Christmas Gifts No1: Chocolate Truffles

On the blogs right now, you’d have to have been severely absent not to notice the huge amount of Christmas Gift posts. There are cookies and candy-canes, jams and jellies. Anyone would be overjoyed to receive a scrumptious hamper of goodies, jars of chutney or box of chocolates as a gift from a foodie friend. I haven’t given away homemade Christmas presents before, but for Christmas this year on the blog I thought I’d show some gifts really worth making. I’ve got several goodies coming up but first – chocolate truffles. Chocolate & Cointreau Truffles, to be precise. You can surely tell they are going to taste good when you read the name! But also, these are so simple to make, so you can make lots quickly for every lucky recipient. I can never resist a truffle. For my tenth birthday I held a truffle-making and cookie decorating party – that is the strength of my affection for the truffle. For some reason I do always think of them as a Christmas thing – perhaps because they are so rich – and this is the first time I have made them in a very long time.
From my experiences, I learnt several things about making truffles:

• Heat the cream gently but don’t let it get too hot or your truffles will split.They take practice to get the perfect sphere, but even a misshapen pentagon truffle tastes delicious.
• Cut your chocolate very small (you could even grate it) before pouring the cream over it so that the chocolate melts faster.
• Do not make the truffles too big. Glorious as they are, a plate full of mini truffles looks far nicer than half a plate of huge ones. Plus, they are very rich.
• They only need a light roll in the cocoa-covering – mouthfuls of cocoa powder ruins the effect.
• After making your truffle balls, they need to firm up before you attempt to put them in pretty gold cases.

I made chocolate truffles with a splash of Cointreau and grated zest of an orange. I chose to roll in either cocoa powder or coconut but you could do chopped pistachios or almonds, icing sugar, crushed amaretti biscuits, hundreds and thousands, festive chopped candy-cane or edible glitter – whatever takes your fancy. You can also cover the truffles in melted chocolate (tempered if not coating, there’s not much need if you are) for more richness.
Chocolate Truffles
150ml double cream
150g chocolate
1. Heat the cream gently – either in the microwave for 1.5minutes or over a low heat.
2. Put the chopped chocolate in a bowl and pour over the hot cream. Stir slowly to form a ganache. Cover and chill for a few hours or overnight.
3. Take teaspoons of firm ganache and roll into balls. Set out plates of your chosen coatings, and roll the truffles. Leave for about 30minutes to firm. Place delicately in boxes, cases or on plates. Enjoy!