Earl Grey Chocolate Truffles

Photo: Georgette

Ingredients

90 pieces For approximately; but of course the final number will depends on how big or small you will make them)

6 Heavy cream

1/4 Earl Grey tea leaves

2 Light corn syrup

5 1/2 Dark chocolate, melted, tempered (90 F/32C)

8 Milk chocolate, melted, tempered (86 F/30C)

1 1/2 Butter (unsalted)

Preparation

Place the tea leaves into the heavy cream and bring to boil this mixture. Remove from heat, cover and let steep about 15 minutes. Note: You can use loose tea leaves, or tea bags; the result will be the same.

Strain the tea out of the cream into a clean bowl, wringing the tea bags to ensure maximum extraction. Pour the remaining cream into a measuring cup and fill it to the 6 ounce line with additional cream (this is for replacing the lost cream through the infusion process)

Add the light corn syrup to the flavored heavy cream and bring this mixture to boil.

Remove from heat and allow to cool to 105F/40C.

Combine the dark and milk chocolates with careful attention to lumps (we do not need those)

Blend the softened butter into the chocolate mixture, while once again making sure that there are no lumps stay in the mixture.

Pour the cream mixture over the chocolate mixture and let it stand for 2-3 minutes.

Using a silicon or plastic spoon, (not wood) stir the mixture in small outward circles, starting from the enter of the bowl and moving to the extremities, to emulsify the mixture. Note: emulsify as per the dictionary is: “to make into or form an emulsion.” Emulsion, as per Wikipedia is: “a mixture of two or more immiscible liquids.” In this case the heavy cream and the chocolate.

Let the mixture ( or by now the ganache) relax for a few hours (you may need a minimum of 4-5 hours) or overnight until it dries and becomes manageable. Some people like to place the ganache in the refrigerator for faster completion of the product; I suggest you try to resist the urge. It creates more trouble, like condensation, discoloration, uneven texture and more, than it is worth the time saved.

Once the ganache is prepared it is ready to be used. You can place the ganache into a disposable pastry bag (this is one of the best inventions; no washing needed). You can buy these in any of the kitchen supply stores, like Williams-Sonoma,Sur la Table,Crate & Barrel, etc., and pipe small blobs of ganache onto a baking sheet prepared with parchment paper. You can create your own disposable pastry bag from using the larger size sandwich bags. Place the ganache into the sandwich bag and cut an opening of the desirable size out of the corner of the bag. Alternatively, you can use a melon ball, or the smallest size of an ice-cream scoop to create the blobs.

Once again let it rest for a few hours or overnight to allow it to dry and it will also help to shape them into a ball; in the interim prepare the tempered chocolate (use your preference; I used dark, 71%% chocolate). Being a person that cheers for innovations that make your work easier, I own a tempering machine that is controlled by a computer and all you need to do is push buttons to create a perfectly tempered chocolate. However, if you are not as lazy as I am, or just wish to learn the tempering process, it is quite acceptable to temper the chocolate manually; it is not too hard to do, but you may need to have some experience in determining whether the chocolate is in temper or not. Chocolate, that is “out-of-temper”, loses its shine, melts in your hand immediately after touching it, and m

In another bowl prepare the topping that you will use following dipping the ganache into the tempered chocolate. I selected powdered sugar for the tea truffles, roasted finely chopped nuts for the ginger root truffles and sifted cocoa powder for the sour cherry truffles. As a general rule, however, you can use almost anything as a topping; in addition, to the ones I already mentioned, you can use cinnamon sugar, chocolate curls, gold dust and so on…

Take the piped or scooped ganache between your palms and roll it into a smooth ball; then take a bit of the tempered chocolate into your palm and roll the ball around in your palm to cover the entire ball, then immediately drop the balls into the bowl with the prepared topping (in this case into powdered sugar). Note: you can use powder-free vinyl or latex gloves, if desired, during this process.

You can prepare a few truffle balls; then shake the bowl to assure that all the truffles are covered and place them into a nice decorative bowl or plate for serving.

Comments

Permalink Janet Bieler
June 19, 2013

These look & sound AMAZING! However, on my computer I can not find what the amounts are supposed to be. For instance, it just says 1/4 Earl Grey tea. I have numbers, but not teaspoons, cups, milliliters. :( Help, please!