It's All About the Chocolate!

A couple of weeks ago, I finally got around to doing some recipe testing from the chocolate class I took with my friend Natalie in Portland back in April. These were some chocolate caramel truffles I made. I had never heard of incorporating caramel into the truffle filling, so this was something new for me. I made the first batch according to their recipe which uses A'peels instead of actual chocolate. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked them - for not being real chocolate, that is. The texture was great, and it was one of the easiest truffle fillings I've ever worked with. The nice thing is that this gave me a chance to try out my chocolate transfer sheets.

Since then I've made several batches using Ghirardelli milk chocolate, and the flavor is amazing. I find that the Ghirardelli milk has caramel overtones anyhow - though not as much as Lindt - so it worked nicely. The first time, I used blocks of chocolate that I purchased at Trader Joe's. After that I tried a batch with chocolate chips which are cheaper and more convenient. The chocolate chips actually made the filling easier to work with than the chocolate blocks - because the texture is closer to the A'peels in the original recipe. Unfortunately, because of the lower melting point in the cocoa butter, the truffles made with real chocolate don't stand up to the cutting and dipping required to use the transfer sheets effectively so I went back to rolling them. Honestly, the people I've share them with haven't minded at all! Someday, when I grow up to be a real chocolatier, I'll have a guitar and it'll be worth more recipe testing to get consistencies better.

Mmmm, mmmmm good!