Tough Truff

I always wondered, why pay $2 for a miserable ball of chocolate truffles when you can get 150g of Cadbury Old Gold chocolate for $6++ sometimes cheaper (2 for $9.95). It's not until last Saturday when I really got down and dirty and made my very own chocolate truffles.  

Flavoured chocolate truffles

To make your very own truffles, it all begins with making the ganache. Ganache is a fat in water emulsion consisting of cocoa solids, sugar and sweetner. In order to make a good ganache, one should take not of the temperature and amount of fat and adjust accordingly. We began class by separating into 3 different groups: the Citrus dark truffle, Rosemary milk truffle and Mango ginger white truffle. 

Mango Ginger White Truffle,  Rosemary Milk Truffle  , Citrus Dark Truffle , Rosemary Milk Truffle

I was allocated to the Rosemary milk truffle group and can only speak for the RMT. First we heated the cream, glucose and rosemary to ensure the rosemary flavour is infused into the cream. I reckon the other groups did the same as Chef Ivan was reluctant to use artificial flavouring. The heated cream was then poured over chocolate, melting the chocolate into a thick luscious ganache. The tempering temperature of the dark chocolate should be 50 degrees C to ensure its shine and snap feel.

Work in Progress

When the ganache is ready, pour it onto a plastic wrap, cover and chill for around 1-2 hours. The ganache should be firm enough to remain in a ball shape and yet soft enough to be piped out. The truffles are then chilled and brought out when firmer, coat it with another layer of ganache and chilled once more. The chilling and layering process is repeated and the finally coated with toppings such as cocoa powder and nuts. Tedious right? no wonder $2.

Top left to right: Mango Ginger White Truffles, Rosemary Milk Truffles, Citrus  Dark Truffles

Chocolate Truffles

While we were waiting for the truffle to chill, we proceeded with making Roche. Roche is actually french for boulders or rocks but in a chocolate dictionary, it refers to chocolate with nuts. We were going to make some almond nibs chocolate and thus started our preparing the almonds. The almonds were cooked with malt powder and sugar and roasted till perfection. Next, the tempered chocolate is then mixed with the nuts and scooped out onto tiny silicon paper cups. Sounds easy? not exactly.. as the almonds needed constant scrutiny while baking and the chocolate ganache had to be tempered till the right temperature.

Roche- Almond Nib Chocolate

The last item for the day was the chocolate figurines. This was equally troublesome due to the need for tempering and constant reheating of the chocolate.

Chocolate Figurines

I chose Frosty the Snowman

I was so hard up on having dark chocolate that I ended up with an ah-neh snow man, so much for frosty the snowman.

 

The Indian Frosty tasted good though, really bitter and awesome!!! I totally got what Chef Ivan meant by snap feel: the chocolate was firm but not rock hard.

Headless, Indian Frosty

Malcolm donated his chocolate egg to me and I gave it to my bro (cos the pig wanted it all for himself).

Jo: "Eh jie, how you eat this arh?"

Me: "Err...Open your mouth and bite into it lor"

Jo: "HUH? how?"

Then he stared at it blankly for 2 seconds drew a punch at it

Jo: "See! this is how you do it! Noob."

Me: thought to myself, punch a chocolate?? Indeed Army Boy lol

Punched Chocolate Egg

It was barely a month ago when I vowed never to tough chocolate (check out: chocolate overdose) but here I am sinking my teeth into not 1, not 2 but 5 chocolate truffles. I guess old habits/ pleasures die hard :)