Chocolate truffles - the first batch

The title may be slightly misleading, as I have made white chocolate truffles before. However, I haven't made these dark chocolate truffles before, and they are a trial run as I plan to make some for Christmas pressies.

So, onwards to a world of chocolateyness. I used a truffle recipe from the BBC Good Food site, just a plain recipe which can be jazzed up a bit.

Basically you bash up a few bars of dark chocolate:

 I did see a recipe which recommends whizzing the chocolate chunks into finer pieces in a food processor, but I didn't fancy having to clean that as well. Moving on...

Heat double cream and a bit of unsalted butter over a low heat in a saucepan:

When the mixture is almost simmering, take it off the heat and pour it over the chocolate bits. Mix in until you have a smooth chocolatey gloop (technical term ;-) ). 

At this point, if your mixture looks like mine, you might like to swear under your breath and reconsider carrying on with the recipe. Like me, you may decide to carry on anyway, and beat the chocolate mixture a little more, just out of spite. The next step is very important - choose your flavouring:

I am definitely going to try more exotic flavours at Christmas (the chilli and ginger truffles sound delicious, as do the balsamic ones), but I went with the 'traditional' flavouring: booze. 

I split the chocolate mixture into two bowls, and added the alcohol a teaspoonful at a time. I still wasn't convinced that the mixture was right, so I wasn't going to go mad adding loads of alcohol to something which might end up in the bin. After adding the alcohol and stirring well to mix it in, the chocolate mixture needs to chill for a few hours. I know how it feels. I sent the bowls to sit in the conservatory, aka the ice box. 

A few hours later (or even better, overnight), when the mixture has chilled, use a teaspoon or melon-baller to scoop up small amounts of the mixture and shape into balls. Note: recipes I've seen talk of 'cherry-sized' amounts. My truffles vary in size between large cherry and apricot. They have booze in them - no-one will really care. ;-) 

Place the truffles onto a baking tray covered with greaseproof paper (which I couldn't find  - tin foil works as well). That is the messy part over with, the next step is quite therapeutic -  rolling the truffles in cocoa powder:

I could've done this for hours - it's quite relaxing. Once the truffles are coated with cocoa, they get another rest on the paper/foil-covered tray to chill again. Here they are before spending the night in the ice box:

The Husbinator has done a pre-chill quality control check, and he said they are very nice. The Jack Daniels one was quite boozy (oops!) and the Baileys one was much creamier, but not as  boozy. I was planning to try these out on my colleagues, so this could be interesting. It might perk up an otherwise dull Monday. :-)