Port & Pistachio Truffle

I have a few skills, one or two, the main one being that I can make truffles (and make hundreds of them each Christmas)

Now, if you have made truffles before you will know that this really isn’t an impressive skill, but as my husband says my truffles are truly the “best part of being married to me”

Yup, they are that good.

So, here is a quicky breakdown on how to impress your friends and family with homemade truffles.

Buy the good chocolate!

Step one: Buy good chocolate. Do not use chocolate chips, or those crappy chocolate wafers.  Buy the chocolate in the big ass chunks, so big you almost lose a finger chopping it up.

Take equal parts cream (like whipping cream, un-whipped) and chocolate – about 1c of cream to 10 ounces (weight!!!!, not liquid ounce) of chocolate.

White choc. & macadamia nuts – cooling

Scald the cream- put it in a pot and get it to where it is doing a hard simmer. Pour the hot cream over the chopped up chocolate. YUM!As it sits and melts, figure out what you are going to do to make it awesome!

Here are a few of my varieties:

Dark chocolate & hazelnut – toast & grind the hazelnuts in the coffee grinder – about 3/4 of a cup ground up.
Milk chocolate, Port & pistachio – Add about 4 TBS of nice port and 1C of ground (see the coffee grinder again) pistachios   The salt in the pistachios makes for a fun flavor in the truffles, kinda like the salted caramels going around!
White choc. Almond (or macadamia) – see above as to deal with nuts. Grind the buggers and add em in!

For extra finesse with the hazelnuts and macadamias, I add a whole toasted nut to the center of the truffle – its awesome!

Parchment tube

Once your mixture is made, let it cool.  You can now choose to have fluffy truffles or dense truffles.  For dense, just pour the mix on a piece of parchment paper and roll it into a tube and let it cool. For fluffy, pop it in the mixture and beat it with a cream beater, on high, until it is fluffy!  Now- put it in parchment and make a snake shape and cool.

It should set in an hour or two. After this, wash hands and roll bits into little balls. It helps if you keep running your hands under icy water . . . stops the meltage!

Choc. Hazelnut Truffles, waiting to be devoured

I cool them again here and then dip them in melted chocolate and embellish.  Keep them cool and share with friends!

I also make flavored truffles (orange, raspberry, etc) but that is a whole other post for another day!