Description
These realistic Brussels Sprout chocolate truffles house a rich chocolate, cognac and sea salt ganache inside a crisp white chocolate shell.
Ingredients
- 150g (5 fl oz) Double Cream (Heavy Cream)
- Small Knob Unsalted Butter
- 150g (5 oz) Plain Chocolate (I use Cadbury Bournville), finely chopped
- Large Pinch Sea Salt
- 1/2 tbsp Cognac or Brandy
- 200g (7 oz) White Chocolate, finely chopped
- Green Blossom Tint (you can get the same shade and brand I used on Amazon)
Instructions
- Gently warm the double cream and the butter over a medium heat until it is just starting to boil, then remove from the heat straight away. Stir in the plain chocolate until it has all melted into a smooth ganache, then stir in a good pinch of sea salt and the Cognac or brandy. Set in the fridge overnight.
- Line a baking sheet that will fit in your freezer with baking parchment or a silicone mat.
- Remove the pan of ganache from the fridge and shape the truffles. There are three schools of thought with this: dip a melon baller in boiling water and scoop balls of ganache onto the prepared sheet, dipping the melon baller back into the water between each truffle. This method suits me best as I have hands too warm to handle cold ganache (and pastry, incidentally) but my mother just uses two spoons to scoop up the ganache then rolls them by hand, washing her hands every 3-4 truffles when they get too sticky. Some people like to use a piping bag to get even balls before rolling them.
- Stash the ganache truffles in the freezer for about 15 minutes while you’re preparing the white and green chocolate.
- Place the white chocolate in a large heat proof glass bowl and place it over a saucepan of boiling water set over a low heat. If you make sure the glass is not touching the water, the chocolate should safely melt.
- Once the chocolate is melted, spoon about 1/3 of the mixture into another bowl. Very gently, tap a little green blossom tint into the smaller bowl of chocolate and stir well to create the colour of sprouts. Be careful adding the pigment; like food colouring you can always add more, but you can’t take it away.
- To decorate your truffles you’ll need two teaspoons, some wooden cocktail sticks and a large potato. Skewer each truffle on a stick so you don’t have to touch it as you decorate, and stick the stick into the potato (slice a bit off the bottom so it stands flat) while the truffle sets. Sadly, you’ll have to keep going back to the freezer for each truffle as you have to keep them as cold as possible as you work!
- First, spoon white chocolate onto the truffle, pressing the chocolate with the curve of the spoon onto the frozen ganache. The chocolate will harden on contact with the frozen ganache, and the curve of the spoon will help create layered leaves. Cover the truffle all over.
- With the green chocolate do the same, just creating a few chocolate layers towards the top of the truffle, leaving a bit of white at the bottom, and visible through the ‘leaves’ – this is how you create a realistic sprout effect.
- Once you’ve decorated all the truffles and skewered them into the potato (you may have a little leftover white chocolate if you made big truffles – don’t worry – or a few leftover truffles if you made them small – again, don’t worry, they’re delicious rolled in cocoa powder) the first ones you did should be set enough to gently pull off the cocktail sticks.
- Store in the fridge and eat within three days.
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