Chocolate is one demanding diva of an ingredient- it dazzles, but you really, really don't want to cross it. This is why so many home made chocolate confections go wrong. You'd think using such a luscious thing would guarantee success- what isn't great with chocolate? True- it is lovely with lots. But so tempermental. Most home confections go wrong because one would think that melted chocolate will simply go back to the way it was originally when it cools back down. It doesn't- it needs to be finessed and cajoled by a not difficult but nonetheless very precise procedure- tempering (which David Lebovitz guides us so nicely through!).
These salted caramel truffles, adapted from a recipe in a dog-eared copy of Bon Appetit circa 2004- are coated by a brilliant method I have never otherwise seen. They appear to be self-tempering. We'll still need an instant read thermometer (the best I can describe chocolate melted to a temperature 46 C/114 F is "quite warm" when you touch it to your lower lip). But once you have an instant read thermometer you'll have it out all the time, jamming it into poultry thighs to see if they're safely done. But, we skip the tempering step, don't have the difficulty of keeping the tempered chocolate the right temperature and consistency, and, the very warm chocolate is thinner than tempered chocolate and easier to work with as a coating.
The reason this works is I suppose that we are dipping chilled centers. Is the result every bit as shiny as tempered coating on a room temperature center? Perhaps not as shiny, but we can add some shine of our own- the glitter of salt crystals, and a little brush of luster dust (not at all expensive at specialty baking shops, and a speck goes a long way).
Please note- these need an overnight chill in the refrigerator- so start the day before you want them.
We'll need:
100 g/ 1/2 C sugar
50 ml/ 3 T water
200 ml/ scant 1 C heavy cream
200 g/ 7 oz. milk chocolate, chopped
200 g/ 7 oz. dark chocolate, chopped
a nice pinch of sea salt
300 g/ 11 oz dark chocolate, chopped
more sea salt for the finished truffles
First the caramel milk chocolate ganache- boil together into a syrup and let it turn a deep honey color. Remove from the heat, and add the heavy cream. Stir and let the cream dissolve the caramel. Now stir in the milk chocolate. Whisk very gently until completely smooth and blended, and chill.
When quite cold, roll them into balls of any size you like- mine here are about 2.5 cm/ 1 inch across- I like a a satisfying two to five bite size. Put them into a dish that can be covered with plastic wrap, and chill them thoroughly- overnight if you can. We want them cold- cold and firm.
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| Take the centers out of the refrigerator at the very last minute, so they stay nice and cold for dipping. |
When you're ready to coat them, get out a piece of non-stick parchment and put it on a cutting board that can fit in the refrigerator. We'll also need a dipping fork, or a regular fork- but a dipping fork leaves lots of room for the excess chocolate to drip back into the bowl, and the truffles will not have little flat pools of chocolate around the bottom. We'll also need some coarse sea salt flakes to scatter over the top.
Put the chopped dark chocolate in a metal bowl that fits nicely over a small pot of water. Let the water come to a simmer, but not a boil, and stir the chocolate until melted. Make sure that no water gets into the chocolate- it will "seize"- turn into a lumpy and unusable mass. It's small amounts of liquid that do this- not large ones like we used above in the ganache center. Melt until quite warm- 46 C/115 F on the instant read thermometer. This is a lot warmer than the melting point, and in fact is the temperature that you start the tempering process with, before bringing it down to around 31 C/ 90 F.
Now simply dip the cold centers one at a time into the warm chocolate bath, roll them around a moment so they are thoroughly coated, lift gently up, letting the excess chocolate drain back into the bowl, and give the fork a nice tap on the rim of the bowl before transferring the coated truffle to the parchment. after you have done five or six, sprinkle their tops with a few flakes of sea salt. don't wait until you are finished dipping all of them, or some of them may have set and they won't keep hold of the salt.
And that's about it, unless you'd like a little extra sparkle. If you would, wait until they are well set (you could put them in the refrigerator towards the end of the one hour they usually need) and the chocolate is definitely dry to the touch. Then, just dip a small paint brush into the dry luster dust- I used "cranberry"- and touch it lightly here and there to the tops.
These are surprisingly simple to make for such a glamorous, delicious result.
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