rolling pin.
2. Put butter, brown sugar and condensed milk in a saucepan. Heat gently until melted and stir over heat a further two minutes.
3. Add gingernuts, coconut and crystallised ginger.
4. Take teaspoon-sized dollops of mixture and shape into balls. Roll in extra coconut.
5. These are fine stored in the fridge, but will last longer in the freezer (and are possibly even more delicious straight from the freezer).