Chocolate Almond Truffles

For me, Christmastime has always been the season for candy making.  My mom, my sister, and I would get together every year and make a variety of treats.  Some of them would turn out beautifully, but I think we had at least one failure every year.  If we were attempting divinity, that was guaranteed to be it.  But no matter, because for us, with failure comes laughter.  Well, this year I don’t have my usual candy making companions, but I’ll be making a few things, nevertheless.  Failure on your own isn’t nearly as entertaining, so I decided to start with the always foolproof, ever versatile, and always amazingly delicious, truffle.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 2 cups chocolate
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon almond extract*
• And for rolling you’ll need cocoa, more chocolate, and nuts

I used a combination of milk and dark chocolate.  You can use whatever kind of chocolate you like, just get something good quality. 

Chop the chocolate into fairly small pieces. 

Put that into a bowl and set it aside.  Pour your cream into a pan over medium low heat and stir it until it just starts to simmer around the edges.

Remove it from the stove and immediately pour it over the chocolate. 

If you have little bits poking up, just push them down into the hot cream. 

Cover the bowl and just let it sit for 3 minutes. 

After 3 minutes, add a teaspoon each of vanilla and almond extract.  Now, the reason I put a * next to the almond extract is because you can really add any flavor you like.  If you have good booze on hand like Disaronno, Baileys, Cointreau, or Grand Marnier, any of them would be fabulous.  As would some good espresso.  You’ll want to use more than a teaspoon of any of those, though.  Maybe a Tablespoon or two?  

Whatever you decide, add it and carefully start whisking.  Slowly it will turn from this,

To this.  See how beautifully smooth and shiny it is?  Cover it and put it into the fridge for at least an hour.

While I was working on that, there was a group of men outside building us a fence!  Otto will be so happy, especially when the warm weather returns and he can spend all day out there in the sun without having to be attached to anything.  I’ll love it when he decides to stand out there sniffing randomly forever in 30 degree weather and I don’t have to be out there with him.   

When your truffle mixture is nice and stiff, go ahead and pull it out.  Now you have some decisions to make.   Traditionally, chocolate truffles are meant to resemble the truffles that come out of the ground. 

For that, they’re just rolled in cocoa powder.  Sift some into a bowl.  (you don’t want lumps stuck to you truffles)

Scoop out a small amount of the truffle mixture.  I used a teaspoon, which worked well. 

Roll it into a roundish shape and drop it into the cocoa. 

Roll it around until it is completely coated and then shake off the excess and move it to a parchment lined pan. 

If that’s how you want them, your work is done.  They will be fabulous, just like that.  I, however, decided to make a few different options.  For those, you’ll need some melted chocolate.  So, chop some more and set it aside. 

Before melting the chocolate, you’ll want to prepare your nuts. 

Chop them finely.  I did the first batch by hand, but the second one I threw into the blender on low speed.  I prefer the texture of the nuts I did by hand, but the blender method was much easier. 

Set those aside and back to the chocolate.  Into the microwave for 30 seconds at a time, stirring thoroughly after each session.  Eventually it should become melty, chocolaty goodness. 

Throw one of your balls into the chocolate. 

Using a fork, gently turn it until it’s completely coated. 

Allow the excess to run off then drop each of your chocolate coated balls into your nuts.  (I think I might be getting a little dirtay there.)

Roll the balls around until they’re coated in nuts and move them to a parchment lined sheet pan. 

Here you can see my assortment of truffles.  I have the ones rolled in cocoa, some that are dipped just in chocolate, and then some rolled in almonds and some 2 in pistachios. 

I guarantee these are better than the Lindor or Roche truffles you can buy in the store, and who wouldn’t be proud to put these out?

But when you take a bite, the salty crunch of the almonds followed by the creamy, rich center, you might not want to share. 

What’s your favorite flavor of truffle? 

I almost know what I'm doing

What goes with eggnog?

Mincemeat pies. Um, sorta mincemeat. And kinda not really a pie.

Proper 'mincemeat' really does have meat in it. In fact, the picadillo I stuffed into poblano peppers is more like traditional mincemeat than this filling is, but I've never been one for tradition. I am firmly of the opinion that "it's always been done this way" is the best reason to do it another way.

And so I stuffed biscuit dough with fruit.

(first eggnog, now mincemeat... almost seems like we're actually on top of a holiday for once)

Minced Fruit Pasties (or Turnovers, if you prefer)

What you need:

• 1 recipe's worth of biscuit dough or biscuit dough
• 2.5 small wrinkly apples, or about that much apple
• a few dried pears (or apricots, or some other fruit)
• 1/2 c dates
• zest from one orange
• 1/2 inch ginger
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp cinnamon sugar (or cinnamon and sugar to make that amount)
• 1 tsp vanilla (you can use some kind of booze here if you'd like)
• 1 egg

What you gotta do:

I had a few apples in the fruit basket that have been there for way too long. I once read "wisened" as a description for apples, and I think that's what these ones were. Fresh crisp ones would work fine too, but if you've got a couple old ones sitting around... (anyone seeing my inspiration for this recipe?)

Put your grater into a medium sized bowl, and start grating apples. Peel them? What? Why? I rarely see any reason to peel apples. The peel is completely edible, doesn't taste bad, and will add colour to things if it's red. Plus, that's extra work.

Zest the orange on a microplane grater, and then use it for the ginger. Microplanes are great for ginger.

Chop whatever dried fruit you're using into small chunks. If you've got some candied orange peel, that would work too.

My butter and cinnamon sugar are already combined, leftover from the cinnamon buns, but yours should go in now, separately if that's how they are.

Vanilla too. Or booze, your call.

Now, the dates. You can pre-chop these if you want, but dates are pretty easy to mash, so I just dumped mine in whole and went at them with a wooden spoon.

If you don't happen to have a batch of biscuit dough in the fridge because you made a double when you did yesterday's cinnamon biscuit buns for brunch, you'll have to make some.

If you do: handy! Roll it out into a rectangle.

I cut mine into 9 pieces; the pieces were the right size (about 5x5 inches), but this only makes filling for 6. I'm sure you can find something to stuff into those biscuits. A bit of sausage would be nice... Sausage biscuit rolls!

Drop a couple or three tablespoons of the filling mixture on one side of a biscuit square, and spread it out into a triangle-ish shape. No meat, but it kinda looks like there is...

Don't get too close to the edge. Fold the other half of the dough over the filling to make a triangle.

Starting at one of the corner points, lift the bottom dough and stretch-fold-roll it over the top dough. Biscuit dough is sticky enough that you shouldn't need any water or egg to make the edges stick, but if yours aren't sticking, water will help.

Stretch-fold-roll your way toward the point, then stretch-fold-roll along to the other corner.

Apparently I took no pictures of this process.

When you're done, they should look something like these:

Brush them with an egg with a tsp of water beaten into it.

Cut a slit or two in the top so steam can escape. If you to this, you are less likely to have filling explode out of the side. You can dust the tops with sugar too if you'd like.

Bake them at 400 for about 20 minutes.

I'm still working the kinks out of my new oven, but I'm pretty sure I was around 400, and mine only took 18 minutes.

They'll be lovely and shiney and golden when they're done.

And some of them will have strangely face-like features.

Tasty served with morning coffee, afternoon tea, or a glass of evening eggnog.

Stick around. We are actually going to pull off some holiday shit this year. Taneasha's thinking sweets, and I'll be making small things you can eat with one hand.

Maybe one day I'll get back to writing things you want to read with only one hand... ;)