I made a batch of truffles using a simple ganache method, and they
turned out well. It was equal parts Dove chocolate and heavy whipping
cream and a couple of tablespoons unsalted butter. I heated the cream to
boling, added the chocolate, turned off the heat, allowed to sit then
stirred to combine. I left it out unrefrigerated overnight and in the
morning the ganache was thick, smooth, really delicious.

One small issue: the ganache was almost too thin to form into truffles.
I refrigerated it and it stiffened up nicely so I could make the
truffles and toss them into cocoa---but they get soft very easily and
must be refrigerated (even in the freezer) until use.

I wonder if I added more Dove chocolate at the beginning, if this would
help---maybe 25% more than the cream? Any ideas?

The truffles are really light and melty, superior to my old method, but
may be hard to send to family in the mail, for example.

Thanks for any comment---

phbp

Patrick,

That's the way they should be! :-)

Kron Chocolate Truffles, for example, are like that and must be kept
refridgerated. Try coating them with melted semi-sweet chocolate chip
chocolate before rolling them in cocoa. You'll have to freeze them
solid before the coating process and it will still make a mess, but the
finished product will be a little easier to handle. I don't know about
mailing, though. Maybe in the winter, overnight delivery in an
insulated box.

Oh, and yes, use more chocolate and less cream.

Rocky (who likes Ghirardelli Dark best :-)

===

In article , Patrick
Porter wrote:

I made a batch of truffles using a simple ganache method, and they
turned out well. It was equal parts Dove chocolate and heavy whipping
cream and a couple of tablespoons unsalted butter. I heated the cream to
boling, added the chocolate, turned off the heat, allowed to sit then
stirred to combine. I left it out unrefrigerated overnight and in the
morning the ganache was thick, smooth, really delicious.

One small issue: the ganache was almost too thin to form into truffles.
I refrigerated it and it stiffened up nicely so I could make the
truffles and toss them into cocoa---but they get soft very easily and
must be refrigerated (even in the freezer) until use.

I wonder if I added more Dove chocolate at the beginning, if this would
help---maybe 25% more than the cream? Any ideas?

The truffles are really light and melty, superior to my old method, but
may be hard to send to family in the mail, for example.

Thanks for any comment---

phbp

Thanks Rocky---

I think I tried Ghirardelli last year and the truffles never came
together at all---don't know why. Same method, etc. But Dove Promises
worked fine (although I had to unwrap all those little pieces, but I
didn't mind).

I left a bunch of these truffles buried in cocoa powder overnight at
room temperatu apparently the cocoa solids and the butters in the
chocolate unite with the dry cocoa to make a thin envelope, just strong
enough to hold the chocolate together; they can't be jostled too much,
but they they hold their shape---and still melty soft, very smooth.

I don't know about mailing it: maybe these are meant to be experienced
live. I think I will try to add maybe 25% more chocolate to the next
group as an experiment.

Thanks!

phbp

more chocolate/less cream. I use 300g chocolate, 125g cream, 50g butter.

at Sun, 28 Dec 2003 05:46:28 GMT in 15606-3FEE6E34-111@storefull-
3173.bay.webtv.net, (Patrick Porter) wrote :

I made a batch of truffles using a simple ganache method, and they
turned out well. It was equal parts Dove chocolate and heavy whipping
cream and a couple of tablespoons unsalted butter. I heated the cream to
boling, added the chocolate, turned off the heat, allowed to sit then
stirred to combine. I left it out unrefrigerated overnight and in the
morning the ganache was thick, smooth, really delicious.

One small issue: the ganache was almost too thin to form into truffles.
I refrigerated it and it stiffened up nicely so I could make the
truffles and toss them into cocoa---but they get soft very easily and
must be refrigerated (even in the freezer) until use.

Really, your ganache is indeed too thin for classic truffles: your ratio
(1:1) is a frosting/filling ganache, useful for cakes and pies. Truffle
ganache is, classically, 2 parts chocolate to 1 part cream. This sets up
firmly even at room temperature, and the truffles hold their shape. Do
yourself a favour and use a better chocolate, though : try Guittard or
Callebaut or Valrhona or Michel Cluizel. A bittersweet chocolate at 70%
cocoa solids is also more intense than a sweet dark chocolate like Dove.

The truffles are really light and melty, superior to my old method, but
may be hard to send to family in the mail, for example.

What was your old method, for reference? To make truffle ganache, I grate
my chocolate so that it incorporates smoothly. Broken or chopped chocolate
rarely goes as well because the bigger chunks have more difficulty melting,
especially when the proportion of cream is small.

Which Ghirardelli chocolate did you try? If it was chocolate chips, it's
hardly surprising they came out poorly, because chocolate chips have a low
cocoa butter content - too low for good chocolate. The "bittersweet
chocolate for baking and eating" from Ghirardelli, OTOH, works well.

--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)

Yes I think this new ratio will work well---my old method involved
dissolving sugar and butter, from an old yellowed family cookbook, I
have now thrown out.

The reason I used the Dove was because the other chocolates are not
available to me in my remote rural area: Dove was a better compomise and
worked well, and it was available at a Safeway in the next town. If I'm
down in the City sometime I'll look for some Caillebaut etc.

Thanks for everyone's help---

phbp

at Tue, 30 Dec 2003 21:23:53 GMT in
,
(La Vida Xena) wrote :

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 20:38:38 -0800 (PST), (Patrick
Porter) wrote:

Yes I think this new ratio will work well---my old method involved
dissolving sugar and butter, from an old yellowed family cookbook, I
have now thrown out.

The reason I used the Dove was because the other chocolates are not
available to me in my remote rural area: Dove was a better compomise
and worked well, and it was available at a Safeway in the next town.
If I'm down in the City sometime I'll look for some Caillebaut etc.

Thanks for everyone's help---

phbp

I know what you mean. I am in a rural area, too. With a 2-3 hour round
trip I could find almost everything, but sometimes you just want to shop
close to home.

If you're in the USA and have access to a big grocery store like
Albertson's Thriftway, or Safeway, look for Ghirardelli double chocolate
chocolate chips.

As I posted earlier, do *NOT* use chocolate chips for truffles or ganache.
Chocolate chips are deliberately made with a low cocoa butter content, so
as not to melt so readily in the oven. But meanwhile, ganache is designed
for a chocolate with high cocoa butter content (couverture), therefore
chocolate chips don't work well for ganache. The result tends to be grainy
and separated. Ghirardelli's double chocolate chips are certainly an
excellent product - as chocolate chips and used as such. In fact, as
chocolate chips, they're the best there are. But for ganache, they're
useless. Instead, use Ghirardelli's "Bittersweet Chocolate for Baking and
Eating", generally available everywhere the chips are, wrapped in 4 oz bars
with brown sides on the wrapper and a gold band down the middle. This
chocolate is excellent for truffles and has a considerably higher cocoa
butter content. Ghirardelli is pretty widespread, so even in a rural
community, it should be possible to track some down. In fact, this is
probably the best chocolate you can find in rural U.S. communities.

--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)