Two Hundred Truffles

[NeroW]

My Chef asked me to make 200 truffles for Christmas Eve. He wants 4 different kinds.

I have made truffles before in small batches but never mass-produced. So I have a few questions

I have 2 recipes I want to use:

1. Basic Dark Chocolate (yield about 50): 7 oz. heavy cream, vanilla extract, 1 lb. dark chocolate, chopped, 2 oz. butter, cocoa powder to coat. Heat cream and vanilla to a simmer. Pour over the chocolate and stir to make the ganache, let it cool until it is only slightly warm. Add the butter and stir to melt in. Let stand until it firms up a little, then either pipe or roll into balls onto parchment. Chill to firm and coat with cocoa powder.

2. White Chocolate Orange-Cardamom (yield about 50): 4 oz. heavy cream, a few strips of orange zest, 1 oz. pulp-free orange juice, 3 oz. Grand Marnier, 2 oz. butter, 1 egg yolk, 2 oz. sugar, 7 oz. white couverture, chopped. Bring cream, juice, booze, and butter to simmer. Whip egg yolks with sugar until light. Temper hot liquid into egg mixture. Add a bit of cardamom. Strain over chopped white couverture to make the "ganache." Let it start to thicken, but not too thick, and then form truffles. I will coat these with more white chocolate and sprinkle with candied orange zest.

Questions:

What are some other ideas? These are the only kinds of truffles I have ever made. For Christmas Eve in years past, they've done simple chocolate ones rolled in Oreo Cookies or Butterfinger but I want to do something different (I have kind of a reputation).

Also, is there anything I need to beware of when making a large-ish amount of truffles? Do these formulas look OK?

Any tips or suggestions or pointers are much appreciated.

Thank you and I hope all holiday preparations are going well . . . it's almost over!

[zilla369]

Quick! Buy (or order immediately) a size #100 "disher" (basically a tiny ice cream scoop) from your local restaurant supply. I use these to make large batches of truffles, because i have warm hands. Saves all that rolling, and you can then drop them in your coating and they come out very uniform in size.

Your basic recipe looks fine to me. I like to add different liqueurs like Chambord and Gran Marnier and Frangelico.

[chromedome]

I made 20 dozen truffles last year for everybody for Christmas. Holy crap, it takes a long time! 'Course as usual I jumped in feet-first and dipped them all, and did not know then that a) Callebaut couverture is not the friendliest for dipping (kinda thick); and b) that a bit of vegetable oil added to the dipping chocolate makes life a lot simpler.

I'll second Chambord as a truffle flavouring. It's very, very nice indeed. I also used Irish Cream, Grand Marnier, Remy Martin, and two or three others which elude my recollection at the moment.

God, I was sick of the smell of chocolate for a while there. And then, after Christmas, I went straight into patisserie lab at school. Oy.

[RETREVR]

200 shouldn't take very long.

I don't have a disher...I will have to order one.

Your first recipe is similar to what I started with.

You can add any flavoring you want. Orange zest rocks.

Make a few batches or separate large batches into a few different pans. You can rotate them in and out of the freezer to keep a workable consistency.

I scoop with a mellon baller. I then round it off while it is in the baller. I then stick the baller over a sterno for a second and release the ball. Pretty quick when you get it down.

I haven't had time to perfect a coating. I generaly use powder...they are called "truffles", and I don't mind them looking that way.

I have a few hundred to make this week also.

[chocophile]

There are some great flavor ideas here.

200 is not a lot, you should be able to bang them out at well under an hour per flavor once you get the rhythm down and assuming that the texture of the ganaches is right.

:Clay

[jgarner53]

We just did tea-infused truffles: jasmine, green, earl grey, oolong, lapsang soochow. Bring the cream to a boil and add the leaves. Cover and let steep 15 minutes. Bring the cream back to a boil and strain as you pour it over the chocolate.

[Wendy DeBord]

When you strain, do not press down on the tea or herbs.

[jgarner53]

When you strain, do not press down on the tea or herbs.

Yes. I forgot to mention that. Pressing down on the tea or herbs will let out some nasty, bitter flavors.

What about cinnamon, or something with heat, like cayenne? I tasted some truffles last night that were really different: flavored with Red Stripe beer, balsamic vinegar, wasabi (not all in the same truffle!). Personally, I don't care for fruit with chocolate much, and I think it's been done to death.

[ComeUndone]

I'm also in the process of churning out truffles from my little kitchen. Each batch yields about 50. This is what I have so far....

-lemon lavender in dark chocolate (infuse warm cream with lemon zest and dried lavender, garnish with a single lavender bud)

-chestnut in dark chocolate (cook cream with creme de marron, garnish with a tiny piece of marron glace)

-coconut in dark chocolate (add powder coconut cream to warm cream, fold in toasted coconut, spike with Malibu)

-rose pistachio in milk chocolate (add pistachio paste to warm cream, flavour with a little rosewater)

I also have a bunch of coffee dark chocolate and triple sec what chocolate truffles from class.

The whole place smells like chocolate.....

[NeroW]

Thanks everyone for the great replies.

Zilla, we have those scoopers at work. The servers use them to make butter plates. I will take your advice and use one when I form the truffles.

Chromedome, my third truffle is going to be "PB & J": chocolate-Chambord, rolled in crushed peanuts.

jgarner, my 4th truffle is going to be chocolate-Earl Grey.

Sinclair, thanks for the tip on not pressing down on the tea leaves. Working mostly on the hot side, I am used to straining sauces and pressing down on the ingredients (shallots, herbs, etc.) to force out their flavors. I am sure I would have done that with the truffles, too. Thanks.

I am planning to make the 4 ganaches today and form the truffles either tomorrow or the next day. Then I will freeze them and finish them (coatings) just before Christmas Eve. Will that work? Or should I coat them prior to freezing? Will it be OK to make my ganaches a few days in advance? I know they need to set a little bit.

Also, the only experience I have with dipping is using that pate glace (??) stuff that comes in a bucket. My Chef laughed at me when I asked him to order that so I have to do without.

I am planning on dipping in straight melted Callebaut. I don't know how to temper chocolate. Will this be OK? Should I try to temper it to get a nice shine or will that just be a travesty? I know the truffles won't be shiny and won't look as nice as they would if I had good dipping chocolate.

A little off-topic:

Lately at work I have been responsible for desserts. We get most of our a la carte and party desserts from off-site, but there is always a need for candies, custards, cookies, brownies, muffins, plating, and dessert sauces. Basic things like that, nothing fancy. I am my Chef's "go to" gal for these things.

I enjoy the work but it is a little annoying trying to do even "lite" pastry work in a "hot" kitchen! For instance: the bent sheet pans (a major headache when making hundreds of creme brulee), the constant changing of the oven temps, and the impatience of my sous Chefs when they don't understand why I will spend hours tweaking with cookie decoration or custard flavorings. It is not "important" to them and they think I could spend my time doing something better . . . something savory! When they see my results they always compliment me, but they never understand why I put forth the effort.

It is also annoying when something like yesterday happens. My Exec sous Chef told me at the last minute that we needed 8 special desserts for a VIP party that evening. That would not be a big deal in a dedicated pastry kitchen (we don't even have a pastry Chef) where you have doughs and sauces and things like that pre-made, to some extent. We have nothing like that, not even frozen puff paste! So I made dark chocolate pots de creme with a caramelized banana half and bananas foster ice cream. I wanted to do individual tarte tatins, but they bitched about me taking up the burner space, even for a few minutes!

I just realized that there was a thread like this not long ago.

[RETREVR]

In my limited experience with coating truffles....

You can't have them very cold

- This will cool down the coating and make it hard to work with

- This will make the coating crack when the truffles come back up to temperature(the ganach will expand)

I made about a hundred today. I think my coating was Callebaut (there was only a bit left in the block). I have not developed my dipping technique yet. I used a dipping fork and draped a spoonfull over each, tapped excess then placed on parchment. They looked OK. I garnished them with a single almond sliver (to take the eyes away from my not so perfect coating). One batch was cafe the other was cassis. Have fun

[Sthitch]

-rose pistachio in milk chocolate (add pistachio paste to warm cream, flavour with a little rosewater)

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This sounds great. How much pistachio paste do you add to the cream?

[NeroW]

So far so good on my batch of truffles.

I have been taking it slow and allowing myself plenty of time. The hardest part is hiding them from the dishwashers.

[ComeUndone]

-rose pistachio in milk chocolate (add pistachio paste to warm cream, flavour with a little rosewater)

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This sounds great. How much pistachio paste do you add to the cream?

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I used 160g cream, 50g pistachio paste, 340g milk chocolate, plus 2tsp rosewater (could have used more).

[Sthitch]

Candy,

I decided to wing it yesterday, and threw together a cup of cream with a pound of white chocolate, 1 tbsp of rose water and 1 tbsp of grappa, and about a cup of pistachio paste. The ganache is soft, but has an amazing exotic flavor. I used it for both truffles, and to fill milk chocolate candies (I had some tempered milk chocolate left and needed something to do with it).